This book examines the problem of rural poverty from a transit perspective: lack of public transit in rural areas results in unemployment and underemployment and lower quality of health care leading to depression, alcoholism, and related social problems. One solution to the lack of rural transit is shared ride taxicabs and vans. The book describes existing rural transit ridesharing and proposes improvements thereto. This book is for rural community organizers.

TCRP Report 136: Guidebook for Rural Demand-Response Transportation: Measuring, Assessing, and Improving Performance will be of interest to rural public transportation systems that provide demand-response transit (DRT) services and to the communities they serve. The Guidebook is a resource to assist DRT systems to measure, assess, and improve their performance, focusing on DRT systems in rural areas.