Reinterpreting community transport in the UK

The transport disadvantaged — community transport or mainstream?

“…On the other hand the community transport services are allocated on the basis of perceived need without necessarily taking into account the client's ability or inability to pay. It was observed in the course of this study, and this finding is consistent with similar research into community transport service provision in the U.K. (Cassidy & McGuinness 1993) that although there are broad guidelines for eligibility of community transport clients set by the funding authorities, the eligibility of clients and the allocation of services is determined by the project co-ordinator. It was reported by Cassidy and McGuinness, and was also apparent from our work, that "central to the development of individual CTs has been the role of the founder and/or co-ordinator of those organisations.…”

Digital possibilities and social mission in the voluntary sector: the case of a community transport organisation in the UK

“…Early work focused on the internal factors of how service provision decisions were made argued that the adoption of new practices in CTOs was dependent on a combination of leadership, staff culture, and available resources (Bryman et al 1992). Some CTOs began moving their paper records to computer-based client databases and driver scheduling systems stored on local drives in the 1990s (Cassidy and McGuinness 1993) while others explored the potential of computerisation to improve operational efficiency. Bennet (1994) found that visualised diaries were found to assist decision-making in trip allocation.…”

“…Case studies are a valuable research tool for understanding complex contemporary social phenomena, in 'real life' contexts, over which the investigator has little or no control (Yin 2009). They are a frequently used methodology to study CTOs and digital innovation (Battellino 2009, Bryman et al 1992, Burt and Taylor 2003, Cassidy and McGuinness 1993, Mulley and Nelson 2012, Mulley et al 2018. Our case study is of a digital innovation project, TAP Mapping, undertaken with the local Age UK team Community Transport Department (Transport Access People -TAP).…”