By Bob Violino

Nov. 9, 2009—Many of the people who live in Western Pennsylvania's economically challenged Monongahela and Turtle Creek Valleys do not own cars, and some of the towns have such narrow streets, steep hills and tight turns that they are inaccessible to buses. The WorkLink Community Van Service and its affiliate, Ship of Zion, provide free, scheduled transportation to connect individuals in these isolated communities to public transit—and, thus, to job training, jobs, childcare and other support services.

The WorkLink program was established in 2001 by Heritage Community Initiatives to meet one of the organization's main goals: helping people secure and retain good jobs by reducing geographic limitations. On average, WorkLink provides 5,400 trips per month and serves more than 3,300 registered riders, many of whom are low-income or live below the poverty level. To date, the service has provided more than 500,000 rides.

WorkLink rider scanning RFID ID card

Another of WorkLink's goals is to use technology to collect information about ridership and van activities, to better understand the organization's operations and the movement of passengers and vehicles. Among the technology components are identification cards embedded with RFID chips that broadcast to scanners in the vans, providing a highly accurate system of rider verification; a global positioning system (GPS) unit in the vans that identify each vehicle's precise location at any particular moment; and a wireless Internet connection that transmits from the vans to WorkLink's administrative computers a detailed record of when and where passengers get on and off.