Georgia DHS Transportation Manual in 2027: How Coordinated Transportation Contracts and Subcontracts Work

The Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) runs its own ride system, Coordinated Transportation, for people its programs serve. It is human service transportation, not Medicaid: the trips go to senior centers, job training, behavioral health services, and family services appointments. The rules sit in one document, the DHS Transportation Manual (MAN1425). Version 2.0 took effect November 1, 2025 and replaces the July 1, 2023 version still posted on the DHS website.

Medicaid rides work differently. Since April 1, 2026, Verida has arranged Medicaid NEMT trips in all five of Georgia’s Medicaid regions as the state’s broker, and the Georgia guide and the Verida in Georgia page explain how to join that network.

Who rides and who pays

The Transportation Services Section (TSS), inside the DHS Office of Facilities and Support Services, runs the system. It serves clients of three DHS divisions and two partner agencies:

• Division of Aging Services. People 60 and older, with priority for those in the greatest social and economic need. Trips to and from senior centers come first, then medical appointments such as dialysis and chemotherapy, then preventive care, shopping, and other errands.
• Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS). TANF and SNAP clients going to work, job training, and job search, plus medical, mental health, child welfare, and foster care trips. A DFCS case manager must approve each rider in advance.
• Division of Child Support Services. Trips that support Parental Accountability Courts.
• Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). People with disabilities going to work, mental health appointments, community training, and medical care.
• Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA). Trips to school, work, job search, job training, and assessments, once a vocational counselor approves the rider.

The programs that serve each rider, such as senior centers and agency offices, are called Human Service Providers (HSPs). Their staff decide who rides and book the trips. Before enrolling anyone, the HSP must check whether the person can get Medicaid or Medicare transportation, and a person who can is not enrolled until those benefits run out. Funding is set each year, and an HSP may not book past its allocation, so trips can shrink when money runs short.

How regions, offices, and prime contractors fit together

DHS buys rides through purchase of service contracts in each of its 12 regions. Regional Transportation Offices (RTOs), each covering one or more regions, monitor contractors, manage funding and fleet, and coordinate trips. Contractors can be state agencies, counties, regional government bodies, private nonprofits, or for-profit companies.

In many regions the contract goes to one lead provider, the prime contractor, often a regional commission. A prime can run the trips itself or hand them to subcontractors. It is also responsible for its subcontractors: it inspects their vehicles and files, administers corrective action plans, and ends a subcontract when a company fails to perform.

Each region also has a Regional Transportation Coordinating Committee (RTCC), made up mainly of regional managers from the agencies that use the system. It meets at least three times a year, may set rules stricter than the manual, and votes each year on whether to renew each contract. Contractors attend as invitees but cannot vote on evaluations or renewals.

Who holds the prime contracts

DHS’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise plan, updated March 1, 2025, is its latest published list of prime contractors and their subcontractors. Regional commissions held most of the area-wide contracts:

Area	Prime contractor	Its subcontractors
Metro Atlanta, 10 counties	Atlanta Regional Commission	County governments and a county senior services agency
Savannah and Brunswick, 9 counties	Coastal Regional Commission	Its regional transit service and two behavioral health agencies
Dublin and Vidalia, 17 counties	Heart of Georgia Altamaha Regional Commission	A transportation company, a community service board, and Wayne County
Macon, 11 counties	Middle Georgia Regional Commission	One local agency, Macon-Bibb EOC
Athens, 12 counties	Northeast Georgia Regional Commission	County transit, senior centers, a council on aging, and transportation companies
Columbus and Americus, 16 counties	River Valley Regional Commission	Transportation companies, county transit, and local agencies
Valdosta, Waycross, and Tifton, 18 counties	Southern Georgia Regional Commission	One transportation company
Albany and Thomasville, 14 counties	Southwest Georgia Regional Commission	Two transportation companies and a county transit system
LaGrange, Newnan, and Griffin, 10 counties	Three Rivers Regional Commission	County transit, a transportation company, and a training center

The plan also named two nonprofits for large areas. Deanna Specialty Transportation held the Augusta area, the north Georgia mountain counties around Gainesville, and Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett, and Rockdale counties. Transit Alliance Group held 17 northwest counties, from Cobb and Douglas to Dade and Whitfield.

The north has changed since then. As of October 2026, Verida says it is the DHS transportation broker for Region 1, the northwest counties, and it takes subcontractors through its Request for Qualifications at DHSSubcontractors@verida.com. In the mountain counties, Habersham County signed on as a Verida subcontractor for DHS senior rides starting July 1, 2025, with Verida named as the new DHS contractor.

The plan’s smaller primes each served one county or city: the Cherokee, Fulton, Henry, and Jefferson county governments, the City of Palmetto, Clayton Center Community Service Board, and three nonprofits in Fulton, Dougherty, and Richmond counties. Primes can change at each yearly renewal, so confirm who holds your area before you build plans around it.

How prime contracts are awarded and renewed

DHS uses two routes, depending on who the contractor is:

1. Competitive bid. A new contract with a company that is not a government body or nonprofit goes out as an electronic request for proposals (eRFP) on Team Georgia Marketplace, the state’s bid site. You send questions in writing to the issuing officer by the deadline in the schedule of events, and the award goes to the proposal with the best overall value to the state. The manual says a procurement can take about 180 days from issue to award. The notice of intent to award is posted for 10 days, and a protest stops the process until the state resolves it. For help with the site, the DOAS help desk is at 404-657-6000, weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
2. Renewal or intergovernmental agreement. Renewals, and agreements with governments, nonprofits, and quasi-governmental bodies, skip the eRFP. DHS sends a Notice of Intent to Contract, and you have 60 days to confirm and send the requested documents to the RTO. You may be asked to take part in an annual regional review before rates and terms are negotiated.

Contracts run one state fiscal year, July 1 to June 30. To renew, DHS needs your letter of intent at least 90 calendar days before the contract starts. With funding, good performance, favorable evaluations from riders and agencies, and an RTCC vote, DHS can renew up to four times, five years in a row, without a new bid. If you are not renewed, you can ask the Commissioner’s Office to review the decision.

At renewal you send a letter of intent, a tax compliance form, a security and immigration compliance affidavit, a certificate of insurance, your vehicle list, a W-9, a supplier change request, and, for a nonprofit, a corporate resolution. See government NEMT contracts for how to read a public bid and price it.

How rates and payment work

DHS pays a negotiated rate per trip. The prime works out its cost of doing business and divides it by the number of trips the RTO expects. It sends a cost proposal with cost and budget reports, TSS checks them against past rates for each trip type, and the negotiation ends in a rate schedule. When a contract uses funds that need a local match, the contractor also files a report of certified or in-kind cost.

Payment follows federal transit prompt payment rules. DHS pays within 30 days of receiving the contractor’s invoice. A subcontractor is paid within 30 days after the prime receives payment for its work, and the same 30 days applies down each tier. Before the prime can approve an invoice, it must enter last month’s payments to its subcontractors in eTRIPS, the DHS trip system, so DHS can track prompt payment. Ask any prime you work under how its own invoice calendar runs.

No-shows are paid. If the driver waits at least 5 minutes past the pickup time and you tell the HSP within 3 business hours, DHS pays the no-show at the completed-trip rate. After 3 no-shows in a row, the rider is deactivated and future trips are cancelled until the HSP books them again.

Running trips in eTRIPS

HSPs register riders and book trips in eTRIPS. The contractor’s side works like this:

1. Pull the manifest every day for the next day’s trips, check for duplicates and changes, and save a copy. eTRIPS does not connect to other dispatch systems, so changes must be entered by hand.
2. Run the trips. Core hours are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays, though trips outside them must be covered when scheduled. Answer phones and email from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, keep a voicemail line, and accept cancellations around the clock.
3. Mark every trip completed, no-show, or cancelled by the next business day. A subcontractor marks its own trips, the prime confirms them by the next business day, and the HSP approves them.

Trips scheduled within the allowed time frames carry no right of refusal. If you cannot take one, record the date and time of the request, the rider, the ordering agency, and the reason. Riders from different agencies can share a vehicle, but the manual sets two limits:

• Pickup window. 20 minutes, from 10 minutes before to 10 minutes after the estimated pickup time.
• Ride time. No rider spends more than 45 minutes beyond their average travel time from pickup to destination.

Report urgent accidents and incidents to 911 and to the RTO within 2 hours, on the manual’s Appendix 24 form. After the RTO files its own report, you have 3 business days to send the follow-up report on Appendix 25. Complaints about a subcontractor are reviewed by its prime, and the parties have 10 days to ask for a case review of the result.

Driver rules every subcontractor must meet

The prime must make sure every subcontractor’s drivers qualify. Under version 2.0 of the manual, each driver must:

• Be at least 21 with 3 years of driving experience and a license of the right class. A CDL is needed for vehicles designed for 16 or more people or rated 26,001 pounds or more.
• Pass a records check. A certified 7-year motor vehicle report from the Department of Driver Services at hire, later reports covering at least 3 years, and no 6 or more points, suspension, or revocation in the past 5 years. Keep the two most recent reports on file.
• Pass a fingerprint check through the Georgia Crime Information Center and the FBI, using Georgia Applicant Processing Services and choosing “direct elder care” when you register. A conviction for a sexual or violent crime disqualifies a driver.
• Report arrests and convictions to the employer within 5 calendar days, and any license suspension at once.
• Finish training within 90 days of hire, at the contractor’s expense: general orientation, passenger assistance, safety, and sensitivity, certified first aid and CPR, defensive driving, and wheelchair securement. The manual ties this list to the federal ADA training rule, 49 CFR 37.173.
• Be in a drug and alcohol program with pre-employment, random, reasonable suspicion, and post-accident tests, at random rates that match FMCSA’s. Keep positive results and refusals 5 years, negative results 1 year, and collection records 2 years. See NEMT driver drug testing.

Each driver has a Driver Qualification File with the license, motor vehicle reports and annual reviews, the fingerprint check, any accidents or violations, and proof of each course. DHS inspects every file when a driver starts and every year after. Drivers may not use a phone while driving, even hands-free, may not accept tips, and may not enter a rider’s home except in an emergency. The driver file checklist helps you build these files.

Vehicle rules and inspections

Every vehicle must pass the manual’s list before it carries a DHS rider. Some items owners miss:

• Age. DHS recommends vehicles less than 15 years old.
• Boarding. A sturdy metal step stool with four anti-skid legs, 8.25 inches high, where a lift or ramp does not serve. A milk crate or plastic stool never counts.
• Safety gear. At least 2 seat belt extensions, a seat belt cutter, 3 reflective triangles (no flares), a dry chemical fire extinguisher for Class A, B, and C fires, a first aid kit, and a spill kit.
• Signs and papers. “No Smoking, Eating or Drinking” and seat belt signs, the Title VI language poster, and an information packet with registration, insurance cards, and a language identification card.
• Two-way communication in every vehicle, and markings that clearly name the transportation company.
• Emissions testing for vehicles in 13 metro Atlanta counties.
• Wheelchair vans. ADA specifications under 49 CFR part 38, a raised roof with 56 inches of clearance, a working lift with a manual backup, handrails, a shoulder and lap belt, and four floor straps in good condition.

The DHS Office of Facilities and Support Services inspects every contractor vehicle once a year, with two weeks’ notice, and may also inspect at random. Have the vehicle files and driver files ready: an annual safety inspection by a certified mechanic, repair and maintenance records, the insurance declarations page, your drug and alcohol policy, and daily vehicle inspection sheets. A vehicle that is “redlined” leaves service at once. Other problems get a corrective action, and you have 30 days to fix them. Private contractors whose vehicles weigh 10,001 pounds or more or seat 10 or more people including the driver must also register with the Georgia Department of Public Safety, as the Georgia guide explains.

Insurance for primes and subcontractors

Version 2.0 of the manual sets these minimums for a prime contractor that runs its own vehicles:

• Workers’ compensation at Georgia statutory limits.
• General liability of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate.
• Auto liability of $3 million combined single limit for vehicles with 15 or fewer seats, or $5 million above 15.
• Umbrella of $2 million.

Policies must come from insurers licensed in Georgia, and a contractor running privately owned vehicles needs an insurer rated A- or better by A.M. Best, with a printout of the rating sent to the RTO. The certificate of insurance goes to the RTO within 10 business days after the state’s notice of intent to award.

The prime sets and checks the limits for its subcontractors, so ask each prime for its terms. Verida’s terms for northwest Georgia subcontractors are on the Verida in Georgia page.

How to get DHS work in your region

1. Find your prime. Start with the list above, then ask the regional commission’s transportation staff, who work with the Regional Transportation Office, to confirm who holds the contract today.
2. Ask about openings. Primes add subcontractors through their own procurement. Ask for the next solicitation, the counties short on service, and the prime’s insurance and file requirements.
3. Build your files first. Driver qualification files, drug testing, and the five courses take weeks, and the prime and DHS will inspect them.
4. Price from your costs. Work out your cost per trip from real costs and expected trips, the same way DHS builds a rate.
5. Watch for bids. Register on Team Georgia Marketplace for eRFPs, and check regional commission bid pages for subcontract openings. Certified disadvantaged business enterprises can contact DHS’s DBE program at 404-387-4358.

Senior center trips come first for aging riders, the same riders the area agency on aging guide covers. If you already drive for Verida, keep each program’s trips, records, and billing separate, and see subcontracting NEMT trips for how to read a prime’s subcontract before you sign.