Hospital staff,
moved by the shift clock.

No. Seattle Shuttle is a staff and employee transportation service. We do not move patients in any capacity — not ambulatory, not wheelchair, not discharge, not non-emergency medical transport. Patient transport is a regulated service category requiring NEMT licensure, specific driver training, vehicle configuration, and compliance posture that we deliberately don't operate in. If your facility needs patient-side transportation, we'll refer you to licensed NEMT operators in the Puget Sound region.

No, and we don't represent ourselves as one. Because we transport staff and employees rather than patients, we don't handle Protected Health Information (PHI), don't receive PHI from the facility, and don't function as a HIPAA business associate. We will not sign a BAA we can't honor. If your transportation scope requires a HIPAA-covered vendor — which is typical for any patient-side service — we are not the right vendor for that scope. Vendors who claim HIPAA compliance without an operational program behind it are a liability, and we'd rather decline the work than misrepresent it.

Lift-equipped Sprinter vehicles are available on request for any tier. ADA-accessible service for staff who use wheelchairs falls cleanly within our campus-operations scope — securement points, trained operators, and routing that respects the additional load and unload time. This is different from medical wheelchair transport (NEMT), which involves regulated patient-side service. The distinction is the relationship to the rider: staff transportation in a campus context, not medical service.

A standing shuttle route can typically be operational within two to three weeks of contract signing. The bottleneck is usually health-system vendor onboarding paperwork rather than our side — once we have a signed contract and vendor approval, route walk, schedule confirmation, and soft launch can complete inside two weeks. Emergency-coverage scenarios (vendor failure, sudden parking displacement) can be operational inside 72 hours with day-rate billing while contracted service is negotiated.

Service modifications during inclement weather are pre-negotiated in the contract, not decided in the moment. Standard protocol: continued service with longer headways during light snow; route modifications during moderate weather; suspension and rebooking during conditions that close the hospital itself or trigger official "no unnecessary travel" advisories. The facility ops team is notified the night before when forecasts indicate likely modifications, with confirmation by 4 AM service day.

Yes, for circulator and annual-contract scope. Branded wraps make the shuttle read as part of the campus rather than as an outside vendor, which improves staff adoption and reduces the "is this my ride" confusion at pickup points. Wrap costs are quoted separately and amortized over the contract term; designs are produced in coordination with the health-system marketing or facilities branding office. For day-rate or short-term scope, unbranded vehicles are the default.

Yes, when the facility requires it. Many health systems mandate vendor orientation covering campus access, emergency procedures, security protocols, infection control awareness (for vendors who work near clinical areas), and identification badge issuance. Our drivers complete the orientation before assignment to the route and re-attest annually. The orientation requirement is built into the onboarding timeline rather than retrofitted after service begins.

Monthly invoicing on the first business day for service rendered the previous month. Line-item detail includes vehicle assignment, total service hours, route exceptions, and any contract-negotiated adjustments. Optional ridership reporting available — monthly headcount by route segment and shift window if the facility wants the data for parking utilization or HR analytics. Net 30 terms from invoice date, paid by ACH or check at the facility's preference.