To help support the work of OTSF, we ask that our transit agency members contribute a $2000/year voluntary licensing fee for using the OneBusAway software. While this is entirely voluntary, many of our transit agency members do so; those who have contributed are noted on our members page. We believe that this investment in OneBusAway and related projects more than pays for itself in improved software and services for the agency’s riders! By structuring this as a licensing fee, we have found that this was simpler for agencies to accommodate in their budgets.
So far, the fees have enabled us to do the legal work to establish OTSF as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, as well as for ongoing operational expenses. Once we have sufficient funds, we plan to hire a part-time Communications Manager, who will coordinate our outreach and other communication efforts, particularly to bring additional transit agencies on board the project. Much of the software development work on the server side is being done as part of service contracts with transit agencies, but we are particularly in need of additional support on the app development and maintenance side. Please see the OneBusAway Project Roadmap for a detailed list of planned projects. Also, one of the hallmarks of the project has long been a strong interest in supporting accessibility for blind, deaf blind, and low vision riders; and we would very much like to have funds to keep an accessibility consultant on retainer to help us assess and improve our systems, and to assist and broaden our outreach to the disability communities.