Description

Seniors and people with disabilities in Contra Costa County, Calif., face a complex accessible transportation landscape — over 24 providers offering paratransit, volunteer driver programs, senior shuttles, and rideshare-based services, each with different eligibility rules and booking processes. OPTIMAT, a custom-built data platform developed by Contra Costa Transportation Authority and UC Berkeley PATH through a USDOT SMART Grant to address this challenge. OPTIMAT aggregates real-time service information from all county providers and uses a conversational AI-assisted interface to return personalized, eligibility-matched transportation options for any trip request. This session will cover how OPTIMAT was built, how the platform works, lessons learned from data integration and testing, and what responsible deployment of AI-assisted tools looks like for vulnerable populations. The team will also discuss the path from prototype to community-facing service and the role of human navigators in validating and supporting the technology.