On March 12th, a new era in travel management begins in Paducah, Ky., as Paducah Area Transit System (PATS), along with three other travel providers, opens the doors on the Purchase Area Travel Management Coordination Center for all of far Western Kentucky.

The center uses the latest in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to manage and coordinate the services of Paducah Area Transit System, Easter Seals West Kentucky, Fulton County Transit and Murray Calloway County Transit. All vehicles from the four providers are tied together with mobile data terminals (MDT) and automatic vehicle location (AVL) and centralized computer-assisted dispatching (CAD) to coordinate the efforts of the three separate transit authorities, plus an additional provider. Passengers will have one single center to contact for their transportation needs, no matter where they are in Western Kentucky. They’ll be able to reserve and manage their transportation either over the Internet, or by calling one telephone number, through which they can speak with a live customer service representative, or make their arrangements through an interactive voice response (IVR) System. While much of this technology is not new, it represents a cutting edge to tie it all together for multiple rural transportation systems.

The Purchase Area Regional Transit (PART) Travel Management Coordination Center was born from a grant from the US DOT’s Mobility Services for All Americans Initiative. Paducah Area Transit System was one of eight sites chosen for Phase 1 of the project, to design such a travel management center, and one of only three sites chosen to make their designs a reality in Phase 2 of the Initiative. (Aiken, S.C., and Camden, N.J., were also chosen) Paducah Area Transit, Fulton County Transit, Murray Calloway County Transit and Easter Seals West Kentucky joined together as Purchase Area Regional Transit to form the umbrella under which the Center operates. The goal of the initiative is to improve performance and cost efficiency for the transportation providers, while making transportation management easier for passengers, through intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The Travel Management Coordination Center is meant to be a replicable model for rural transportation systems.

This kind of center will be especially important in the Purchase Area of Western Kentucky: eight rural counties on the far end of the state, bordered by the Ohio River, the Mississippi River and to the south, by Tennessee.

Combined, the center will manage public transportation for the region’s 2,500 square miles and near 200,000 population. By phone or Internet, people will be able to reserve their rides, edit their reservations and even find where their vehicle is located and if it’s on time.

In addition to the transportation management, callers or those visiting the center’s Web site will also be able to access a searchable database of human service resources, government and educational institutional information. The database will include valuable information such as where to go for utility bill assistance, where to find local food pantries, where to find support groups for health issues, how to contact officials concerning local governmental questions and so much more.