Handi-Van to debut 16 new vehicles

Oahu’s Handi-Van fleet will soon include smaller vehicles to pick up disabled customers in some of the island’s hardest-to-reach locations, local transit officials say.

The 16 Mobility Ventures-brand vehicles, or “MV-1s,” will replace older minivans, and they fit up to five passengers each, according to Charlotte Townsend, paratransit vice president of Oahu Transit Services. The company runs Handi-Van for the city.

Townsend and other transit officials hope the smaller vehicles will help the island’s paratransit service as it struggles to meet some of the highest demand per capita in the country with limited resources. The 180-van fleet helps handle some 3,600 daily paratransit trips on Oahu, officials say.

The MV-1s will provide door-to-door service in places the current vans can’t reach — the narrow, unpaved roads and homes tucked deep in Oahu’s valleys and other remote spots, she said. The island’s rugged topography often forces disabled passengers to meet Handi-Van drivers in a more accessible place for pickup, which can be a hardship, she said.

“Our vans are just too large. I’ve been looking for a diverse fleet for a long time,” Townsend said after addressing the local paratransit advocacy group Citizens for a Fair ADA Ride, or C-FADAR, at its quarterly meeting on Tuesday.

OTS also aims to keep some MV-1s on standby around the island to help reduce “back-tracking,” where Handi-Van drivers often have to turn around and pick up another passenger despite already having several on board.

A city audit in March found that Handi-Van in 2015 had more than 23,800 excessively long trips, when compared with comparable rides on TheBus. Townsend said the MV-1s could “fill in the pukas” and serve Handi-Van customers more efficiently.

C-FADAR President Donald Sakamoto said he believed the MV-1s, which are all expected to arrive by year’s end, will help improve service.

“A lot of the runs are onesie-twosies — why would you use a full-size van?” Sakamoto said Tuesday, referring to individual passenger pickups. “I think the MV-1s will help in the situation where people are stranded, and right away you can call (them).”

Handi-Van passengers vented to OTS and city officials that they’re still encountering long wait times on the phone to book rides, and enduring trips that last hours. Sakamoto said he’d like to see the city take more action based on its March audit, particularly to make the service more compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

The audit further found Hand-Van’s on-time arrivals had declined by 5 percent in three years, dropping to a rate of 81 percent in 2015 from 86.3 percent in 2013. The drivers can arrive as much as 30 minutes past their scheduled pickup time and still be considered on time, under city and federal rules.

Townsend said this performance has gradually improved in recent months. OTS reported a more than 86 percent on-time performance for September. Handi-Van’s goal is to reach at least 90 percent on-time performance, according to the audit.

“I don’t know how we’re doing it. It’s just day-by-day,” said Townsend, adding that ridership recently peaked at 4,200 one day in October. “There’s just this overwhelming commitment that no matter what we’re going to do it.”

“You hear all the complaints. … but they’re not going away,” she added. “We get more and more people going to eligibility to join the Handi-Van because there’s nothing else.”