With more than 50,000 passenger trips on an average weekday, HART is enjoying a 20 percent ridership growth in the last 5 years. That's why HART wants to know how satisfied its customers are with their bus service.
Continuing today, an on-board survey team from TransPro Consulting will be traveling the HART system talking with riders and asking questions about how they use HART services and its performance.
Members of the survey team will be identifiable by name badges and will select riders at random. The information collected as part of the HART 2015 Customer Service Satisfaction Survey will be used to better understand its customers' opinions of existing service and areas of priority that need improvement.
"We know that people are busy these days, but we really hope they take the time to talk to the members of the survey team and take the survey," said HART Chief Financial Officer Jeff Seward. "The more input we get from the public on different transit issues, the better job we can do in meeting passenger needs."
In addition, to gain rider feedback, HART hosted a focus group of riders who represent different levels of use: commuters, HARTPlus customers, university students, disabled patrons, seniors, cash-paying riders and fare card-paying riders. The focus group met on August 19; data from this focus group was used to formulate a targeted survey for passengers to gauge the current customer satisfaction levels and overall opinions of HART service.
Eddie Adams, who has used HART on and off since 1971, volunteered to be part of the focus group. "Very informative for both sides to be face to face and talk about what's going on." explained Adams. "The information we're providing to HART staff is important."
The information collected in both the focus group and the on-board survey will be used to inform future planning, communicate more effectively with customers and market HART to infrequent riders. Once complete HART will have a robust voice of customer (VOC) scorecard to continually measure customer satisfaction.
