Show us a smooth-running Demand Response (DR) Transportation System, and we’re certain that there are friendly, qualified and knowledgeable people behind its success.
Whether you are a public entity, a nonprofit, or a private provider of ‘by appointment only’ ride services, if you want to run efficiently, cost-effectively, and with unparalleled safety and service, then you must employ a team of highly trained professionals who truly care about providing the highest quality standards to each and every consumer.
If you are like the Kiessling team, you know that any DR transportation system is only as strong as the people that it is built on, including the schedulers who answer your customers’ calls and the drivers who attend to your passengers’ needs.
With nearly 50 years of industry experience, our second generation, family-owned transportation company has become one of the leaders in providing Demand Response services throughout Massachusetts and beyond. We not only have a strong understanding of the unique requirements of this type of service, but, more important, over the many decades we’ve been doing business, we have created a top-notch employee training, accreditation, and oversight program. Utilizing all the advantages that modern technology provides, and having a comprehensive and systematic hiring process in place, helps us attract and retain excellent candidates for any of your transit system needs. Kiessling truly is the industry expert at bringing in the best new employees and training them for success at every stage of the employment process.
Kiessling is contracted with a variety of regional transit authorities, state agencies and local municipalities to transport special needs passengers, including Metrowest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA) and Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA). Through these partnerships, Kiessling manages critical transportation services for communities across Massachusetts including: Ashland, Franklin, Framingham, Foxboro, Marlborough, Natick, Norfolk, Southborough, Wayland, Wrentham, and more. The Kiessling team takes our role in providing these services very seriously; we are committed to ensuring that passengers receive the support they need all the way through the transportation process, from booking their trip, to being picked up on time, to safely getting them to their destination(s) and home again at the end of their trip.
From daily trips to and from residences, work sites, and schools, to the occasional ride for medical appointments and social events, our team has vast experience providing transportation services to ambulatory and non-ambulatory consumers with a wide range of disabilities.
When you partner with Kiessling Transit to provide the optimal Demand Response transportation services to your constituents, you are making a choice to work with an industry leader and a highly skilled team that will:
Find the most efficient way to schedule ride requests
Minimize vehicle slack time and improve productivity
Ensure passengers arrive to their appointments safely and on time
Do everything we can to accommodate you and your customers
Use the most up-to-date transportation software and hardware systems
Closely monitor drivers, routing, quality controls, and loss management
Provide stringent driver and staff training
Make any necessary changes to improve service
The Kiessling family has grown this company from a home-based operation with a few employees and vehicles into an industry leader and model for providing Demand Response services. Today, we are not only a family business known for our integrity and transparency, but we are also recognized for our determination to find innovative ways to gain efficiencies and improve performance levels. From our leadership team, to our monitors and dispatchers, to our call takers and schedulers, the driving force behind everything we do is that we aim to provide our customers and passengers with the highest standards of service and safety.
Kiessling is driven to make your Demand Response Transportation Services the model for the industry. To achieve this goal, the Kiessling team will stay focused and attentive to the following principles as we support your operations:
Every decision we make is based upon how it will affect our relationships with you, our customer, and your passengers. This is not just a management philosophy; this attitude is pervasive company-wide, from drivers and dispatchers, to call takers and schedulers, to customer relations and insurance claims processors.
There are no hoops to jump through when you need to get an issue resolved or a question answered. We pick up the phone right away, return emails promptly, and respond immediately anytime you need assistance.
Kiessling is operated directly by its owners, Lars and Roger Kiessling, the sons of the original founders, Carl and Paula Kiessling. They are proactive owners who have done pretty much every job in the company, including driving vehicles, changing tires, and checking oil. Along with a very experienced management team, the Kiesslings will be involved in the day-to-day operations, and, if you ever need to speak with Lars or Roger, all you have to do is call.
The Kiessling name is on the side of all our vehicles for a reason; we want our customers and our passengers to know who we are and that we are committed to providing a quality product that lives up to our name and the company that Paula and Carl Kiessling built. We believe if you ask any one of our customers to describe Kiessling, they will say we are upfront, honest, and transparent and that we always operate with the highest level of integrity.
Kiessling is well-known for our strict safety guidelines and industry leading driver training program. We deliver a level of training, accreditation and oversight to our employees that we believe is already far beyond what others provide. Yet, we are constantly pushing ourselves to do even better because safety has always been, and will remain, paramount in everything we do. To this end, we recently joined TRAX Insurance, Ltd, an invite-only insurance captive that caters to only the safest of passenger transportation companies with the lowest insurance claim histories.
We know that you don’t want to disappoint the community or the passengers that are counting on you for their daily rides. We are confident that our team, led by Lars and Roger Kiessling, will facilitate a successful and smooth transition and will provide overall excellent service to all participants.
There are many reasons you could be interested in learning more about Kiessling. Whether you need a knowledgeable partner for a new demand response service or you are looking for a new, more attentive partner for your current demand response transportation routes, our entire team is eager for the opportunity to put our transportation experience to work for you. Contact us today to discuss all your Demand Response Transportation Services needs!
Demand Response is a federally mandated ride-sharing service that was implemented to ensure that disabled individuals and people over the age of 60 years old have equal access to public transportation.
Kiessling Transit is proud to partner with the Metrowest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA) and Greater Attleboro Taunton Regional Transit Authority (GATRA) to provide these critical transportation services for communities across Massachusetts including: Ashland, Franklin, Framingham, Foxboro, Marlborough, Natick, Norfolk, Southborough, Wayland, Wrentham, and more. While the passenger sedans and wheelchair accessible vehicles used to provide this service are supplied by the authorities, themselves, the Kiessling team is responsible for ensuring that you receive the support you need all the way through the ride process, from booking your trip, to being picked up on time, to safely getting you to your destination(s) and home again at the end of your trip.
As a potential passenger, the first thing to understand is whether you are eligible to take advantage of Demand Response ride services offered in your community, such as Dial-A-Ride.
Qualified individuals for this type of curb-to-curb transportation service will be individuals who:
Have a disability that limits one major life function and you cannot, because of this disability, use public transportation
Have a disability and associated conditions and thus you are not able to use public fixed-route transportation
Are age 60 or older
If you need assistance to and from the vehicle, you may bring an aide. An aide must be acting as a personal care assistant (PCA to ride for free), and must have the same origin and destination as the scheduled passenger.
At Kiessling, we know that public transportation demand response services, such as Dial-a-Ride, give qualified individuals like you a real sense of freedom. Our team is passionate about helping you keep your important medical appointments, run essential errands, and get you where you need to go, anywhere in Massachusetts, safely and efficiently.
Once you’re eligible, scheduling a ride for yourself or someone in your care is as easy as 1-2-3:
Please have your trip information ready when you call, including exact address and requested travel times. You can reserve your ride as much as two weeks in advance of your trip or you can schedule an appointment as late as 4:00 p.m. the day before the trip.
GATRA service area: (800) 698-7676
MWRTA service area: (508) 820-4650
The night before your ride, we will call you to confirm all your booking details, including trip times. If you need to cancel your ride, please call the office in your area. If you do need to cancel or reschedule your trip, please provide at least one hour notice prior to your scheduled pick-up time; otherwise, we have to consider you a no-show for your ride and will not be able to send a vehicle out for this same trip.
Step 3. Please be ready for pick-up. Your ride may arrive between 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after your scheduled pick-up time. If you are not ready when your vehicle arrives, our drivers will do our best to accommodate your needs without interfering with the rest of the day’s schedule. Unfortunately, this means that we generally cannot wait more than 5 minutes for any individual passenger to show up for their ride.
Just like his brother Lars, Roger grew up around the family business, and took a similar path through the company. Since 1985, Roger has served in various functions at Kiessling, from janitorial, to monitor and driver, to project manager.
Roger’s first full-time role with the company was no small undertaking. He was tasked to to manage the start-up for a whole new territory of service for the MBTA and to oversees enhancements to the company’s Braintree facility in order to support this new business. The fact that the operation was up and running effectively from day one is a testimony to Roger’s unparalleled operational skills.
For the last 20 years, Roger has played a major role in all of Kiessling’s new route mobilizations, including managing vehicle and equipment delivery, overseeing hiring and training of personnel, monitoring service quality levels, assuring regulatory and contractual compliance, and acting as liaison with transit authorities and advisory groups. Over the past two years, Roger led two of Kiessling’s most significant start-ups – Demand Response services for the MetroWest Regional Transit Authority (MWRTA) in 2015 and Fixed Route services for the MWRTA in 2016.
Throughout his Kiessling career, Roger has been exposed to all facets of the paratransit business and, in total, has been responsible for an average of 300,000 trips per year over the course of seven years.
My family has been in the transportation services industry for over 48 years so we do consider ourselves experts in this area, and, in particular, in providing safe and reliable transport for people with disabilities. Our team understands that each passenger has unique needs. We also know that, among the various agencies we serve, each has its own distinct requirements as well. Kiessling is committed to doing our very best every day to ensure that every party gets the service that they want in the most professional, efficient, and kind way.
While Roger has never completely left the transportation industry, he did take a brief hiatus from Kiessling to sail tall ships around Boston Harbor. The boats he captained include the Voyager II and Doc Edgerton for the New England Aquarium, the Schooner Liberty, and the Admiral’s Lady.
Originally from Walpole, MA, Roger now lives in Maine with wife and family. However, since becoming President of Kiessling, in 2017 you are most likely to find Roger hard at work in our Norfolk, MA office as well as our Framingham, MA MWRTA office supporting any new contracts, rolling out innovation ideas, and ensuring that our daily operations are running smoothly.
Over the course of the 13 years that Jon has been with Kiessling Transit, he has held many roles and taken on a variety of responsibilities. Essentially, Jon’s path has paralleled the trajectory of the company. As Kiessling Transit has transformed and grown in the past decade into a leader within the transportation industry, so too has Jon developed from an IT professional and office administrator at the company to a key executive of the organization.
Jon is both a longtime friend and employee of the Kiesslings, having joined the company in 2004. At the time of his hiring, Kiessling was entering into a new MBTA RIDE contract that required a fully dedicated IT person to manage all facets of the company’s technical infrastructure, systems and support. The Kiesslings hired Jon for this critical role for many reasons, including his expert problem-solving skills, his ability to effectively streamline business practices, and, most important, his collaborative and easygoing demeanor. During Kiessling’s contract management of the MBTA’s THE RIDE services on the South Shore, Jon was solely responsible for managing the Wide Area Network (WAN) installation connecting Kiessling’s Norfolk location with the MBTA’s 10 Park Plaza offices in downtown Boston. Jon has also successfully led a number of company projects, with a heavy emphasis on software migrations of multiple company on-premise systems ranging from Microsoft Exchange/Office365 to cloud based Payroll/HR solutions, many which trimmed annual company IT costs significantly.
Today, as Vice President of Operations, Jon works in lockstep with the Kiessling owners, Lars and Roger, and, with great attention to detail, he oversees all the day-to-day operations at the company. His responsibilities include investigating, recommending, installing and upgrading all company software and reviewing company backups of all databases. Jon’s quick thinking and response time, as well as his proactive IT planning, mean that equipment downtime and other operational issues are kept to a minimum.
It’s truly exciting to see the impact that my team and I have had on improving the practices and processes at Kiessling and at our partner companies. Our goal is always to go above and beyond to help our clients accomplish their desired goals. I look forward to helping you make positive changes at your place of business and a genuine difference in the lives of the people you employ and serve.
Before joining the Kiessling team, Jon was already an accomplished manager, operating internal IT departments and new system rollouts. He has held technical roles at a variety of Massachusetts-based companies, including serving as a systems administrator in the IT departments of both Centra Software Inc. (now SABA Software), in Lexington, MA, and TJX Companies in Framingham, MA. He was also a technical recruiter at Judge.com, previously located in Needham, MA.
Jon grew up in Walpole, MA and now lives close by in Wrentham, MA. He earned a Management Information Systems degree from Salve Regina University in 2000.
While leading the operations team at Kiessling is a consuming job, Jon makes sure to build in time for his family, friends and sports. He devotedly coaches his sons’ athletic teams and loves the opportunity this gives him to watch them grow on many different levels. Jon’s other favorite pastimes include attending concerts and Patriots games, enjoying local restaurants, and playing many, many rounds of terrible golf!
Lars grew up alongside the growth of his parents’ transportation company and, as early as high school, was already contributing to the family business. However, Lars worked his way up the ladder at Kiessling Transit just like every other employee has had to, starting in part-time roles at first, such as janitor, monitor, driver, and maintenance inspection team line member.
After attending Babson College and focusing on Business Management and Entrepreneurial Studies, Lars joined Kiessling as a full-time employee in 1994. His responsibilities grew to managing business development, contract negotiations, controller, and personnel management and he was charged with taking the company to the next level of efficiency and payroll control, much of which he accomplished through innovation and technology.
For the last fifteen years, Lars has managed transportation routing and cost controls and has been responsible for interviewing, hiring and reviewing Kiessling’s all-important team of drivers. In addition, Lars has been responsible for office staffing and training and handles the bulk of contract negotiations on the company’s behalf. Lars was Kiessling’s Chief Financial Officer for several years before moving into his current position as Chief Executive Officer.
My brother Roger and I have always believed in the importance of a hands-on management style. We are constantly brainstorming with our team to find ways to improve every part of our service model and pushing ourselves and our staff to do better each day in our operations. With our name on the side of our vehicles, we are committed to making sure everything goes right every single day.
The communities that Kiessling serves are much more than just places of business for Lars and his family. He grew up in Walpole and the surrounding Massachusetts towns, and still lives in the area, so Kiessling customers and passengers are truly his friends and neighbors. That is why it is even more important to him that the company remains committed to having a family atmosphere, to treating all people with great respect, and to always displaying integrity in all business interactions.