Abstract: Demand Response Transit (DRT) services play a crucial role in rural transportation, especially for people without private vehicles and where fixed-route services are unavailable. However, the exploration of DRT travel patterns—particularly differences tied to demographics such as gender, age, and disability—remains an underdeveloped area of research. This presentation examines who uses rural DRT and how they travel, drawing on two projects using trip-level DRT data from rural Tennessee. 

The first project takes a system-level perspective, analyzing when and why riders travel. Using trip purpose data (e.g., medical, dialysis, employment, senior center, shopping), it explores rider patterns by hour of day, day of week, and trip distance. Demographic characteristics are used to asses how travel behavior varies within each purpose.

The second project adopts a rider-centric approach, identifying latent groups of riders with similar travel behaviors. Riders are classified by frequency of use, trips per day, and trip purpose, with demographic characteristics describing each group. The analysis also considers each group's potential readiness for future mobility advancements, such as AVs.