Key Takeaway: The SFMTA's Mobility Management Center offers culturally appropriate travel training to help older adults and people with disabilities navigate Muni's fixed-route system. A diversity of travel training materials and resources that complement in-person training, such as videos, brochures and social media campaigns will help expand the effectiveness of travel training.
Requesting Travel Training
The Mobility Management Center can facilitate travel training at a group or individual level for people needing additional educational support and guidance in using the fixed-route system. Customers can request free travel training online or by contacting the Mobility Management Center.
In travel training, participants are taught and coached in using the fixed-route system with specific attention paid to Muni and public transit services within San Francisco. Travel training is a comprehensive overview of the need-to-know aspects of using the fixed-route system, ranging from trip planning, fare payments, interpreting system maps/routes, wayfinding, fixed-route accessibility features and more.
Travel Training Outreach
The Mobility Management Center conducts various types of mobility-oriented outreach to different organizations and groups around San Francisco to showcase and publicize transportation resources for older adults and people with disabilities.
The Mobility Management Center completed 33 outreach events in FY22/23 (approximately 2.5 outreach events a month). The Mobility Management Center’s goal is to organize a minimum of two outreach events per month but has the capacity to surpass this target by hosting up to four events. Outreach can range from tabling, workshops, presentations, and trainings with staff members of organizations that assist the community.
Outreach events have been conducted at or with senior centers, residences, community organizations, community festivals, food pantries and more. It is the goal of the Mobility Management Center to expand outreach to other organizations and events that touch all aspects of San Francisco’s communities, with a focus on Equity Priority Communities. Targeted organizations range from churches, academic institutions, medical facilities, nonprofit organizations, and cultural centers.
The Mobility Management Center seeks to diversify the groups targeted for outreach. However, due to the limited capacity and diverse responsibilities of partner organizations, there are sometimes challenges with scheduling outreach events at a mutually convenient time. One opportunity to improve the outreach process is to prioritize interacting directly with the community (e.g. conducting outreach at events geared towards specific segments of the population). Hiring additional Mobility Management Specialists would also potentially increase the number of events hosted, ensuring that our outreach efforts have a greater impact across the city.
Travel Training Objectives
The SFMTA’s goal for travel training material is to produce content and curriculums that are:
- Culturally appropriate.
- Easy to access.
- Address topics and questions most relevant to the intended audience.
To match the needs of our riders, the Mobility Management Center has been relaunching travel training with new sensitivities and understandings of current attitudes and perceptions in using the fixed-route system. This includes addressing personal safety and COVID-19 concerns.
The Mobility Management Center is compiling resources specifically related to these concerns and offering information and referrals as needed to better support riders to travel in San Francisco comfortably and confidently. On an ongoing basis, there is a need to evaluate the efficacy of our travel training materials, including whether the content is easy to understand, access, and appropriate to meet the needs of the diverse populations we serve.
Travel Training Videos
The SFMTA was recently awarded a grant from the Federal Transit Administration to develop travel training videos which riders can access online at their convenience. Among some of the topics that will be covered through these travel training videos include accessible elevator transfers from Muni Metro to BART stations, how to load value onto the Clipper Card, and using the accessible features of a Muni bus and Metro car. The intended outcome of this project is to increase the reach of our Mobility Management Center by diversifying the types of content that we make available.