King County Metro Job Seeker Ridematch Service Information and How-To for Case Managers

Attention Community and Social Service Staff Members who provide case management assistance or other services to individual clients:

Jobs Access Ridematch is part of an enhanced rideshare project to serve your clients who need transportation options for traveling to training or jobs. Carpooling and vanpooling are excellent options for many people. Not limited to just "Jobs Access" program clients, these services work with and for each client to:

• identify possible pool partners (people to ride with);
• help form carpool or vanpool arrangements and;
• provide follow-up to help clients access any other eligible services and transportation benefits from their employers and Metro.

Ridematch, the Puget Sound area’s easy way to ride or drive with someone else is the cornerstone to this effort. This free service is the best way to identify carpool and vanpool partners for your clients.

Ridematch is both a computerized ridematching system and service that helps commuters form and maintain carpools and vanpools. The regional Ridematch system, housed at King County Metro and also used by Community Transit and Pierce Transit, contains the names of thousands of residents throughout the greater Puget Sound area. The system matches commuting characteristics (home area, work/school location, work/school schedules, etc.) and provides individual clients with lists of potential ridesharing partners, along with other useful transportation information.

You can help your clients find other people to carpool and vanpool with using the free Ridematch service and to avail themselves of Metro’s other rideshare services by:

• encouraging them to consider car and vanpooling, and
• helping them fully complete and submit a quick Ridematch application, or call Hoa Mai at 206-684-1443 or e-mail hoa.mai@kingcounty.gov. You may also request your own Jobs Access Case Manager Packet for Ridematch Services from Hoa. She is available all day Monday and Tuesday and on Wednesday mornings.

During other regular business hours, Wednesday through Friday, you may call our King County Metro Rideshare office for Ridematch at 206-625-4500, 1-800-427-8249 or TTY 206-684-1855, and a Rideshare staff person will be glad to work with you and take the application over the phone. Metro also provides language bank service. For client service coordination purposes, it will help if you can identify yourself as a "Jobs Access Case Manager."

What happens after Metro receives the Ridematch application

We will process the application and run the computer matching using the Ridematch database. We will mail the match letter to the client. If the client is looking at making the first commute trip in less than a week, call in the application and we'll do our best to provide preliminary matching assistance more quickly by phone, fax or e-mail.

Your client’s match letter will contain contact information about other people in the Ridematch database with similar commute trips. And, your client’s own contact information could be sent to other commuters. If you are listed as a contact person for your client(s), their potential pool partners may call you to match up with your clients.