NEMTAC National Rate & Cost Structure Survey Seeks Insights on NEMT Market Sustainability and Service Modes

From Left: Ira Goldstein, Executive Director of the Black Car Fund; Glenn Every, Director of the Bus Association of New York (BANY); Peter Hicks, Executive Director of the Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Accreditation Commission (NEMTAC); Dan Reid, President of The Transportation Alliance (TTA); Matt Daus; Dave Bird, President of the Airport Ground Transportation Association (AGTA); Ray Mundy, Senior Advisor at the AGTA; and Rick Versace, Board Member of the National Limousine Association (NLA)

NEMTAC is conducting a voluntary, anonymized survey to better understand how non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) services are structured and priced across the United States. This effort is not a rate-setting exercise, not an audit, and not advocacy. Responses will be aggregated and reported only at a summary level.

The survey focuses on:

• Market context and payer mix
• Service modes and rate ranges (no exact rates)
• Cost and sustainability signals
• Risks to access and reliability if conditions do not change

The survey takes approximately 5–7 minutes to complete. Please answer only the questions applicable to your role and experience.

Click Here To Take The Survey

Image: Fox 5 San Diego/KUSI

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) board passed a resolution this week to push back against self-driving vehicles in San Diego. The resolution, proposed by District 9 council member Sean Elo-Rivera, opposes the expansion of “driverless passenger vehicle services in San Diego without meaningful local oversight or regulation.”

Elo-Rivera acts as the chair of the Taxi Advisory Committee. Passed in a 12-1 vote, the resolution prioritizes San Diego drivers. A press release from Elo-Rivera’s office reads, in part, “These are hardworking people who rely on driving to pay rent, put food on the table, and care for their families. No corporation should be allowed to quietly replace people with machines just to boost profits.”

The decision comes in the wake of Waymo’s November announcement of plans to pilot a program in San Diego and launch autonomous vehicles soon. Restricting driverless vehicle use around the San Diego International Airport is also a key tenet of the resolution, because “drivers are already facing increasing competition and economic pressure,” as stated in Elo-Rivera’s press release.

Source: Fox 5 San Diego/KUSI

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Image: inDrive

Ride-hailing apps that allow riders and drivers to negotiate fares can lead to more trips completed, according to new research from Oxford Economics.

In partnership with inDrive, the world’s second most downloaded ride-hailing app known for its bidding-based pricing model, Oxford Economics analysed survey data from 5,000 drivers and 3,000 riders across seven emerging markets: Colombia, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan and Peru.

Presented at a launch event in London, the research found that enabling in-app fare negotiation between riders and drivers can increase trip completion rates, expand access to mobility and lead to fairer outcomes for riders and drivers.

InDrive offers recommended fares to riders and the option of negotiating with drivers. Across the surveyed countries, around 75% of inDrive trips involved negotiated fares, rising to 80% in parts of Latin America and the Middle East. This uptake translated into increased ride-hailing activity, with 64% of both riders and drivers in Latin America reporting that they completed more trips as a result of being able to negotiate fares.

Source: Zag Daily

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Hochul Might Be NYC Transit's Best Ally in a Century

Kathy Hochul’s tenure as governor has not always been smooth. Her approval ratings, at times, have been middling, and she barely survived a re-election challenge from a Trump Republican. Yet it’s becoming clear, more than four years after she took over from the governor, Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace, there is a significant legacy being built — and it has everything to do with mass transit in New York City. If Hochul’s vision is realized, New York will see its first major mass transit expansions in nearly a century. In her State of the State address, the Democratic governor declared she wants to not just extend the Second Avenue subway to East Harlem — work is already underway — but pull it three more stops, westward, across 125th Street in Harlem, linking up several major subway lines.

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E-Bike Boosters Ask: Is It All Downhill from Here? 

It’s been quite a comedown for one of the breakout consumer products of the pandemic: a time when e-bikes flew off retailers’ shelves and delighted riders who could effortlessly pedal through hills and humidity. The ascent of battery-powered two-wheelers stoked excitement among activists and policymakers hoping to reduce emissions, enhance public health and repurpose street space. But now some of those boosters might wonder if e-bikes, like e-scooters, car share and “Mobility-as-a-Service,” are yet another urban transportation innovation that fails to live up to its hype.

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Will Policy Rollbacks Make Cars Cheaper? U.S. Transportation Secretary Talks Car Prices at Detroit Auto Show

Members of the Trump administration visited the Motor City over the weekend, touting their push for lower car prices. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who stopped at the Detroit Auto Show, claimed that efforts by the administration to reverse the Biden-era electric vehicle policies will make cars more affordable again, including rolling back fuel efficiency standards. "What this team has done, at the president's direction, gives more tools to automakers to produce more lower-cost vehicles, by the way, with better technology," Duffy said.

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Ottawa, Provinces Ask Supreme Court to Uphold Law on Random Traffic Stops

Lawyers representing the attorneys general of Canada and several provinces asked the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday to uphold a Quebec law allowing police to make routine traffic stops without cause, while civil rights groups insist such stops lead to racial profiling. The country's top court spent a second morning hearing arguments about whether it's constitutional for police to make traffic stops without reasonable suspicion the driver has committed an offence.

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U.S. Says Canada Will Regret Decision to Allow Chinese EVs into Their Market

Officials of the administration of United States President Donald Trump have said that Canada will regret its decision to allow imports of up to 49,000 Chinese EVs, and that those cars would not be allowed to enter the U.S.

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Excuses for Ridership Decline Fail to Fool Transit Users

“Transit ridership is down across the nation, and so Winnipeg wouldn’t expect to be any different,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham. CBC did its best to help Gillingham sell that narrative by mentioning that “the Toronto Transit Commission reported providing 414 million rides in 2025, down from 421 million the year before.”

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New Coalition Urges Europe to Put Active Travel at the Heart of Tourism

A new industry coalition has launched urging policymakers to recognize ‘active tourism’ in Europe’s upcoming legislation. Active tourism involves physical activity when visiting new places. This can mean active travel as a mode of transport as well as recreational activities like hiking and cycling. It aims to enable visitors to experience destinations on a human scale while delivering low environmental impact.

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Construction Costs of Major EU Transport Infrastructures on the Rise

In the context of unforeseen crises, the construction of Europe’s flagship transport infrastructures has been affected by rising costs and further delays in implementation. This is the main conclusion of a new report by the European Court of Auditors (ECA), updating its observations and findings from a similar audit performed in 2020. As a result, the EU auditors have changed their assessment of the 2030 goal for the completion of the core Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) from “unlikely to be met” five years ago to a clear “will not be met” now.

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For This French City, Free Buses Changed Everything

The open-air central bus station in Dunkirk feels like a Formula 1 pit lane. In the space of a few minutes, a dozen pink, green and blue buses speed in and out, with passengers descending and mounting through all available doors. The arrivals board, displaying destinations such as Grande-Synthe, Cappelle-la-Grande and Malo-les-Bains, ticks over so quickly it’s as if drivers are vying for a podium spot. As the C4 bus pulls in, a teenage girl with chunky headphones and a mother with a baby in a stroller are among those to board. But there are no beeps registering cards, nor the clink of coins used to pay for tickets. Because in this northern French city, no passenger pays.

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Uber’s Quest to Crack Japan Leads through a Rural Hot-Springs Town

The ride-hailing giant’s chief executive has made a bet on how it can finally grab a bigger piece of one of the world’s largest taxi markets. On a visit to Japan, Uber’s chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, said the company was intent on “growing outside of the big cities” there. On a dreary morning in December, Uber’s boss, Dara Khosrowshahi, stood outside the faded concrete municipal offices of Kaga, a small hot-springs town in western Japan, and hailed a car. Since Uber entered Japan in 2014, the country, one of the world’s largest taxi markets, has remained a fortress. Japanese officials have fiercely guarded the taxi industry with regulations that restricted Uber’s app to hailing only licensed cabs. Recently, however, demographic pressures have begun to force the government to change.

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Pay More, Pollute Less: Air Quality Body Suggests Costlier Entry, Faster Exit for Polluting Vehicles

With vehicular emission emerging as a main source of pollution in Delhi and National Capital Region (NCR), the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has suggested a slew of measures to contain it, including a hike in the Environment Compensation Charges (ECC) imposed on commercial vehicles entering Delhi, increase of Environment Protection Charges (currently only 1% more) on diesel vehicles in the luxury segment and time-bound phasing out of polluting vehicles.

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Lower Prices, Solid Performance: Chinese EVs Find Foothold in Korea

For nearly two decades, Lee Gwang-jae has driven passengers across Seoul in taxis made by Korean automakers. Last August, he traded in his Hyundai EV6 — which he had driven after the Kia Niro EV — for the BYD Seal, a midsize electric sedan produced by China’s largest EV manufacturer. Lee said his decision rested on two considerations: performance and price. His choice highlights the growing appeal of lower-priced Chinese EVs among Korean consumers. 

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From Left: Amar Ali, Deputy Director, Systems Engineering, NYC DOT; Mark Seaman, Senior Economist, Policy, NYC DOT; Nolan Levenson, Director, Bus Priority, Transit, NYC DOT; Phillip Betheil, Deputy Director, Bus Priority, Transit Development, NYC DOT; Kshitij Bansal, Senior Economist, LTA; Nicholas Ong, Executive Transport Planner, LTA; Mike Flynn, Commissioner, NYC DOT; Matt Daus, President, IATR; Howard Pak, Transport Planner, LTA; Kim Ramkishun, Executive Director, IATR; Kelly McGuinness, Director, Sam Schwartz Transportation Research Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College

The International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR) was pleased to welcome a delegation of three senior representatives from the Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA) to New York City for a series of meetings focused on urban mobility, regulation, and governance.

During their visit, IATR helped organize and facilitate meetings with leadership and subject-matter experts from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT). These discussions provided an opportunity for regulator-to-regulator exchanges on transit operations, street management, safety, and emerging technologies.

IATR also introduced the Singapore LTA delegation to members of its global regulatory network during the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting, connecting them with regulators, researchers, and policymakers from around the world. The meetings underscored the value of international knowledge-sharing and peer engagement in addressing shared transportation challenges across cities and regions.

From Left: Lisa Daglian, Executive Director, Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC); Kshitij Bansal, Senior Economist, Singapore Land Transport Authority (LTA); Pat Russo, Treasurer, IATR; Janno Lieber, Chair & CEO, NYC MTA; Howard Pak, Transport Planner, LTA; Nicholas Ong, Executive Transport Planner, LTA; Ian Hartz, Deputy Director, Performance & Reporting, CBD Tolling Program, MTA Bridges and Tunnels; Kim Ramkishun, Executive Director, IATR; Kara Gurl, Planning and Advocacy Manager, PCAC

From Left: Grant Heather, Manager of Vehicles for Hire at the Winnipeg Parking Authority; Bharathi Kumaran, Deputy Director at the Singapore Land Transport Authority; Matt Daus, President, IATR

The visit built on the strong relationship between IATR and Singapore LTA, which was recognized in 2024 when Singapore LTA was honored as Regulator of the Year at the IATR Annual Conference. IATR remains committed to fostering these international exchanges and supporting collaboration among transportation regulators worldwide.

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