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Public TransitTitle VIGrant AlignmentService PlanningOregon

Lane Transit District & the FHWA ATTAIN Program

How Transit Planner maps onto the FHWA ATTAIN grant program — an agency-specific worked example with Lane Transit District and Lane Council of Governments.

Lane Transit DistrictJune 2026

The challenge

A small/mid agency needs to test the cost and Title VI equity impact of service changes before committing — and wants a competitive path to fund the work.

The solution

Transit Planner runs on LTD's live GTFS and Census data: cost any service change before deploying it, and run its FTA Circular 4702.1B Title VI analysis in seconds. LMAi Labs is the technology-and-methodology partner; LTD and LCOG would be the grant applicants.

Results

Full LTD network modeled: EmX BRT + ~28 fixed routes + ~1,134 stops
Grounded in LTD's ~$78M FY26 fixed-route operating budget
Six-change Title VI analysis runs in seconds vs. consultant-hours
Mapped to all five ATTAIN statutory selection criteria
Equity as the core output — minority, low-income, senior, youth, disability, zero-vehicle, limited-English

Tech & data

GTFSUS Census ACSFTA Circular 4702.1BMapbox

Framing. This is an alignment brief, not a grant application. LTD and/or LCOG would be the applicant(s); LMAi Labs is the technology-and-methodology partner.

The opportunity

The FHWA Advanced Transportation Technologies and Innovative Mobility Deployment (ATTAIN) program is authorized by the IIJA (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) and administered by FHWA, at roughly $60 million per year for FY2022–2026. Each round typically makes 5 to 10 awards, of up to $12 million each, at an 80% federal / 20% local cost share.

Eligible applicants include state DOTs, local governments, transit agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, and multijurisdictional groups. The program funds advanced transportation technologies that improve safety, mobility, efficiency, system performance, intermodal connectivity, and infrastructure return on investment — explicitly including advanced mobility, access, and on-demand service technologies, and shared-use mobility that supports human services for elderly and disabled individuals.

Why LTD is a strong applicant

  • Clean eligibility. LTD is an eligible transit agency; Lane Council of Governments (LCOG), the Eugene–Springfield MPO, is an eligible MPO. Together they form a natural multijurisdictional applicant.
  • A real testbed. The EmX BRT line plus ~28 fixed routes and ~1,134 stops, against a ~$78 million FY26 fixed-route operating budget. Even modest improvements in how that budget is allocated are material at that scale.
  • Auditable rigor. The Title VI engine follows a documented, test-backed methodology aligned to FTA Circular 4702.1B — the kind of performance-measurement and equity discipline ATTAIN rewards.

What the tool does on LTD's network

Transit Planner lets a planner cost any service change before deploying it: buses required, revenue-hours, span and frequency, catchment population, and equity impact all update as the change is drawn. A six-change Title VI analysis — the four-fifths disparate-impact test, run across service, fare, and major-change scenarios — completes in seconds where a consultant study would take hours or days.

Everything is built on LTD's live GTFS feed and US Census ACS data for the region, so the figures reflect the agency's actual network and demographics, not sample data. The equity analysis covers minority, low-income, senior, youth, disability, zero-vehicle, and limited-English populations — the same groups named in ATTAIN's statutory selection criteria around human services for elderly and disabled individuals and underserved communities.

Mapped against ATTAIN's five statutory selection criteria: cost reduction and ROI (test changes before deploying, six-change Title VI analysis in seconds), operational performance (revenue-hours, vehicles, span/frequency, catchment, equity per scenario), advanced mobility and shared-use (service-zone analysis for mobility-on-demand planning), human services for underserved communities (equity as the core output, not a bolt-on), and data collection and use (built on live GTFS and Census ACS).

Honest limitations

Alignment is not an award — selection is competitive, and weighted to that year's criteria. LTD and LCOG would lead any application; LMAi Labs provides the technology and methodology, not the grant-writing or the match funding. Some capabilities referenced in ATTAIN's criteria — walk-network isochrones, transit job-accessibility, real-time data — are on the roadmap and not yet shipped; a pilot would be scoped to deployed capabilities plus a defined build.

Read the full alignment brief at planning.lmailabs.ai/attain and the underlying methodology at planning.lmailabs.ai/methodology.

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