Today (Thursday, January 26th), our CSL group met with Marty Frost from Better Environmentally Sound Transportation (BEST) to discuss our group’s role in the Seniors’ Transportation, Access and Resources (STAR) project. The meeting took place at BEST’s office on East Broadway and Main (see image below).
From this meeting, it is apparent that BEST has a clear vision already for STAR. STAR will be a service used to help interested parties obtain a van equipped to transport 4 to 6 seniors from location to location. Our role in the STAR project will be to provide BEST the information to assist these parties.
Marty Frost presented us with a drawing that is a basic design concept for the layout of the interior of the van. Below is a digitally recreated version of the hand drawn sketch. Note that the drawing is not to scale.
Some of the design features/requirements of the van are as follows. The passenger capacity of the van must be 4 to 6. The drawing above illustrates 6 chairs that would all be facing inward in a semi-circle. The passengers will access the van from the side door labeled on the bottom of the drawing. One or two steps may be necessary for the passengers to enter. Passengers must be able to comfortably stand upright when inside the van to get to their seats. There is no need for a mechanical lifting mechanism for wheelchairs. The storage area at the back of the van (lefthand side of the drawing) will be used to store walkers and wheelchairs for those with reduced mobility. It will be accessed through the rear doors of the van.
What’s Next?
Marty Frost will be providing us with a list of contacts that already have vans used to transport seniors in service that are eager to help our CSL team assist BEST with STAR. He will also be contacting a few himself and forwarding us the information he obtains. Once we have received the contact list, we will gather information about the acquisition cost of the vans they have in use, typical operating costs of a van, contact information to vendors and suppliers that they used to customize their vans, pros and cons of their current vans and hopefully setup meetings to view their vans. We will also be on the look out for other groups that have similar transportation services set up in our communities to acquire additional information for STAR. We should then be able to start creating a dimensioned drawing of the van’s interior design and provide a fairly accurate quote for the acquisition and operating cost of a customized van used to transport seniors.
