Persons with disabilities who use special transit services depend on telephones to book, change, confirm, or cancel rides. In Vancouver, Pacific Transit Cooperative operates a parallel transit service - handyDART - which provides up to 1,000 passenger trips a day. This level of service generates 800 incoming telephone calls and 200 outgoing calls each day. Many callers receive a busy signal or are put on hold for several minutes. In 1990, BC Transit and the Transportation Development Centre of Transport Canada initiated a project to improve telephone service. It offers callers with touch-tone telephones direct access to an interactive software program and indirect access to the DART manager software which is used to record and store trip bookings. This system, developed by Oracle Communications Inc., allows a caller to confirm or cancel a previously booked trip automatically. A semi-automatic trip booking function was installed in December, 1991, and is now being tested. Oracle's handyline software also offers callers access to a variety of information messages about handyDART service.
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