The MT Position

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

It’s hard to believe another year has gone by already. Just last year I was staring at my four-month-old daughter’s face this time of year still beaming with joy and now she’s walking and already terrorizing her brothers.

This year seemed like a rough one for transit with funding crises springing up across the nation, but they were weathered and no one has had to shutdown permanently.

But what about 2008?

It looks as if 2008 will continue this resurgence in transit interest we’ve been seeing since gas prices started dramatically climbing. We’re headed into an election year, so it will be interesting to see how transit gets tossed in with the usual rhetoric slung about by the presidential candidates.

That’s as much of a prediction as I like to make. I’m not one for predictions. But we did have a whole slew of them in our December issue from the leaders of some of transit’s biggest companies, not to mention the leaders of both APTA and CUTA.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to fit in the predictions we got from some of our 2007 cover stories. Five of the leaders who graced our cover this year were gracious enough to take the time and give us a 2008 prediction. So in the spirit of the New Year, here they are in their entirety:

Joni Earl, CEO
Sound Transit
Central Puget Sound, Wash.

Looking into the new year, I see both challenge and opportunity. One of the challenges will be to determine a new federal funding mechanism that both responds to change and is fair and efficient. The federal government has not updated the transit grant program to keep pace with the development of urban transit systems; the current model needs to evolve.

Today what we need most is expansion and improved operating efficiency of mass transit systems in our major metropolitan areas. Adding transit capacity – increasing rail service and enhancing our bus systems through priority improvements and dedicated right-of-way — supports economic growth, provides sustainable public transportation networks, and reduces overall carbon emissions.

The opportunity that I believe transit leaders nationwide will seize in 2008 is coming together to promote refining the New Starts criteria and methodology. We will work to focus federal investments on major metropolitan regions that significantly fuel the national economy; to promote policies that support economic connections and sustainable land use; to endorse increased ability for regional officials to tailor their transportation systems in alignment with broadly defined federal goals; and to advocate for a diverse mix of funding tools - grants, credit support and tax incentives – to better provide the flexibility needed to complete major projects over a long period of time.

Paul Ballard
Nashville MTA
Nashville, Tenn.

U.S voters have continued to demonstrate their support for public transportation by passing referendums at the ballot box to expand or preserve funding for local public transportation organizations. In the fall 2007 elections, almost two-thirds of referendums were decided favorably for increasing mobility, and reducing air pollution and traffic congestion.

Continuing this trend will be critical in 2008. Skyrocketing ridership and fuel prices will continue to apply tremendous pressures on the abilities of local transportation organizations to maintain a level of service that retains the public’s support and patronage.

What can we do?

We need to redouble our efforts to institutionalize public transportation in our communities. Communication with all potential stakeholders needs to be intensified in frequency and urgency. We need to look for moral and financial support from all entities.

Some of us may be suffering from a problem that military officers sometimes find themselves in when leading a successful charge into enemy territory − getting ahead of their supply lines. Some public transportation providers enjoying significant ridership increases are getting ahead of financial supply lines.

We need to think and act creatively and aggressively to identify new and perhaps non-traditional sources of financial support to recharge our financial supply lines to continue the battle for public transportation in 2008.

Gary McNeil
GO Transit
Toronto, Ontario

The future of transit looks bright in Canada. The economy remains strong supported by growing population and employment figures. More importantly, governments are beginning to invest in transit infrastructure again. The Federal Government is beginning to support transit through gas tax incentives and targeted infrastructure funding as it moves toward a National Transit Strategy.

In British Columbia, the new Canada Line, which will link downtown Vancouver to its airport and growing southern suburbs, is well into construction and is expected to open before the 2010 Winter Olympics. Communities throughout B.C. are also installing elements of BRT operation into their bus systems, giving buses priority over single-occupant vehicles. Edmonton and Calgary are investing in expansions to their LRT networks, while Montreal is building onto its existing, well-established Metro and commuter rail systems.

In Ontario, the Greater Toronto Area, where GO Transit flourishes, the future is also very positive. The Provincial Government, recently voted back for another four-year term, is using the $17.5-billion, MoveOntario 2020 transit expansion announcement as one of its platforms. The recently created Greater Toronto Transportation Authority has been charged with delivering on that promise and is developing a transportation agenda for this growing area. It will support the Toronto’s Transit City plans, as well as the mass transit initiatives of the surrounding urban growth centers identified in the Province’s Places to Grow legislation.

With funds from the Federal and Provincial Governments, GO is building infrastructure that was recognized as necessary in the 1980s. Major projects underway include the installation of a $300-million train signal system at Union Station, the rehabilitation of the seven-acre train shed at Union Station, and double and triple tracking of a number of rail corridors. As a result of these improvements, GO expects to launch new train services by 2009 which will allow it to carry more customers. This past year, GO carried over 50 million customers.

What transit agencies had hoped to do for decades now appears to be on the horizon. It will be the people of Canada who will win as these dreams become realities. People in large urban centers demand mass transit services; politicians are beginning to notice.

Mark Pangborn
Lane Transit District
Eugene, Ore.

In 2008, public transportation will play an increasingly important role in our communities, while also facing significant funding challenges. Continued increases in fuel prices will encourage greater use of transit, and public transportation will also be asked to take a greater role in addressing key environmental concerns, such as global warming and creating sustainable communities. Demographic trends will create continued increases in demand for transit service for the elderly and persons with disabilities.

The increased transit demand will lead to record ridership and higher community expectations for transit. However, there also will be significant funding challenges for transit. Higher fuel prices increase operating costs, and funding for transit will not keep pace with the increasing demand for service. The high cost of providing elderly and disabled transportation service will put further pressure on transit systems’ operating budgets.

At the federal level, competition for New Starts funding (including Small Starts) and other discretionary funds will increase as communities look to transit to provide transportation solutions. Discussions regarding the reauthorization of the federal transportation bill will begin in 2008, and that will include consideration of an increase in the federal gas tax, a difficult subject under any circumstance but particularly during an election year.

Brian Lamb
Metro Transit
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minn.

I believe that 2008 will be a year of action to address the global environment.

In the United States, candidates for election will push plans for energy independence through the use of sustainable, renewable resources.

Their motivation will be two-fold. On the practical level, they will seek solutions to gasoline prices approaching $4 a gallon, which will hurt us not only at the pump but throughout the economy as manufacturing and service industries face higher operating costs. On the altruistic level, elected leaders will respond more aggressively to the growing consensus that bold action is needed now to preserve the planet for future generations.

With the focus in 2008 on the environment, there will be challenges and opportunities for the transit industry. Our own fuel prices will consume larger portions of our operating budgets. On the other hand, citizens will be more inclined to respond positively to the value of our service – especially as we portray ourselves as environmental leaders. We need to remind the public that by riding with us they are linked to organizations committed to biodiesel, to hybrid buses, to energy efficient facilities and to the stewardship of environmental resources.

If we succeed in conveying this message, I predict we will enjoy our highest ridership since the energy crisis of the late 1970s.

Thanks for reading the MT Position, and Happy New Year!

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

The NFL announced its selection for the Pro Bowl this week. The Pro Bowl is basically the NFL’s All-Star game held in Hawaii a week after the Super Bowl for those who don’t know. As with all of this type of fan/player/coach voting, there are cries of foul when local players don’t get picked. But that’s not what struck me about this. What struck me was the idea of a Pro Bowl for transit agencies.

Well, specifically, for your agency.

Most agencies have some sort of employee recognition program be it an employee of the month/year. Some agencies even have their own roadeos with awards for their operators and/or mechanics. But what about everyone else? How about having a Pro Bowl for your agency!

Make a selection of positions in your agency: operator, engineer, mechanic, supervisor, customer service associate, public relations representative, secretary, assistant general manager, division manager … whatever you have.

Now have an open voting for the best person in this category for the year and announce your own Transit Pro Bowl. Does there need to be some sort of reward for this? No. Often times recognition alone is worth it to people. That said, an extra day off doesn’t hurt.

Don’t make it competitive. No one needs that. But it should be something desired. Put up pictures of your Transit Pro Bowl team. Let everyone know who they are. Teams in the NFL have found that players not selected for the Pro Bowl work even harder the next year to get in it the next year.

A little extra incentive never hurts.

I’d love to hear what employee recognition programs you have at your agencies. E-mail me and let me know what you’ve got going at your agency, or comment below and let everyone know.

Thanks for reading the MT Position, and Happy Holidays.

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Have you met Ed and Ned? They ride your system. In fact they ride every transit system in the world. Sounds like these two guys are the ultimate transit junkies, doesn’t it?

Who are they? Ed is the representation of your everyday rider. Ned is the representation of your not everyday rider. And together they make up your total customer base.

Ed rides everyday or nearly every day as a commuter, student, a committed rider or a true transit dependent. Ned on the other hand rides much less often to go shopping once a week, or goes only to ball games or festivals. Perhaps Ned’s car is being repaired or the car pool is talking the day off.

Actually, there are lots of Ed’s and Ned’s and knowing something about each is helpful. By the way, it is very likely that the Ned’s outnumber the Ed’s. How else would you explain the fact that despite Ned’s riding less frequently, your ridership is about the same each weekday?

That makes your Ned’s pretty important riders. Take a minute and ponder the possibilities. If a Ned rides once a month, then a Ned riding two or three times more is a significant increase in ridership. The point is that you already have a relationship with Ned. You know Ned. Ned knows you. Think of it this way: Your best customer prospects are ones already using your service.

Get to know these riders through surveys and observation. Ask your riders about their riding frequency, the length of time they have been using your system, how they pay their fare, and the reasons they ride (work, shopping, school, etc.). Pretty soon, you’ll have a feel for the proportion of Ned’s to Ed’s.

Let’s say you have 10,000 riders (not trips) each weekday, and your surveys show that 60 percent ride every day. On average the other 40 percent ride 1.25 times a week. Knowing this you can make an educated guess that the ratio of Ned’s to Ed’s is 4 to 1. That would mean that there are 6000 Ed’s and as many as 24,000 Ned’s. Instead of 10,000 generic customers, your base may be as high as 30,000 customers.

Turning a Ned into an Ed takes some effort, but the payoff is huge. Identifying Ned’s and courting them with incentives like university and employer pass programs, service frequency and route improvements, relationship marketing programs and improved customer services are all ways to migrate Ned’s into a higher level of use.

That doesn’t mean that you forget the Ed’s riding your buses, ferries and trains. But doing more to make Ned’s into Ed’s will pay off by making the Ed’s more loyal and committed customers.

Like I said earlier; think of the possibilities.

Keep the thread going by adding or modifying the above principles, or by sharing a story that relates to your experience with Ed’s and Ned’s. Let me hear from you!

Joe Caruso is Senior Consultant for Brecon Hill Consulting. He’s the former marketing director for the Milwaukee County Transit System (WI) and has over 32 years of transit marketing experience. He welcomes your comments at jcaruso@breconhill.com.

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

A classic political statement is “making the trains run on time.” We spend a lot of time in transit discussing on-time performance. How many of you out there measure that personally for your systems? And who can blame you. If your trains and/or buses are consistently late, you’ll take a beating in the press and your ridership numbers will drop. Being on-time is a key factor in any agency’s success.

But another question has to be how safe is your system. It seems like a simple, even stupid, question on the surface, but when you think about it, is it? We recently posted two stories on safety on the Mass Transit Web site, one on Portland considering changing its free fare zone to free fares during the day and early evening, and the other on a court case in Seattle finding the victim of a beating on board a bus was correct in that the bus driver should have done more to protect her.

So I ask you again, is your system safe? Sure it is. But here’s the problem. Transit has an image of being used by “that element.” I don’t know what constitutes, “that element,” but evidently it likes public transit. I’m sure you’ve heard this before … people being afraid of bringing that element into their neighborhood because of a new transit line.

The image of public transportation being used as transit for the worst of society is arguably a more prevalent image than even being smelly and dirty or being late. Agencies are fighting hard against both of those images by doing things like having arrival times at stops and changing to cleaner burning fuels or hybrid vehicles, but how about the safety image?

Are you going out there and promoting how safe your buses and trains are? Or are you just doing that after an incident occurs? I complained last week about the current administration being more reactive than proactive, and I hope our transit agencies don’t fall into the same trap.

Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday.

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com

Posted by Fred Jandt
Editor, Mass Transit

So the Bush Administration has done it again. Amazingly, they keep making decisions that set them against seemingly everyone else in the political universe all at once. The latest is the potential dramatic cut in funding for homeland security in the FY 2009 budget.

Let’s give them a little bit of a break off the bat here a minute. The information was leaked to the media; it wasn’t released through official channels. And since its release the administration has said these numbers are not the finalized budget.

It’s interesting the shots they are taking from all the different angles. So far I have read articles from virtually every group affected by this planned budget. But here’s the real sticking point — and what kills most of these arguments — most of them are decrying the president for cutting the funding to their specific group and holding up why it is vitally important the funding is retained for them.

See, they don’t mention the other guys. They don’t mention how counter terrorism efforts are the work of the entire group, not just its disparate parts. Fire, EMS, ports and transit agencies are all intricately linked together when looking at protecting our nation from terrorism.

How many transit agencies work hand-in-hand with their local police, fire and EMS departments to protect not only their riders, but the communities their buses and trains pass through? There are numerous agencies where the local police force is the transit agency’s security.

The problem here is complacency I think. Webster defines complacency as “self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.” I would think at this moment you could almost put “see also Bush Administration” under there as well.

Does the current administration really understand how vulnerable our infrastructure is to a terrorist attack? I may catch flack for this, but I don’t really believe they do. Travel around to enough transit agencies and you can see why the security funding isn’t just necessary, it’s vital. And I am sure the ports are the same way.

The self-satisfaction largely comes into play when you look at airlines. Since 9/11 airport security has been beefed up and it looks to have worked. That is always pointed to in regards to our public safety, but is it going to take an attack on some other vital part of our infrastructure before we beef up its security? Why does it seem the current administration is dead set on making security funding a reactive measure instead of a proactive one?

Thanks for reading the MT Position, updated every Friday.

Fred
fred.jandt@cygnusb2b.com