RTD’s new access-a-Ride scheduling software has been so flawed in recent weeks that kidney dialysis patients routinely have been late for appointments and forced to forgo a portion of their treatment.
“Sometimes I’ve been an hour late to get on the system,” said dialysis patient Julia Graves, 58, as she underwent treatment Monday at the DaVita Lowry Dialysis Center on East First Avenue in east Denver.
Problems with the new software have affected many access-a-Ride users, not just dialysis patients. RTD’s 330 vehicles for the program provide about 2,500 trips each day to riders with qualified disabilities and medical conditions.
The problem has been especially acute for dialysis patients, who typically undergo four-hour treatments three days a week, said Dave Byrne, administrator for the Lowry center.
The pickup of dialysis patients by access-a-Ride vans has been so delayed at times that the center has had to keep a nurse on duty after hours to stay with patients until their rides arrived, Byrne said.
The Regional Transportation District installed its new RouteMatch scheduling software for access-a-Ride about two months ago, but snags with it have caused numerous delays in the pickups and drop-offs.
“People have been riding around for two or three hours,” said Lowry Dialysis social worker Patricia Steffes, about the worst of the new system’s glitches.
“Losing an hour of treatment and also being driven around — it’s cruel,” Steffes said.
RTD officials say that now — two months into the new scheduling operation — they may finally have worked out most of the bugs.
“This is the first couple of days I’ve seen some light at the end of the tunnel,” said Larry Buter, RTD’s manager of paratransit services.
“We’re doing a lot better matching demand” for service with the number of vans circulating throughout the area, Buter said.
“All indications point to an upward trend as far as service delivery goes, as well as customer satisfaction,” he said Tuesday. “In fact, we logged in two commendations today, an event we have not experienced since going live.”
The $1.1 million software system should work even better after vans get new mobile data computers and GPS-driven vehicle locator devices in coming weeks, Buter said.
Buter acknowledged that RTD recently discovered a flaw in how it handled requests for trips from dialysis patients.
The agency was not working with patients to build in enough trip time to get them to centers early enough to meet a treatment schedule, he said. RTD is working with patients and dialysis centers to remedy the problem, he added.
“I think it’s getting better this week, but they have a long way to go,” Steffes said. “Any missed time (on a dialysis machine) because the bus is not there is unacceptable.”
Jeffrey Leib: 303-954-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com
