Charter Service

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Transit Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Part 604</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FTA-2024-0017]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2132-AB38</RIN> <SUBJECT>Charter Service</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Transit Administration (FTA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FTA is amending the regulations that govern the provision of charter service by recipients of Federal financial assistance. This final rule removes the Federal financial assistance programs listed in an appendix and the guidance in additional appendices and makes non-substantive technical edits throughout to remove outdated citations and provide clarity. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The effective date of this rule is July 31, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For program matters, Danielle Nelson, Office of Program Management, (202) 366-2160 or <E T="03">danielle.nelson@dot.gov.</E> For legal matters, contact Mark Montgomery, Office of Chief Counsel, (202) 366-1017 or <E T="03">mark.montgomery@dot.gov.</E> Office hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Purpose and Summary of Regulatory Action</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Statutory Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Summary of Major Provisions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Benefits and Costs</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Response to Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Section-by-Section Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Regulatory Analyses and Notices</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Purpose and Summary of Regulatory Action</HD> This final rule amends regulations governing the provision of charter service by recipients of Federal financial assistance. The charter service regulation protects private charter operators from unauthorized competition from FTA grant recipients. Under the charter rules, with limited exceptions, local transit agencies are restricted from operating chartered service. One of those exceptions applies to charter service provided to a qualified human service organization (QHSO) for the purpose of serving persons with mobility limitations related to advanced age, disability, or low income. Under the current rule, QHSOs receiving funding from one of the Federal programs under Appendix A are exempt from the charter registration requirements of the regulation. This appendix, created in 2008, is outdated. Through this rulemaking, FTA removes appendix A and will keep the list of qualifying Federal programs for the QHSO exception current on its website, which will reduce the administrative burden of charter registration for many QHSOs. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Statutory Authority</HD> FTA has a statutory mandate to prohibit charter service under 49 U.S.C. 5323(d). These revisions do not make substantive changes to the existing regulations implementing this statutory provision. <HD SOURCE="HD2">C. Summary of Key Provisions</HD> This final rule removes the outdated list of Federal programs in Appendix A. Under the current regulation, QHSOs receiving funding from one of the Federal programs under Appendix A are exempt from the charter registration requirements of § 604.15. Appendix A is based on a list of programs from the Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility (CCAM), which is a Federal interagency council that works to coordinate funding and provide expertise on human services transportation for people with disabilities, older adults, and individuals with low income. CCAM established the CCAM Program Inventory, which identifies 130 Federal programs that provide funding for human services transportation for these targeted populations. In 2018 and 2019, CCAM agency representatives determined which programs to include in the CCAM Program Inventory through internal agency program validation efforts and the CCAM Program Analysis Working Sessions. CCAM continually updates this inventory to include new Federal funding sources. <HD SOURCE="HD2">D. Benefits and Costs</HD> The final rule makes non-substantive conforming edits to the Charter Service regulation and removes supplemental appendices about Federal financial assistance programs and frequently asked questions. Maintaining a continuously updated online list of Federal programs that qualify for the QHSO exception instead of using an appendix will reduce the number of future QHSOs subject to charter registration requirements. Accordingly, the final rule will result in unquantified cost savings for regulated entities. The rule does not change other requirements for regulated entities and therefore has no other expected economic effects. FTA has also determined the final rule will not have a significant effect on a substantial number of small entities. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Response to Comments</HD> FTA issued an NPRM for Charter Service on January 8, 2025 (90 FR 1406), and the public comment period for the NPRM closed on March 10, 2025. FTA received one comment submitted to the rulemaking docket. The commenter, an individual, supported FTA's proposal and provided suggested edits to the regulatory text for clarity. Accordingly, FTA has made non-substantive amendments throughout the rule to make the regulatory text more plain language. FTA appreciates the thoughtful and thorough comment. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Section-by-Section Analysis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subpart A—General Provisions</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.1 Purpose</HD> FTA made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.2 Applicability</HD> FTA updated the applicability section of the regulation to remove programs repealed by statute. Specifically, FTA removed references to the Over the Road Bus Accessibility Program, the Job Access and Reverse Commute Program, and the New Freedom Grant Program, which were repealed under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), Public Law 112-141, on October 1, 2012. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.3 Definitions</HD> FTA removed a reference to a provision repealed by statute and amended a statutory citation. Throughout the regulation, FTA has replaced the outdated term “website” with the term “website.” In addition, FTA revised the definition of “program purposes” for clarity. FTA also revised the definition of “qualified human service organization” to more closely align with the definition of “transportation-disadvantaged” under E.O. 13330, Human Service Transportation Coordination (February 24, 2004), which is the E.O. that created CCAM. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.4 Charter service agreement</HD> FTA did not amend this section. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subpart B—Exceptions</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.5 Purpose</HD> FTA removed the undefined term “community-based” from this section for clarity. The term “charter service” is defined in section 604.3 and does not need that qualifier. FTA also made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.6 Government Officials on Official Government Business</HD> FTA made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.7 Qualified Human Service Organizations</HD> FTA removed the outdated list of Federal programs in appendix A and clarified in this section that QHSOs receiving funding under one or more of the programs in the CCAM Program Inventory are not required to register on the FTA charter service website to receive charter service from a recipient. FTA also made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.8 Leasing FTA Funded Equipment and Drivers</HD> FTA did not amend this section. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.9 When No Registered Charter Provider Responds to Notice From a Recipient</HD> FTA made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.10 Agreement With Registered Charter Providers</HD> FTA made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.11 Petitions to the Administrator</HD> FTA added clarifying language to this section that does not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.12 Reporting Requirements for All Exceptions</HD> FTA removed an outdated reference that does not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subpart C—Procedures for Registration and Notification</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.13 Registration of Private Charter Operators</HD> FTA added clarifying language and removed an outdated web address. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.14 Recipient's Notification to Registered Charter Providers</HD> FTA removed an outdated web address. FTA also made non-substantive amendments to the regulatory text for clarity. These amendments do not impact existing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Subpart D—Registration of Qualified Human Service Organizations and Duties for Recipients With Respect to Charter Registration Website</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">Section 604.15 Registration of Qualified Human Service Organizations</HD> FTA added language clarifying that only ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 96k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━