Title VI plans for transportation providers: when federal transit money or a public contract requires one

A transportation company needs its own written Title VI program when it receives Federal Transit Administration money through a state or a transit agency, for example a van bought with Section 5310 funds or operating help under Section 5311. A company working only as a transit agency’s contractor follows the agency’s program instead of writing one. If you only carry Medicaid riders, no FTA program applies, but the same ban on race, color, and national origin discrimination does.

For a NEMT company, these rules arrive with a grant or a public contract. Our guide to Section 5310 grants explains how those funds reach private operators, and working as an ADA paratransit contractor sets out the disability rules that come with transit contracts. This page covers the Title VI side: who writes a program, what goes in it, and how to keep it current.

Subrecipient, contractor, or neither: which one are you?

Your role in the funding chain decides your paperwork. FTA’s Title VI circular, 4702.1B, defines a subrecipient as an entity that receives FTA financial assistance through a primary recipient, usually the state DOT or a transit agency. Under the Section 5310 statute, subrecipients can be state or local government bodies, private nonprofits, or public transportation operators that get their grant indirectly, through a recipient (49 U.S.C. 5310(a)).

Contractors are treated differently. Chapter II of the circular says contractors and subcontractors must follow the Title VI program of the recipient they work for and are not required to prepare or submit a program of their own. Where the line falls can depend on the service. When FTA issued Circular 9070.1H in 2024, it said taxi operators and transportation network companies can be contractors or subrecipients depending on whether they provide exclusive or shared rides.

Contractors still carry obligations. DOT’s standard Title VI assurances, Order 1050.2A, require recipients to put a set of clauses in every covered contract. Under those clauses you agree to follow DOT’s nondiscrimination rules, to avoid discrimination when you pick subcontractors and suppliers, to give the agency or FTA access to your books, records, and facilities, and to pass the same clauses to your own subcontractors. If you break them, the agency can withhold payments or cancel, terminate, or suspend the contract.

What goes in a demand-response operator’s program

A company that runs only demand-response service owes the general requirements in chapter III of the circular and none of the fixed-route chapters. The circular counts general public paratransit, ADA complementary paratransit, vanpools, and Section 5310 nonprofits that carry only their own clients as demand response. Under chapter III, the program contains:

1. A Title VI notice to the public, with a list of the places it is posted.
2. Complaint instructions and a complaint form showing how a rider files a Title VI complaint.
3. A list of transit-related Title VI investigations, complaints, and lawsuits filed since the last submission.
4. A public participation plan, with outreach to minority and limited English proficient residents and a summary of the outreach done since your last submission.
5. A language assistance plan for riders with limited English.
6. A table of the racial makeup of any non-elected transit board or advisory committee you appoint, with your efforts to encourage minority participation. Skip it if you have no such body.
7. A facility siting equity analysis, only if you built a storage facility, maintenance facility, or operations center.

Subrecipients can borrow most of this. Where they fit your service, the circular lets you take over the funding agency’s notice, complaint steps and form, outreach plan, and language plan. The complaint list has to be your own. The finished program goes to your board, or whoever sets policy for your company, for approval before you submit it.

The notice riders see in your vans and on your website

The Title VI notice is a short statement with three parts: that you operate without regard to race, color, or national origin, how to get more information about your Title VI obligations, and how to file a complaint. At minimum it goes on your website and in the public areas of your office. The circular also says recipients should post it at stops or on vehicles, and for a van company the vehicle is where riders actually are. Oregon’s handbook lists rider guides and schedules as other good places.

When you use the state’s notice, add one thing to it: riders must be told they can file a discrimination complaint directly with you. Translate the notice into the languages your language assistance plan calls for.

A short version for a van card might read: “[Company] provides rides without regard to race, color, or national origin. To ask about your rights or make a complaint, call [phone], email [address], or ask your driver for a complaint form. You may also complain to [state DOT] or the Federal Transit Administration.”

Complaints: the procedure, the form, and the log

Title VI complaints need a written procedure, a form, and a log, all available to the public. The circular asks every recipient to post the procedure and form on its website. Oregon’s handbook spells out what a procedure should say: how to file and by when, how and when you respond, how to appeal your response, and that the rider may also file with the state DOT or FTA. Its form asks for the complainant’s contact details, the protected class involved, the dates, and a description of what happened.

The log follows each complaint from filing to outcome. For each complaint, investigation, or lawsuit alleging race, color, or national origin discrimination, record the date filed, a summary of the allegation, its status, and the action you took or the final finding. Oregon asks subrecipients to include a sample of the log in the plan without the details of specific complaints, and to keep the full log ready for the state or FTA to review.

A rider can skip you and go straight to FTA, which takes written complaints filed within 180 days of the alleged discrimination (49 CFR 21.11). Chapter IX of the circular says FTA then asks the recipient to answer the allegations in writing and closes with a letter of finding, either no violation, or a violation with proposed remedies and a deadline. Intimidating or retaliating against a complainant is itself a violation.

One practical point if you also handle disability complaints: FTA’s ADA circular allows a single process for both, but warns against a “Title VI complaint form” that lists disability, since disability is not a Title VI basis. Use one discrimination complaint form that names both laws and keeps them distinct. The ADA complaint guide covers the disability side.

Language assistance and public participation

The language assistance plan rests on a four-factor analysis: how many riders with limited English you carry or may encounter, how often they use your service, how important the service is to them, and what resources you have. The circular then has you write a plan that, at minimum, reports the results, describes help by language, explains how riders learn help is available, says how you monitor and update the plan, and covers staff training. Its safe harbor for written translation turns on language groups of 1,000 people or 5 percent of those eligible, whichever is less.

The public participation plan is largely yours to shape. The circular leaves wide latitude on how and how often you engage the public, based on who you serve and the resources you have. Oregon asks subrecipients to keep yearly records of their public participation activities, so note each rider meeting, survey, or outreach event as it happens.

What the 2025 and 2026 changes did, and what still applies

The core program survived the federal changes of the last two years. In 2025, Executive Order 14224 revoked the 2000 order on limited English proficiency, and on March 21, 2025 the Justice Department withdrew its Title VI language guidance. The language access guide covers what those changes mean for rides. The Justice Department’s notice still warns that a refusal to provide language services may, in some cases, point to discrimination based on national origin or disability. Two 2026 rules changed Title VI itself:

• June 11, 2026. DOT removed disparate-impact liability from its Title VI rule, 49 CFR Part 21. It said program submissions should get shorter without disparate-impact and disproportionate-burden policies, and named the facility siting equity analysis and the fixed-route service and fare equity analyses among the affected items. The rule left 21.9, which requires compliance reports and notice to riders, and 21.11 on complaints and retaliation unchanged.
• July 24, 2026. HHS made the matching change to 45 CFR Part 80, its own Title VI rule.

FTA’s Title VI page still points to Circular 4702.1B, and the circular’s language section is built on DOT’s 2005 guidance. Until FTA reissues the circular, keep the program’s chapter III parts, and ask your state DOT before you drop any section from the copy it collects.

Medicaid-only fleets: no FTA program, same core duty

A company that carries only Medicaid riders does not write an FTA Title VI program, but Title VI still applies through the Medicaid money. HHS’s rule bars recipients of its funds from excluding or discriminating against anyone on the ground of race, color, or national origin (45 CFR 80.3), requires them to make information about those protections available to riders (80.6(d)), and gives riders 180 days to complain (80.7(b)). Brokers repeat it. The Rhode Island handbook MTM revised on July 1, 2026 says Title VI and HHS’s implementing rule, 45 CFR Part 80, apply to every transportation provider under contract.

For a Medicaid fleet, the notice and language duties mostly come from the Section 1557 rule: notices of language help in the state’s top 15 languages, qualified interpreters, and written procedures. The language access guide covers those in full.

Keeping the program current

Plan for a three-year cycle with a few standing tasks in between. Oregon’s handbook, written for its transit subrecipients, gives a workable order for each update, roughly:

1. Review the program, the language documents, and the public participation plan.
2. Check that the notice, the complaint steps, and the form are posted where the plan says, in the languages it names.
3. Refresh the demographic data behind the four-factor analysis.
4. Send a draft to the state for comments.
5. Update the committee makeup table, if you have one, and fix what the state flagged.
6. Take the final plan to your board, then send the state proof of approval.
7. File the approved plan and the state’s completion letter.

Between updates, log every Title VI complaint the day it arrives, and report it to your funder if the funder asks for complaints as they occur, as Oregon does. Use the complaint log template for the day-to-day record.

Keeping drivers on the same page in HealthRide

When the notice wording or the complaint process changes, every driver needs the new version. HealthRide’s team chat lets dispatch post one announcement to every driver and see who has read it. Each trip’s recorded times, driver, and van give you the facts a complaint log entry needs when a rider reports a problem.