§ 27:25-38 — Standards for corporation paratransit service.

4. The corporation shall ensure that all corporation paratransit service shall adhere to the following standards: a. All corporation paratransit service shall be required by the corporation to implement and utilize routing, scheduling, and dispatch software that can interact with comparable software used by most county transit agencies and other paratransit providers, allowing a trip requested by a customer via the Access Link Program's user interface to be fulfilled by any paratransit provider that chooses to utilize a compatible software package without any additional action on the part of the customer. Specifically, the software package implemented and utilized by corporation paratransit service pursuant to this section shall be interoperable with Access Link trip brokerage software developed pursuant to subsection b. of this section and software developed pursuant to paragraph (1) of subsection b. of section 5 of P.L.2020, c.114 (C.27:25-39). b. In structuring the Access Link program, the corporation shall: (1) actively develop a methodology whereby customer trips can be tracked, and identify any trips requested by customers that are regular and recurring in nature; (2) track and document these regular and recurring trips by pickup location, source of the request including by phone, website, or mobile application, and relevant regular or recurring characteristics, including, but not limited to, daily, weekly, monthly intervals, or several trips from a single source or to a single destination; (3) make information about these regular and recurring trips available to other paratransit providers in the State, including county transit agencies and community organizations that provide transportation service, either directly or through a third party, funded by the Department of Human Services or the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services within the Department of Labor and Workforce Development; (4) develop a system that allows county transit agencies and community organizations that provide paratransit service to voluntarily compete to conduct these regular and recurring trips, which would have otherwise been provided by contract providers under the Access Link program, by establishing a new Access Link program structure under a brokerage model, which may include but not be limited to the use of a trip scheduling software application, where the corporation is able to realize contract or operating cost savings when it shifts requested regular and routine trips from an Access Link contract provider to a paratransit provider that is able to provide these trips at a lower cost; (5) develop a system that provides a payment equal to a portion of the savings from the shifting of trips in paragraph (4) of this subsection to the paratransit provider that provides the trips in place of the Access link provider; and (6) shift trips out of the Access Link program, and to other State agencies or entities if it is found that a regular and recurring trip requested through the Access Link program is better provided under a different program through the Department of Human Services or the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, especially those trip requests that would not otherwise be eligible to be provided under the Access Link program. c. Following the effective date of P.L.2020, c.114 (C.27:25-35 et seq.), the corporation shall not enter into any contract, or exercise any option to extend an existing contract, concerning the provision of Access Link service unless the contract or option includes a provision that the fixed costs of the contract or option shall be proportionately reduced to reflect any reduction in the provision of regular and recurring trips provided by the contractor that are subsequently fulfilled by another paratransit provider. The corporation shall establish minimum operating standards for any paratransit provider that may wish to participate in this program to ensure that all applicable federal standards are met by the paratransit provider and that adequate safeguards are provided to customers. d. The corporation shall utilize the paratransit best practices training module developed pursuant to subsection b. of section 5 of P.L.2020, c.114 (C.27:25-39) and the best practices training package developed pursuant to subsection d. of section 5 of P.L.2020, c.114 (C.27:25-39) in meeting the requirements of this section. The corporation, when establishing the corporation paratransit service software specifications required pursuant to subsection a. of this section, shall ensure that the software package is affordable for the corporation to adopt and easy to interface with the existing software used by various paratransit providers that seek to compete for Access Link trips. L.2020, c.114, s.4.