County GIS Director here - I've had multiple Human Service departments come to me with routing challenges. Whether they have case workers traveling all over the place each day to see different clients, or they need to research a program for getting Veterans to a hospital, all of them need the following:
- View of distribution of clients
- View of service providers
- Driving distance for clients to providers, including any transportation options like bus stops or Public transit vans
- Analytics on clients within and without of service area for identifying areas for expansion
- A way to determining best routes based on TIMES of available services - particularly as a lot of recovery clients have after business hour appointments
- Access to demographic information on population, particularly vulnerable populations
I'm now up to six different departments who have mentioned routing and its relation to serving clients, while also trying to figure out the best way to plan for future needs & expand services using the available funding.
Our current project features the review of expanding an existing public transportation option to individuals funded using OUD funds. The transportation company and the county are working together to identify the following:
- linkage between clients & providers
- Availability of transportation at different times of day
- clients within and without the current transporter area
- drive times for clients to reach their provider
- Identification of potential areas for expansion of the service
- We're currently working on how to link the time of appointments with the routing and planning
We created a dashboard for the transportation vendor for them to look at expansion & do some scenarios. The Dept working with them as also asked for a separate dashboard that combines ACS data & other analysis for their own future planning because they liked the original so much.
They really want something to manage those who register for the service, identify the areas where stops need to be added or service expanded, and the times they need to make sure services are available. This is moving fast because of access to opioid settlement funds.
