Thinkprogress. Org. On december 1, is night and day from where it was. The site is now stable and operating at its intended capacity at a greatly improved performance. Here is more. We start at the top of page six on Response Times. Response times, this is the measure of how quickly responds go to a user request. You can see on a bar on the lefthand side that in late october, the Response Time was running around eight seconds, which was clearly unacceptable and very frustrating for consumers. We now have much faster Response Times. The line graph shows average Response Time by day in the last three weeks. You can see the average Response Time is well under one second. The chart on the bottom of page six shows system error rate, another key operating metric. Oftens a measure of how the system presents an error message. You can see the progress that has been made. The far left shows where we were in late october with an error rate of approximately six percent. We got that down to two percent by november9, 21 16, and this was and it was approximately. 75 or three quarters of a percent. We have also made measurable progress increasing the system systems ability systems stability. The percent ofby time the site is available on a given day, excluding planned downtime for scheduled maintenance. Is now seeing uptime consistent above 98 , as you can see in this chart. You can see this system uptime for the week ending in november 2 was only 42. 9 . We thinkthat is what the system average through most of october is as well. The uptime improved to 79. 1 by november 9. It has been consistently above 90 since then, including 90 for t including 90 uptime including 90 uptime. We expect to see further improvements given the redundancy and capacity we have added to the system. We do experience system glitches or slow downs, we can resolve issues much more quickly do the due to the Continuous Monitoring and Rapid Response teams. In october, a typical system outage lasted several hours or more. Now the teams who have debt who have diagnosed root problems and made necessary fixes within 60 minutes. We have a much more stable system that is reliably open for business. That is important because at the end of the day we need system up times sows so consumers are able to use the system to mouth allowed applications, shop, then and role. Of allritical the result the improvements we made is we have double the systems and now support its intended volumes. The bottom of page seven outlines the simple math. The site now has the capacity to 50,000 concurrent or simultaneous users at one time. Know each vendor spends an average of 20 minutes to 30 minutes on the site per visit. Willite will report support 8000 consumer businesses per day. To be clear, there likely will be times, even with this increased capacity, that it will not be sufficient to handle peak demands. System to put a new serve consumers in an orderly fashion and allow them to request email notifications when it is time to come back to the site. We have made significant progress in improving healthcare. Gov and achieving a system that runs smoothly to the vast majority of consumers. Response times are under one second. Areates are well on well below one percent. We now have a Rapid Response team and continue monitoring to ensure system performance and respond quickly to glitches and other issues that have cropped up. Means the site has the ability to serve 50,000 supportnt users and 800,000 consumer businesses per day as consumers seek information, fill out applications, shop, and and roll. Any website, the team will continue to address additional bugs and glitches and will continuously evaluate emerging infrastructure needs. The general contractor and Rapid Response team has served us well. While we still have work to do, we have made significant progress, working smoothly for the vast majority of you vast majority of consumers. You can take a look at those charts in the administrations progress and performance report. A look now at some tweets from members of congress. Keith ellison says the houses and tomorrow at 2 00 eastern time for legislative business. They will have votes after 630 eastern. Turnd wednesday they will to Small Business and jobs legislation. Flex that look he had on his face, i can close my eyes and see him on the stretcher right now. I can see him putting his hand up, i can see his eyes. I can close my eyes and i can just see it. I will never forget that first case, bringing me to reality of what was going on here. This initial sort of triage, it gets there and we see him and he goes in to the tent and everybody starts to work. We got pulled in, myself and my inleague, we both got pulled because the other team wanted us to begin right away. They said you guys have to get involved right away and they pulled a sin and it was like a jolt. Now you have to act. You have to be at dr. Coming up be a surgeon, you have to be a care provider. Yourave to dismiss emotion. You have one objective. You have to stop the bleeding and get him back home to his family. Etteh uses hist military experience to write about physicians working in afghanistan, tonight at 8 00 on cspans q and a. Next, a look at challenges for seniors getting around and transportation challenges for aging baby boomers. Some alternatives for using cars, this is the Senate Special committee on aging. They talked for about an hour and 20 minutes. My dear friend, senator collins, for suggesting this hearing today on the need for safe and Reliable Transportation options for seniors. A crucial topic to seniors in order to be able andet out to get around enhance the quality of life. The lack of dependable aansportation clearly a fax seniors quality of their lives. If they dont have it, they cannot go to the grocery store, a cannot yet to the doctors appointment. They cannot connect with their friends. Having access to transportation helps many Older Americans remain independent and self , two very important things. Issue witha cost transportation representing 20 of consumer spending, second only to housing. Obviously that is a big chunk out of a seniors income. Florida has a few examples that we can learn from. The Golden Passport Program reduces the rate of transportation for seniors. It allows residents of the south florida county who are 65 years or older to ride on all the Transit System buses and rail for free. Urban suburban and Rural Communities face different transportation challenges. A variety of options are needed to provide seniors with safe and Reliable Transportation. Greater mobility has a real impact on Health Care Costs when you consider that shoulders with available transportation are more likely to use officebased care rather than emergency with the greater impact on cost to the Overall Health care. Ystem access to transportation has been linked to even reduced hospital readmissions. But, we have to do a better job with coordinating that a dollars and working with private partners to ensure that we get the most out of the dollar we have available. Current path,our estimates are that the National Cost of alternative transportation for seniors will ande anywhere between 500 trillion byand 2. 2 the end of this decade, correction, by the end of next decade, by the end of 2030. 30 gao found that while federal Programs FundTransportation Services for the disadvantaged, the total spending is unknown. Well, we have to find out. The gao recommended that improved coronation has the potential to improve both quality and cost effectiveness of these services. Has ate of Florida Coalition that has brought together over 20 organizations, agencies, and the universities to improve Transportation Safety , mobility, and access for our seniors. In addition to safety for all road users, including drivers, pedestrians, and transit users, the coalition serves as a resource on the options for ,eniors in each Community Connecting those seniors with a range of public and private services. We need coordination like this. Its fairly simple. We need to ensure that those who can drive are able to continue. If a senior should not be driving, then they ought to have an alternative. And we do not want a senior getting behind the wheel who , even not be driving though the pressure is there on gets to where they need to get for whatever the reason is. Seniors deserve nothing less. We are going to do Something Different here today. Since senator collins was so insightful to suggest this hearing today, what i want to do is i want to turn the gavel over to her. Senator collins. It thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Must gracious of you and i say it feels so good to have the gavel back in my hand. I will pledge right now that iould there ever be a change will be as wonderful to you as you have been to me. I want to start by thanking you for holding this important hearing. We focused on a number of the great challenges facing our nation as our population ages. Much of that discussion revolves around health care, social security, financial security, scans directed at our seniors. There is another daunting challenge that has rarely been discussed at a public hearing. I refer to the challenge of Senior Transportation. We americans love our automobiles from the time most enough of us are old enough to drive. Having a car and being able to drive it means the freedom to go where we want, when we want. Age, we find it harder and harder to use that freedom given to us by automobiles. Decline,ilities driving becomes more and more complicated. Comes when wey wonder whether we should keep driving at all. Dont, how will we go about our daily lives . Struggle with how to it is one of the hardest conversations. For millionscome of our senior citizens. ,ccording to Census Bureau roughly 19 of our population or 13. 9 Million People will need transportation will need alternate Transportation Options in order to continue living independently. Identify conference transportation as the third most important issue for seniors out of literally hundreds of options for priority. Is particularly a critical concern in rural states, like my state of maine. Drive takes a to particular toll on seniors living in a rural, low density population. Gao found thate 60 of nondrivers in several areas and rural reportedly stayed home on a given day because they lacked transportation. Over the age of 75 living in the suburbs reported withficant dissatisfaction how their Transportation Needs are being met compared to those living in cities. Of four oldert individuals live in low density areas, these concerns raise a very real policy question. Transportation, which is often hailed as a primary solution, simply does not meet the needs of many senior sites. My state is only the largest communities that have any Public Transportation at all. More than one third of those over age 60 nine have no Public Transportation in the communities. Even those that do have to plan around fruits, restrictions, on even trips, frequencies, hours of operation, or advanced notice reservations. In rural areas, the option may not exist at all. If, fories example, you have problems with ,our site or mobility transportation on a mass Transit System can be daunting. People use statefunded home. Are Services Just 65 of those over age 65 reported they can always get to the doctor when they needed need it. Rely, 90 , on family and friends to drive them. It is not surprising since one in five americans 65 and older does not drive. Seniors must find some other way to get the places they need to go. Lot about doctors appointments and grocery stores. There was an issue with social isolation, not being able to drive to go see your friends, to keep up with family members. O. At matters to challenge of providing transportation alternative to our seniors is literally growing by the day as the silver synonymy starts to hit our country. To meet the challenge we must find reasonable and practical transportation models allows seniors to stay active and mobile even after they stopped driving. One such model is i. T. In america, which has been operating in my home state of 1990s andce the mid has since branched out to other communities across the nation. Itn america uses private automobiles to provide rise to seniors whenever they want, almost like a taxi service. Of itn america. S here with us today i am delighted she is able to join us as well as the rest of our outstanding panel of witnesses. Is an issue that is only going to grow as people are living longer and the baby boomers, 10,000 of us every day, turn 65. This is a challenge that has not received the attention it deserves. That is why i am so delighted that our chairman has agreed to shine a spotlight on this issue today. First we are going to hear from the deputy administrator of the federal Transit Administration. Well talk about the efforts to address the transportation and mobility needs of our nation. We will hear from the director unintentionaln of injury prevention at the centers for Disease Control and prevention. From thehen hear of the National Center of Senior Transportation, by the partnership with the National Association of the area agencies on aging. And finally, as i mentioned, we will hear from the founder and america, whoitn will talk about the innovation of innovative presentation model that she developed. Alsorine, i hope you will tell the story of how you became interested in this issue, and you have done so much over so many years. We will start with ms. Mcmillan. Thank you all for being here. Chairman elson, Ranking Member collins, i am so excited to be able to be here with you today. Mcmillan, and i want to thank you for the opportunity to highlight the efforts to highlight the mobility needs of americas seniors. Our nation is undergoing a shift. Cant demographic by 2050, the number of americans age 65 and older is projected to more than double, and the number of men and women 85 years and older could increase five fold during that period. This population can face significant challenges including increased poverty, isolation, and the struggle to Access Medical services. The department of transportation is committed to helping Older Americans age in place and live with ticket with dignity. Collaboration is the federal interagency quarter mating council on access and shared by the Transit Agency agree secretary. Awarded grants of more than three dozen states and territories to help solve one call, one click access to transportation. With a special focus on military veterans and their families. Through this program, patients in lakea clinic county, florida will be able to arrange rides on the spot using a computer kiosk installed on site. Importantly, many of these veterans are seniors. My agency, the fta, has entered into many other innovative cooperative agreements to improve locallycoordinated access to Public Transportation for older individuals. For example, working with easter seals another industry partners, we have launched a new National Center for mobility management. The center will among other things develop a database to identify best practices to the liver and registration to seniors as ugly as possible. Ability management as quickly as possible. Mobility management will extend ftas assistance into communities. This approach helps both public and private at the local level. There is no one size fits all. Those who know their communities best will serve them the best. Year 2012, fta provided over 40 million for mobility management projects, at 4 increase over fiscal year 2011. Ongoingll going investments in this area, today there are over 400 mobility managers nationwide, and over half the states are planning call centers. The funding picture is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, map 21, our current authorization, enhances funding and services for seniors and others. For example, our program to enhance mobility for seniors and people with disabilities is authorized to receive 28 2012on more in fiscal year than under the prior authorization. Map 21 also increases spending by 25 for rural transportation, rural states are home to many of the nations low income and transportation dependency. To 21 enables the fta leverage its own investments and quarter nation activities with matching funds drawn from a variety of other federal programs ranging from medicaid to head start. Appropriations committee sequester, and continuing revolutions have left the federal Transit Administration unable to find modestre missed even Technical Assistance. This reduces ftas ability to invest in transportation coordination at a time when it is needed most. To spite these and other challenges, we must continue helping communities to identify and fill the gas and others. Often times, seniors simply may not know what services and Transportation Options are available to them or how to connect with them. We need to support mobility managers and similar initiatives across the country to foster even greater connec