The challenge
A regional transit agency in Ohio had, like most large systems, gone low-floor on its heavy-duty fixed-route buses years ago, so riders board those with a gentle ramp and no stairs. But its paratransit buses and dial-a-ride vans were still traditional high-floor vehicles: ambulatory riders climbed entry steps, and riders using wheelchairs waited through a full mechanical lift cycle at every pickup.
That mismatch matters more than it first appears. Paratransit exists precisely for the riders who find boarding hardest, yet high-floor cutaway buses make them do the hardest boarding in the system. Lift cycles add minutes to every stop, which compounds across a day of demand-response scheduling. And the lift itself is one of the highest-maintenance components on the vehicle: cycle counts, inspections, hydraulic service, and the out-of-service days that follow when one fails.
The agency asked TESCO a straightforward question: could the low-floor experience it already gave fixed-route riders be extended across the paratransit and dial-a-ride fleet?
The TESCO solution
TESCO worked with the agency to map its route types against the low-floor vehicles actually available in the market: not a one-size answer, but the right size for each duty.
For paratransit routes, the answer was the Frontrunner low-floor minibus. Built on the RAM ProMaster's front-wheel-drive platform, the Frontrunner has no driveshaft under the floor and therefore no reason for stairs: riders board across a fold-out ramp onto a flat, step-free interior. Wheelchair passengers roll straight to their securement positions: no lift, no lift cycle, no lift maintenance.
For dial-a-ride routes, where a minibus is more vehicle than the manifest needs, the agency adopted the smaller Sunset Vans low-floor RAM ProMaster van, the same ramp-boarding, flat-floor principle in a van footprint that is cheaper to buy, run, and park.
The result is a fleet architecture with one boarding experience at every scale: heavy-duty low-floor buses on fixed routes, Frontrunner minibuses on paratransit, and Sunset low-floor vans on dial-a-ride.
Crucially, this was a fleet-architecture decision, not a single purchase. TESCO helped the agency think in tiers: which routes genuinely need a minibus, which are better served by a van, and how a two-vehicle low-floor standard simplifies driver training, parts stocking, and scheduling flexibility across the whole operation. Because both platforms ride on the same RAM ProMaster foundation, the agency's technicians service one drivetrain family across two vehicle sizes.
The result
Riders who once waited on a lift now board in seconds, with dignity, the same way every other passenger does. Drivers spend less time securing boarding equipment at each stop, which the schedulers feel across the whole service day. And the maintenance department retired a whole category of equipment from the affected vehicles: wheelchair lifts, along with the inspections and failures that came with them.
Fleet transitions like this succeed when someone maps vehicle capabilities honestly against route requirements. That is the work TESCO's sales reps do every day, and low-floor technology has matured to the point where "all low-floor" is now a practical answer, not an aspiration.
Curious whether low-floor vehicles fit your routes? Ask a TESCO sales rep, or explore the Frontrunner and Sunset Vans low-floor lines.
