Transportation for People with Disabilities and Older Adults During COVID-19: Lessons for Emergency Response (2024)
Chapter: Chapter 4 - Roles and Responsibilities
CHAPTER 4
Roles and Responsibilities
In an emergency, transportation organizations need to protect employees and customers, ensure continuity of operations, realign service to meet changes in demand, secure additional funding and assets, enhance communications with all stakeholders, and train and educate employees on response duties. All of these responsibilities must be accomplished while ensuring the systemic and structural resilience of the transportation system.
Pandemics impact transportation employees in many ways. During COVID-19, people in almost every job category had their regular work routine severely disrupted, and some performed tasks that were quite different from those of their regular job (e.g., delivering groceries and supplies). In many agencies, drivers and other staff assisted with cleaning vehicles and facilities. Organization leadership and decision-makers had many policy concerns that needed an immediate response and often necessitated increased coordination with other agencies and organizations. Service planners focused less on operations and more on safety and had to quickly adapt to changes based on new or different information and government orders related to the pandemic. Multidepartmental groups, or multitasking individuals, had to address the procurement of PPE, cleaning and decontamination, service planning and operations, workforce and passenger policies, and internal and external communications. Transportation organizations had to work with other state and local agencies, along with employee unions (where applicable), to coordinate responses as policies and procedures were developed or modified.
Key Points on Service for People with Disabilities and Older Adults
Key players with coordination roles in providing service to people with disabilities are both within the transportation organization (e.g., accessibility coordinators, service planners, communications staff) and external to it (e.g., community organizations, local governments, state departments).
Essential Workers
In all emergencies, identifying essential functions is key to maintaining continuity of operations and effectively responding to an event. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that identifying essential workers was just as important. Essential workers perform functions that need to be performed despite restrictions put in place by governmental entities. Transportation organizations realized that they needed to identify essential staff, not only drivers for service delivery but also staff to perform operational and administrative functions. Larger transit agencies found that they needed to designate several levels of employees as essential.
The term “essential worker” is legally defined by the federal government, and some states add additional clarity to that definition with their own specifications. Transportation, as a sector, is considered an essential function during emergencies. In most states’ guidance on essential workers, “transportation and logistics” is part of the definition and includes airlines, railroads, taxis, private transportation providers, and public and private mail and shipping services. Some states, such as Washington, included transportation workers and employees supporting or enabling transportation functions in their definition of essential workers.
During some emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions are put in place that limit the ability of non-essential workers to go to work. After such restrictions were activated during COVID-19, some transportation organizations had to work with their state government and health agencies to ensure that transit drivers and others in high-customer-contact positions and critical staff were classified as essential workers or as something similar, such as “emergency service worker,” to continue to work. When the COVID-19 vaccine initially became available during the pandemic, the limited supply required a prioritized determination of who could receive it. Organizations again worked with their local and state health agencies to ensure that drivers and frontline workers could receive the vaccine as soon as possible (Mader, 2021).
Stakeholders
Coordination with other organizations and within the transportation organization is essential to developing a pandemic response or action plan, especially if there are limited resources or guidelines to utilize. Without appropriate coordination, early warnings may not be received, legal permissions and special temporary authorities may be delayed, and critical roadways and infrastructure may not be prioritized in the response. Poor coordination with other agencies can result in wasted resources, reduced efficiency, and duplication of effort or contradictory activities. Transit agencies found that communication and teamwork were critical to staff resilience and the maintenance of their services (Ashour et al., 2021).
Collaboration, coordination, and communication within a transit agency and with other involved local, tribal and territorial, state, regional, and federal agencies can be challenging. Emergency events require interactions with and knowledge of other agencies that previously may not have been necessary. Table 6 shows the key players and critical roles in providing transportation service for people with disabilities and older adults during emergency events by type of organization (transportation or other organization). Table 7 lists the other key players and their roles. In smaller organizations, one individual may take on multiple roles.
Table 6. Key players and critical roles in providing transportation service to people with disabilities and older adults during an emergency.
| Organization Type | Key Players | Critical Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Agency | Accessibility Coordinator | Response |
| Service Planning | Response and safety planning | |
| Communications/Public Affairs | Coordination of messaging and communications | |
| State/Local/Tribal | State/Local/Tribal Government Office of Access and Functional Needs | Coordination/collaboration and response support |
| Department of Transportation | Coordination/collaboration and response support | |
| Department of Health | Information and guidance on safety and protective measures Understand how hospitals or nursing homes are transporting pandemic patients, ICU patients, and others with existing conditions | |
| Department of Human Services | Coordinate on state shelter plans and desired transportation and/or communications support | |
| Regional/National | Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Accessibility | Guidance and recommendations/directives |
| Community Organizations | Accessibility and Disability Organizations | Information (e.g., where people with disabilities and older adults are located and what needs they may have) Impacts of policies and service changes Recommended approaches |
| Senior Centers | Information (e.g., where people with disabilities and older adults are located and what needs they may have) Impacts of policies and service changes | |
| Other Community Organizations | Impacts of policies and service changes Gap-filling and capacity-extension |
Table 7. Other key players and critical roles during emergencies.
| Organization Type | Key Players | Critical Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Agency | Leadership | Executive support and morale Policy making Decision-making |
| Emergency Management and Response | Roles, responsibilities, preparations, and coordination (pre, during, and after) of event | |
| Service Planning | Response and safety planning | |
| Maintenance | Staffing and resources | |
| Human Resources | Policies and clear expectations for worker safety and for a safe workplace | |
| Communications/Public Affairs | Coordination of messaging and communications | |
| Finance | Expense accounting (e.g., event codes), reimbursement compliance | |
| Purchasing/Logistics | Ordering/purchasing processes | |
| Union (applicable to transit) | Workforce Representatives | Review labor agreements, participation in planning and policy development, support employee buy-in/acceptance |
| State/Local/Tribal | State/Local/Tribal Government | Emergency declarations Policy maker |
| Department of Transportation | Emergency declarations Policy maker | |
| Department of Health | Information and guidance on safety and protective measures Understand how hospitals or nursing homes are transporting pandemic patients, ICU patients, and others with existing conditions | |
| Department of Human Services | Coordinate on state shelter plans and desired transportation and/or communications support | |
| Emergency Management/Emergency Office Command | Response support and coordination/collaboration | |
| Regional/National | FEMA | Guidance and recommendations/directives |
| Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services | Guidance and recommendations/directives | |
| FTA/U.S. Department of Transportation | Guidance and recommendations/directives |
| Organization Type | Key Players | Critical Roles |
|---|---|---|
| Regional/National Transportation Associations | Information sharing and roles | |
| APTA/Community Transportation Association of America Regional and National Committees and Working Groups | Information sharing Coordinating help from other agencies | |
| Community Organizations | Community Organizations | Impacts of policies and service changes Recommended approaches Support |
| Other | Energy and Telecommunications Companies Commerce/Supply Chain | Information sharing and potential support |
| Contractors | Impacts of response Information sharing and potential support | |
| Vendors | Impacts of response Information sharing and potential support | |
| Suppliers | Information sharing and support |
