(

a) The department shall adopt guidelines for the making of loans and for the purchase and lease of vanpool vehicles. The guidelines shall, in the case of loans, include, but not be limited to, a procedure to evaluate the vanpool operator’s ability to repay the loan in a timely fashion, as well as the need for the vanpool vehicle and other criteria for selecting applicants. The department shall assign priority in the following descending order:

(1) Vanpools operating on routes with no alternative public transportation.

(2) Vanpool operators applying for loans or grants for new vanpool vehicles.

(3) Applicants having previous successful experience as vanpool operators.

(4) Vanpool operators applying for loans or grants for replacement vanpool vehicles. For purposes of this paragraph, the vanpool vehicle to be replaced shall be at least four years old or have operated 250,000 or more miles, or both. (

b) Concurrently with the award of each loan or grant, the department shall require each applicant to comply with subdivision (

h) of

Section of the Vehicle Code and

Section of the Vehicle Code, and the insurance coverage requirements of the department. The guidelines shall also set forth the limitations on the nonwork-trip use of the vanpool vehicle, the maximum percentage of the cost of a vanpool vehicle which may be covered by a loan or grant under this chapter, and other requirements determined to be necessary by the department. (

c) Chapter 3.5 (commencing with

Section 11340) of Part of Division of Title of the Government Code does not apply to the adoption of the guidelines.