Most think of transit as a bus or train running on a fixed route on a fixed schedule. Service that goes where the request is made and deploys when its made (or a certain time thereafter) is associated with taxis or lately with Uber and Lyft. Mini buses that provide a hybrid service, half bus half taxi, are popular in South America or Turkey ("dolmus") but in the US most know such service only from hotel shuttles or the airport service Super Shuttle.

Few know that almost all US transit agencies provide such a hybrid demand responsive service every day and on a pretty big scale, although many may have wondered about the growing number of vans and sedans with the transit agencies logo on it. The reason that most don't know about it is that only a few qualify for the service. Para-transit. as this service is called, is mandated by law. It has the noble purpose of providing transit to the mobility impaired. But transit agencies had no practice in providing demand based service before.
Now agencies face a double challenge:...