What do the NFL and AC Transit have in common? Neither may have service this weekend.
Most NFL teams open training camps this weekend. Players are starting to filter into their respective camps and prepare for another season of professional football. That is with the exception of the first round of this year’s draft class. As it stands now (Thursday afternoon), only three first round draft picks have signed contracts. The remaining picks are all waiting on the number one pick, Sam Bradford, to sign with St. Louis so they can base their contracts off his.
AC Transit is facing its own group of first round draft hold outs. When contract negotiations broke down with the union representing its operators and mechanics, AC Transit’s board imposed a contract.
I’m not going to get into the middle of this fight. Each side has good reason for following it’s convictions. I don’t have a problem with sticking up for what you believe in. What I do have a problem with is how the AC Transit union members are going about demonstrating their disapproval.
Rather than calling a strike, there have been numerous union members “calling in sick” and not showing up for work. AC Transit has had to cut service already and is considering ending weekend service for the time being.
This “sick out” isn’t unheard of, but it’s bad business. Much like when an NFL player holds out for more money, this does nothing but hurt the people who value the service the most.
The NFL is facing a strike and lock out next season. Will it happen? I can’t say, but I can get behind players banding together and sticking up for their convictions. But what would you say if this season players just randomly called in sick and miss games. If games had to be forfeited because your team members didn’t show up for work.
That’s what the union is doing here. And frankly that doesn’t do anyone any good. The union looks bad. The agency looks bad. And transit itself looks bad.
You don’t like the contract? Fine. Strike and be done with it. This game of hide-and-go-to-work needs to end before the only thing gained by either side is more room on the buses after riders depart for good.
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday. For those interested in instant updates, you can now get your latest Mass Transit fix via Twitter.
Back in June the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent a clear signal about the availability of wireless broadband spectrum in the United States. “Spectrum is the oxygen of wireless, and the future of our mobile economy depends on spectrum recovery and smart spectrum policies,†said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Our nation’s ability to lead the world in innovation and technology is threatened by the lack of sufficient spectrum for wireless broadband applications and services.â€
The FCC was responding to the announcement by the Obama administration that, as part of the National Broadband Plan, it would support the freeing up of 500MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband services by 2020. Together with the FCC, the government will draw up a timetable and plan for such allocation by October 1. This has significant implications for broadband availability, not least in the public transportation sector where evolving data-intensive applications for connecting trains and buses to the Internet require more and more bandwidth. Frustration has been running high among transit operators who are under pressure to respond to federally mandated initiatives, including positive train control (PTC), yet are challenged by legacy narrowband technologies and the scarcity of suitable spectrum for the wider range of broadband applications. There’s little point expending vast amounts of money and resources in a rushed, knee-jerk response to government strong-arming when, in fact, the industry could do with calm and constructive consideration of all the possible bandwidth needs over the next 10 years and the creation of a proper road-map.
Last week two major events occurred in the wireless industry that could have immediate impact on these issues. First, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) announced that it was buying the network division of Motorola for $1.2 billion, which will include the latter’s mobile network infrastructure operations and customer base in North America. Motorola has major carrier customers including Verizon and Clearwire’s WiMAX business. The deal now ranks NSN as the third largest infrastructure provider in the United States after Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, and places NSN in the front line of 4G long term evolution (LTE) build-out. Moreover Motorola had a major market share in the public safety sector, and the acquisition gives NSN the opportunity to capitalize on 4G broadband data solutions for CCTV, for example, which is directly applicable to the mass transit market.
Second, in a week that must have been hectic for the company’s public relations team, NSN announced that it had won a $7 billion, eight-year contract to roll out a hybrid terrestrial/satellite wireless broadband network for newly formed operator LightSquared. The wholesale-only network will combine LTE and satellite technologies to cover an estimated 90 percent of the U.S. population coast to coast by 2015. In a move opposed by incumbent mobile carriers, the FCC recently relaxed rules to allow LightSquared to use a 59MHz block of spectrum for its terrestrial network that was originally reserved for satellite-only deployments. The company will utilize a mixture of band, including blocks at 1.4GHz, 1.6GHz and 2GHz; the seamless integration of LTE and satellite technologies is the world’s first, and the wholesale structure will allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to offer LightSquared’s network in verticals such as mass transit, logistics, public safety, healthcare and education.
This is significant because one key problem facing public transport and freight rail operators is the lack of a single carrier who can deliver consistent network coverage throughout a long haul journey. It is particularly problematic when vehicles pass through rural and remote areas where terrestrial 3G networks don’t reach. NSN and LightSquared plan to build in excess of 40,000 4G LTE base stations — filling in the gaps with two-way broadband satellite — and launch commercial services through partners in the second half of 2011. While this has huge potential for mass transit and freight applications, it could also help to move the United States up from its current ranking as 20th in the world in providing broadband access to its citizens.
While new arrivals such as LightSquared are helping define the future, spectrum usage in mass transit has grown organically over the years and is now spread without any particular coherence, including ETMS (electronic train management systems), monitoring and wayside signaling at 220MHz; trackside/platform broadband networks at 900MHz, 3.6GHz and 5GHz; and specialist 5.9GHz DSRC (dedicated short-range communications). The problem with these frequencies is that they need dedicated network infrastructure purpose-built, pushing the costs of deployment ever higher. Commercial mobile carriers have an opportunity to reserve slices of licensed spectrum specifically for mass transit use, should they find sufficient business justification. In Europe, 32 countries collaborated on the GSM for Railways (GSM-R) platform to provide secure and interoperable rail-centric communications in licensed mobile operator frequencies, and today NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are championing an evolution to LTE for railways, known as LTE-R.
If the mass transit industry can make a concerted effort to work with mobile carriers and systems integrators to analyze the business opportunity; determine the range of applications; and create a strategic plan for spectrum usage; then there is a much better likelihood that the transport industry will get the infrastructure and bandwidth it needs, while the mobile carriers will be able to further monetize their spectrum. That way everybody wins.
Jim Baker is managing partner at Xenventure, a market strategy and private equity firm based in San Francisco and London. A C-level wireless industry veteran, Baker has been involved in many deployments of wireless technologies on passenger transportation worldwide and is a recognized industry expert on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G convergence. He is an active member of the Joint Council on Transit Wireless Communications [http://www.transitwireless.org] which is developing a strategic plan for implementation of wireless technologies in mass transit. Contact Baker via LinkedIn.
Two weeks ago I wrote about customer service. Transit customers again are in the news. A recent article highlighted a gap between transit agency announcements and customer perceptions.
The New York Times reported Monday that passengers did not believe the on-time performance claims by New York City’s commuter railroads. Official claims were that better than 95 percent of the trains ran on time in 2009. The claims of on-time performance were used as a marketing tool. Many commuters disputed those claims.
On-time results varied between New York’s three major commuter railroads and by time of day. The New York Times investigation revealed that on-time performance problems happened mostly during rush hour. The majority of riders travel during rush hour. Rush hour travel times also have a high impact on business and personal agendas. Thus, late trips are also noticed most during time of day.
Rush hour trips account for about a third of the trips run. However, calculation of on-time performance was made based on all the trips made during the day. Consequently, the railroad agencies could claim 95 percent on-time performance. Apparently, the average on-time performance didn’t reflect the average customer experience.
Another recent article reports that Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) faces mounting rider frustration and mistrust. A combination of service cuts and rate hikes have given rise to a “Rider’s Rebellion.” “We will be asking riders to sign a riders’ bill of rights. This bill of rights outlines exactly what the state should be doing for the region’s eight million subway and bus riders — affordable fares, clean, safe, accessible stations. These are the types of things that riders should be getting for their fare money and they’re not”, said Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives.
Equipment failure also influences customer perceptions. A June 2010 FTA study states that a national backlog of $77.7 billion exists to bring all public transit assets up to date — including urban and rural transit operators — rail, bus, paratransit and vanpool (p. 1). About 900 passengers were stranded in MARC train cars when the locomotive broke down in June. The Maryland Department of Transportation spent $100 million to replace aging MARC system locomotives.
Amid budgets in crisis and aging equipment, demand for transit is still strong. Customers need reliable information. And transit agencies need to publicize success to promote ridership. A clear message is crucial. Customer dissatisfaction can arise from either a poorly crafted messages or from poor service. Service delivery must match the message. Promotion campaigns can backfire.
Mark Foss has more than 24 years experience working for King County Metro Transit. His experience includes work as a bus operator, special ridership coordinator in accessible services and 1st line transit supervisor. Currently, he works as a communications coordinator in the transit control center (TCC). Contact him via LinkedIn.
The last two weeks were filled up with talk about the Madison-Milwaukee Amtrak extension being built in my backyard (well, not literally). What got me excited most about this were the unseen benefits I found when taking a longer look at the new line.
If you haven’t heard from me (or just about any other news outlet), Wisconsin was one of the big winners in the FRA stimulus lotto earlier this year. The Badger State scored a little north of $800 million to upgrade the Milwaukee-Chicago Hiawatha line and expand it to Madison as the first leg toward a line bridging Chicago with the Twin Cities.
One stop along the new line happens to be in my hometown and last Tuesday was a meeting to discuss the station design. I was expecting maybe a small, covered platform and possibly a building with bathrooms, but I was pleased to find plans for a large intermodal station. Sure, we don’t have any fixed-route transit, but I was overjoyed to see plans to accommodate it for the future.
Today was a trip to a brown bag lunch hosted by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. The event was hosted in Milwaukee’s Third Ward at the Public Market. I’ll admit I had no idea it was there when I arrived. I knew redevelopment had been taking place in the Third Ward, but this was very impressive.
And what was most impressive to me was that this market was about four blocks from the recently renovated Milwaukee Amtrak Intermodal Station. What a great opportunity!
So in the last two weeks I found an excellent design for a station in my hometown and a new place to visit once the rail extension gets up and running. A good week. Unfortunately, this was all tempered by the prevailing question at each event. No, not anything about construction or design, but about whether or not the rail line could be stopped.
The greatest concern by the people present was whether the plan was far enough long that it would actually happen or whether our newly elected governor this fall could put a stop to it if he so chose. And before the rail-haters come out of the woodwork, the question was posed by people who were worried that the train would be stopped. These were citizens who wanted the train to come to their hometowns and afraid politics wouldn’t let the rails make it that far.
It’s kind of sad when you think about it. Just looking at the plans for the rail extension and I already saw several personal unseen benefits from it — ones that others could benefit from as well. And the prevailing feeling is worry not anticipation.
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday. For those interested in instant updates, you can now get your latest Mass Transit fix via Twitter.
In the new “Unwired†column, Jim Baker explores wireless technologies and their challenges, benefits and applications in the mass transit arena.
The growth of mobile broadband continues at a relentless pace. We see it every day with the launch of new handsets such as the iPhone 4 and the Droid X, with built-in Wi-Fi and high-speed cellular connections. Cisco estimates that by 2014 there will be more than five billion personal devices connected to a mobile data network worldwide, and a 3,900 percent increase in the amount of data traffic generated by these devices. In response to this staggering demand, mobile network operators are busy upgrading their networks to cope with the capacity required by applications such as streaming media, VoIP and gaming. It seems like just yesterday that 3G launched with download speeds of only 300Kbps; today, with 4G WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) and LTE (Long Term Evolution) network architectures rolling out around the world, it’s about delivering speeds in excess of 10Mbps or more to the end user over networks capable of 10 times that speed.
Mass transit operators are under pressure to deliver better passenger amenities to increase ticket sales, upgrade systems to improve fleet efficiency and comply with federal mandates such as UHF/VHF narrowbanding and positive train control, and achieve all this in the face of tighter budgets. Despite this, rail and bus transport is a growing sector with ridership that has grown 32 percent since 1995. The U.S. population makes 34 million trips each day on more than 175,000 vehicles in service. Thanks in part to the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act there is $6.9 billion committed to equip new transport projects and more than $8 billion for passenger intercity rail expansion.
So what is the intersect between mobile carriers and transit operators, and what are the drivers? Telephone companies (telcos) are facing the fact that revenues from data services will overtake voice. This already happened in Japan during the first quarter of 2010. Price pressure in the consumer market has led them to increase business development in industrial verticals traditionally known as ‘machine-to-machine’ or M2M where applications such as live video transmission from 4G-enabled CCTV systems demand broadband connections with sufficient upstream. The move to end-to-end IP-based network architectures such as WiMAX and LTE introduces full quality-of-service (QoS) and network segregation to support such demanding applications. And in the case of Sprint, which through its majority-owned Clearwire network have access to huge swathes of 2.5GHz spectrum, a U.S. carrier has emerged which could, with the right business model, potentially ring-fence bands of spectrum specifically for M2M verticals such as mass transit and healthcare.
Demand for bandwidth is growing in the transportation sector, with applications such as passenger Wi-Fi, public safety CCTV, vehicle tracking and on-board systems control all taking a part of a broadband pipe. Narrowband and wideband frequencies are simply not sufficient for this kind of communication demand, and there are concerns over the frequency and amount of spectrum available for various applications. A properly considered wireless broadband strategy touches all aspects of day-to-day operation, connecting passengers, staff and fleets.
Passenger Wi-Fi has been a key driver for many transport operators looking to improve the passenger experience. Delivering broadband to a bus in an urban or suburban area is technically a trivial task today; the ubiquity of cellular broadband and a comparatively low passenger count per vehicle means that a single radio cellular router with GPS can (in most cases) do an excellent job of keeping that bus online. In the UK, large fleet operators including FirstGroup, National Express, Stagecoach and Arriva have all deployed solutions delivering free Wi-Fi — particularly on commuter routes in a country that is small enough to have sufficient 3G coverage along major arteries, even between cities. With the Wi-Fi being free, there is no income opportunity from passengers. The operators have generally swallowed the capital and operating expense under marketing as an incentive to attract people out of their cars. But many are now looking at advertising revenue opportunities from third parties wanting to target a captive audience, thus keeping the service free to the passenger but helping underwrite or balance the ongoing monthly overhead. An increasing number of U.S. bus operators have followed suit, including Greyhound and BoltBus, and we’ll be examining some of these deployments in later columns.
On trains, Europe has also pioneered onboard broadband since 2003 with major deployments including GNER and Virgin in the UK, SJ in Sweden and SNCF in France. Not that there’s anything wrong with being late to the party – U.S. transport operators such as Amtrak have learned a lot from these early adopters. As a result, tenders being issued now are significantly more technically savvy, and take into account the many challenges of delivering connectivity to a vehicle containing hundreds of passengers that will travel through areas where no single mobile carrier has sufficient network coverage or capacity.
The key to successful connectivity on trains is the use of multiple concurrent links, and the ability to aggregate them into a single large pipe, while also seamlessly switching between them when carrier coverage quality varies. Those links typically comprise cellular networks in licensed frequencies such as 3G/4G, fixed networks in unlicensed frequencies such as trackside or on-platform 5GHz mesh and, where necessary, satellite networks in deeply rural or mountainous areas. Many major deployments use all these elements; although as terrestrial networks expand, satellite is being dropped due to latency or capacity issues, and comparatively high operating costs. Trackside networks have the advantage of offering superior capacity, but entail significant infrastructure and access to the trackside right-of-way.
For the Acela high-speed train service between Boston and Washington, D.C., Amtrak uses a router with eight 3G cellular radios on four different carriers – Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile – providing an aggregate connection of up to 3.5Mbps for free passenger Wi-Fi and the ability to apportion dedicated bandwidth to onboard systems as required. The success of the Wi-Fi service, which has seen an impressive 35 percent uptake among passengers with a 85 percent satisfaction rating, has led the operator to issue a nationwide RFP for broadband connection across its entire fleet in 2011. The system will be upgraded to support 4G WiMAX and LTE as those networks proliferate, delivering more capacity to the train.
Within a few years, no major transit agency will be without broadband connectivity to its fleet. Learning from existing tenders, proposals and subsequent deployments, three things have become very clear: (1) Transit operators don’t want to own or maintain the networks; they want a third party to do it but must also understand that there will be some degree of capital expense for equipping vehicles and operating expense for keeping the lights on. Why? Because (2) there is no revenue stream for that third party to be had from passenger Wi-Fi as, faced with pay-per-use, passengers will eschew Wi-Fi and use their 3G/4G phone or dongle where they can instead, even if it means spotty service. Similarly movies or TV on demand are less than convincing propositions as smartphone-equipped passengers probably already have personalized playlists of music, movies and shows on their phone or iPad. In-hotspot advertising may help reduce costs, but it’s not going to pay for the deployment. (3) Advances in cellular network capacity and the move to IP-based 4G enables a whole raft of new services from which transit operators can benefit to reduce overheads elsewhere in the organization, and improve overall efficiency. Some of these are illustrated below.
Wireless communications in mass transit is a rapidly changing landscape. In this column in the future, I’ll be looking at specific applications for wireless in public transport, meeting some of the agencies, carriers and integrators already deploying broadband solutions, discuss issues such as spectrum allocation, and test-driving some of the applications available.
Jim Baker is managing partner at Xenventure, a market strategy and private equity firm based in San Francisco and London. A C-level wireless industry veteran, Baker has been involved in many deployments of wireless technologies on passenger transportation worldwide and is a recognized industry expert on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G convergence. He is an active member of the Joint Council on Transit Wireless Communications, which is developing a strategic plan for implementation of wireless technologies in mass transit. Contact Baker via LinkedIn.
Two unrelated news articles stirred my thinking about investment in high-speed rail.
First, high-speed rail money has been reported to be on a slow track toward distribution. Apparently, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) doesn’t have all the mechanisms in place to administer the program. Although rail has been around for a long time, investment in modernizing it hasn’t. The FRA has historically focused on safety issues.  States, likewise, appear not to have mechanisms in place to administer the program. According to Warren Flatau, spokesman for the FRA, “States have not allocated resources to staff or institutionalize robust or mature rail divisions, since the focus of federal transportation investment has been overwhelmingly focused on highway development.†In addition to creating new processes for approving, distributing and administering the money, there are still disagreements regarding guidelines issued by the FRA. Meanwhile, according to the article, Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FRA Administrator Joseph Szabo want the money distributed by September 30.
Second, another recent article celebrated the on-going restoration of Seattle’s King Street Station. The station serves Amtrak and Sound Transit’s Sounder commuter rail service. The building, built in 1906, was “modernized†in 1963. The modernization essentially covered most of its historic charm. And many would say it made the building ugly inside. The city of Seattle purchased the building from Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway two years ago for $10. The restoration is an excellent opportunity to put rail transportation in a good light. Restoring the station also suggests a sense of long-term investment — a sense of commitment.
In January 1981, my family and I arrived by train at the Augsburg Hauptbahnhof from Frankfurt, Germany. Augsburg’s central train station, which was built between 1843 and 1846, is a fairly new building in a city that traces its roots to Roman times. Before I departed through the same train station in 1985, many older buildings in the city underwent a restoration to prepare for the 2000-year anniversary of the city’s founding. Currently, the train station reportedly is undergoing “modernization†to add an underground tram station. If I know the city, the change will be in keeping with the city’s roots.
When I think about the initiative in the United States to modernize passenger rail with high-speed trains, I wonder how the long-term investment will be made. Will it celebrate the past while reaching for the future? Or will the money be spent like the first modernization of the King Street Station — an artificial drop-tile ceiling installed to cover a previous investment?
Change is necessary, of course. We certainly need to install access for the disabled in older stations. We certainly need to provide access for connecting modes of transportation. There has to be an eye for growth while containing costs. Exactly how development happens is important. If high-speed rail is to reach its destination, a collective long-term investment is needed. Inter-agency cooperation, like Seattle’s purchase of King Street Station and CDTA’s ownership of rail stations, are examples of this kind of investment. Public-Private partnerships of various sorts are needed.
The King Street Station is more than one hundred years old. I hope today’s investment in high-speed rail will still be paying dividends one hundred years from now. And I hope it will convey a sense of beauty and permanence.
Mark Foss has more than 24 years experience working for King County Metro Transit. His experience includes work as a bus operator, special ridership coordinator in accessible services and 1st line transit supervisor. Currently, he works as a communications coordinator in the transit control center (TCC). Contact him via LinkedIn.
A couple great articles this week made it clear to me that if rail (high-speed or otherwise) is going to succeed in the United States, it will only happen by partnering with private businesses.
My boss, his boss and I discussed how good it felt when you make a list of things to get done and actually complete it a few days ago. That must be how it is feeling in areas around the United States as they make their lists for new rail lines, cross off the completed items and see their plan come to fruition.
That seems to be the case here in Wisconsin. Plans for a new Madison-Milwaukee rail line are coming to fruition despite clamoring to take money away for other purposes. I would have to say the feeling is one of cautious optimism. Sure, you will have people on the far sides of the fence for and against rail, but I’m throwing them out of the bell curve.
But that feeling could slip if progress doesn’t continue. Already the feeling of “Yeah! We got rail money!†for the FRA lotto winners across the country is starting to get drowned out by detractors. California’s high-speed rail authority is being assailed from a host of directions, making it rethink some of its plans.
The most interesting group staying quiet (at least from making major media statements) is the freight rail companies. Frankly, this needs to change. I’m not calling out the freight rail companies here so much as the various rail authorities who need the Class I railroads if they are going to make this resurgence in passenger rail a success.
The freight rail companies are a key component in this picture of a future “rail-topia†because, well, they control the tracks. As the one article above notes, laying new, passenger-only tracks is expensive and duplicative. Let’s call it like it is — stupid and wasteful.
The freight railroads need to stand arm-in-arm with the passenger rail authorities and let the public know that they are working to do for passenger rail what they have for freight rail in the United States. Sure, we look to Europe and Asia when it comes to passenger rail, but the United States moves nine times the freight by rail than Europe does.
The United States isn’t necessarily behind Europe in terms of rail, it just went in a different direction. To move into the future we don’t need to lay new tracks, we need to merge with the ones we have and use all that freight rail know-how to make the U.S. rail system world class no matter if you are moving people or products.
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday. For those interested in instant updates, you can now get your latest Mass Transit fix via Twitter.
Have you ever ridden public transit and been disappointed by the experience? Did you miss a connection? Did you get lost? Was the driver grumpy? Did the bus start out too fast? Did the driver not know any connecting routes? Was the service late? Was your bus or train car dirty? How does customer service influence ridership?
Many years ago, when I was a field supervisor, I was called to meet a bus. The driver was having trouble with two non-paying customers. They verbally abused the driver when asked for the fare. By the time I was able to meet the coach, the driver was at his relief point. He indicated that he would do a report and left.
As the relief driver was getting on the bus, a group of six customers stepped off the bus to complain about the previous driver. Apparently, he had angrily parked his bus for several minutes due to the verbal abuse. Of course, the abusive passengers were gone. The passengers who approached me were angry that the bus had been delayed due to what they considered a very minor incident. They stated that they had paid the fare and were entitled to a ride.
Faced with customers’ anger, I offered a genuine apology on behalf of the agency. I assured them that I would follow up. Then I made sure the relief driver assisted the delayed passengers properly. I could see the satisfaction in the faces of the passengers. The apology was good public relations.
A dedicated rider of Chicago’s CTA recently complained about a service problem. The passenger sent an email via CTA’s website. She complained about buses not showing up and poor on-time performance. CTA responded with an email requesting more information within an hour. Then two company representatives met the customer at her bus stop to discuss the issue and monitor the service. The CTA made use of technology to immediately acknowledge the customer. Then it followed up with human contact. This is an example of great customer service.
King County (Seattle) Metro’s field supervisors regularly monitor service problems and make contact with customers. Summertime is filled with service challenges.
“Special events,†such as street fairs and parades, disrupt service. In addition to special events, other challenges include huge road construction projects and service changes. In large transit systems there is always something that can potentially disrupt service and thus damage customer loyalty. In preparation for service changes, transit workers go out in special street teams to meet customers to distribute literature. This is great customer service.
How can we judge customer satisfaction? And how is it influenced?
“The universal rule in business is that customers go where they can expect consistency – both in the products they buy and in the level of service they receive (How to Nurture a Culture of Excellence. Mark Wardell. The Canadian Manager; Summer, 2010; 35, 2; Discovery p. 22).â€
The European Committee for Standardization created criteria for judging urban public transportation: “availability, accessibility, information, time, customer care, comfort, security and environment” (The Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, vol. 46, no. 1, Spring 2007, p.65). Transit agencies spend their time working on just these aspects of customer satisfaction – from establishing new routes to on-time performance to security. Much of this work is behind the scenes; it is data-driven. The human element is in evidence in the CTA article mentioned above and in King County’s efforts in the field. However, most transit news is about technology – CAD/AVL, automated passenger counts, websites, email, blogs, Twitter and BusTime on mobile phones, etc.
A survey of Canadian consumers indicated that wait times were a very important factor in consumer satisfaction. Sixty-eight percent of Canadians left when public transit wait times were too long. Data-driven solutions help greatly here. Compassionate human contact and timely communication also have an influence on customer satisfaction: “82 per cent of those polled would increase their wait time if they felt compassion or apologies were offered for the wait and 67 per cent would wait longer if they were updated on their status.â€
In addition to the wave of new technology (CAD/AVL, Twitter, Blogs) and the new kinds of service (e.g. light rail, streetcars, bus rapid transit) designed to serve customers better, I have another suggestion. Invest in the human element. Train drivers and supervisors regularly in customer service. Make the frontline workers, who deliver the service, experts on how to deliver the best message possible. Whether it is offering directions to travelers, or apologizing to angry customers, the human element is very important. And it is all too often forgotten.
Mark Foss has more than 24 years experience working for King County Metro Transit. His experience includes work as a bus operator, special ridership coordinator in accessible services and 1st line transit supervisor. Currently, he works as a communications coordinator in the transit control center (TCC). Contact him via LinkedIn.
How much money is wasted on public transit? That’s a loaded question, I know, but I still wonder it sometimes. Oh, I don’t mean transit agencies wasting money. I hear enough about that from people every day. Shouting from the mountaintops about what a waste transit is. No, what I am talking about is how much money did they spend getting up there to do the shouting.
I read a really good article this week about Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and last year’s speaker at the APTA Legislative Conference luncheon. It should come as no surprise that most of politics is about money. Unfortunately it seems most of life has come to be about that these days.
But the article got me to think about transit spending. On the one hand you have agencies in an odd Catch-22. They are (very) thankful to the federal government for the recent stimulus funding, yet shake their heads in wonder and fists in rage as SAFETEA:LU gets treated like the proverbial red-headed stepchild on Capitol Hill. Much of that is likely to blame for all the anti-transit funding out there.
I define “anti-transit funding†as money spent to delay, divert or outright defeat any transit measure, be it a funding bill in Congress or a BRT line in your hometown. Now sit back for a minute and chew on that for a bit. How much money is being spent each year just to shoot down transit initiatives?
Heck, how much is spent just to make transit look bad? How many people have made careers (and lucrative ones at that) out of bashing public transit?
Books are written deriding the benefits of public transit. Speeches are given. And much money is spent getting politicians and the public against transit. Millions if not billions of dollars are likely spent on the effort each year.
And what do these people get for in many cases cultivating a fear of transit? More congestion on roadways? Sprawl? Personal satisfaction?
As the article on Donohue points out, Washington is run by money. And it seems that transit is always a few coins short of getting that ticket with unlimited passes. The next time an anti-transit campaign starts up about a project in your area, ask yourself how much are they spending on it.
How much money is being wasted telling you that transit is a waste?
Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday. For those interested in instant updates, you can now get your latest Mass Transit fix via Twitter.
The Fourth of July weekend always means high travel volumes, and this year was no exception. While it has yet to be announced how many Americans traveled over the holiday weekend, a recent survey by AAA predicted the number of travelers would jump to 34.9 million, up 17.1 percent from 29.8 million travelers in 2009.
Although holidays like the Fourth always bring traveling pains to the forefront, it is daily commutes that really hit the psyche of the commuter. Released last week, the findings of IBM’s annual Global Commuter Pain Index put daily travel into context. The study was based on a survey of 8,192 drivers in 20 cities worldwide, including three of the most congested cities in the United States: New York, Los Angeles and Houston. More than 31 percent of those surveyed said traffic was so bad at times that they turned around and went home. Nearly a quarter of drivers in LA reported being stuck in traffic for more than an hour, and one in five had delays of more than two hours.
Some may dismiss congestion as a necessary trade-off for city living, but inefficient transportation impacts more than quality of life. It reduces the productivity of workers, the flow of goods and overall economic competitiveness — not to mention our air quality and the global climate. Despite these concerns, the United States spends at most 2.6 percent of GDP on infrastructure — far lower than countries such as China, which invests in infrastructure at a rate of 9 to 12 percent of GDP.
The Commuter Pain Index underlines the urgent need to reinvent America’s transportation system to meet the economic demands of the 21st century. As the population of cities across the country continues to expand, the United States must go beyond simply building more roads or adding more trains. We need to run existing and new systems more efficiently through a combination of technology, planning and greater intelligence.
A smarter transportation system will connect and collect the data of vehicles, government agencies, freight carriers, travel service providers, weather patterns and even individuals using tools like social media. But connectivity alone isn’t enough. To get insight from all that data, we need to apply advanced analytics — sophisticated mathematical models that detect the patterns and spot the correlations within large volumes of information, turning real-time insight into predictive actions. This can create a more traveler-centric system, empowering commuters and shippers with real-time updates so they can control their own journeys across multiple modes of transportation, adjusting to last-minute schedule changes or service disruptions.
Cities around the globe are testing this now. Netherlands Railways is already using smarter technology to weigh variables, including passenger demand and available rail cars to assemble and schedule 5,000 trains over a network of 390 stations and 2,800 kilometers of track. Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp. (THSRC) is leveraging smarter technology to ensure that hundreds of high-speed passenger trains are safe and on time, maintaining an average punctuality rate of 99.15 percent.
In addition to these real-life examples, new technologies are in the process of being developed and tested. The train of the future will be able to leverage smart vision technology to sense what is around it, including obstacles in its path so it can slow down and stop without human intervention. It will also be able to harness data to predict and prevent breakdowns, using sensors to collect data and alert operators before the issues impact a train’s safety and schedule.
If there’s one thing the Commuter Pain Index makes clear, it’s that the United States cannot afford not to invest in smarter transportation — both from a public health and economic standpoint. And the challenge of updating the infrastructure is far too big for transportation agencies alone. The best investments will combine actions by agencies with those of businesses and commuters themselves. All parties need to work together, using the latest information technology not only to repair our systems today, but to prepare for what is to come.
By bringing our mass transit system into the 21st century, we can deliver better commuter experiences, ensure faster freight deliveries and keep America’s economy and society moving forward.
Raul Arce is vice president, travel and transportation for IBM.
