5 minute read
Propel: Fall 2020
Three Areas Transit Leaders Must Focus on to Future-Proof Their Agency
The Coronavirus Pandemic and the government-mandated shut-down of the economy has delivered a gut-punch to most transit agencies around North America. Ridership and its attendant farebox recovery have plummeted by 50-95% and public transportation’s reputation as a clean, safe alternative to getting around in an automobile has been diminished by early, faulty pronouncements that public transit was a “petri-dish” for germs.
To deal with the current crisis, many agencies moved to rear-door boarding and eliminated cash fare collection, installed plexiglass driver barriers, and are now adding new real-time passenger information screens and app upgrades.
Despite directives in place for only “essential” workers to use transit, ridership stayed at 50% or higher for most regions – proving how essential transit is to a city or region’s economy. Those front-line service jobs that keep our economy humming are filled with employees who rely on public transit for their mobility.
Now, transit leaders are thinking about how to “future-proof ” their agencies and services from other similar pandemics or challenges to come. Much of their efforts focus on the ability to be nimble in service delivery so they are not caught flat-footed in being able to adjust routes and driver schedules quickly, provide valuable, real-time information to passengers, and emphasize low-touch, clean provision of mobility.
Transit Agencies are Creating the Future- Proof Bus Service of Tomorrow by focusing on three main areas of enhancements:
Clean
By refocusing our messaging on how transit can clean the environment, we counter the “dirty, germ infested” pronouncements made about transit early on in the pandemic. So, agencies can ramp up their efforts to move their fleets away from traditional fuels like diesel and move toward:
Zero-Emission Buses (ZEB): Electric, CNG, Hydrogen fuels, reemphasizing transit’s ability to help create a clean future and building off the experience of passengers in cities like Los Angeles and Manila, Philippines who can suddenly see the skyline without all the smog from cars.
Contactless faring: By adopting this approach, transit agencies can move away from traditional cash fareboxes and emphasize e-faring, wearables and contactless cards which speeds boarding, allows for all-door boarding and is low touch.
Autonomous Vehicles: No driver – no problem. In an innovative approach, CEO Nathaniel “Nat” Ford used the Jacksonville Transit Authority’s autonomous vehicles to transport Covid- 19 test samples from a drive-thru testing site to a processing laboratory on the Mayo Clinic's campus. Similarly, in China, autonomous vehicles were used to transport necessary medical supplies and food to health-care professionals and the public in infected areas.
Nimble
The sudden nature of the pandemic had agencies scrambling to reduce service to meet the quickly dropping demand as government-mandated quarantines/shutdowns impacted commuter ridership dramatically.
Tech Tools: Having the technology tools in place to affect back-office scenario planning, rerouting service, adjusting of bus driver rosters and shifts quickly and seamlessly interwoven into complex collective bargaining agreements is key to ensuring agencies can respond quickly and efficiently to future similar needs.
Additionally, agencies are discovering that they need to have better software/hardware that allows for accurate tracking of assets like railcars and facility cleaning along with exact location of buses on the yard so they can be tracked for in-route cleaning etc.
Reduce Friction: Ensuring transit is faster when we return will help improve the product we deliver. So, utilizing headway management on High-Frequency Routes instead of time-point management on busonly lanes with transit signal priority (TSP) are keys to improving bus route efficiency.
Microtransit: Many cities have turned to this type of app-based transit supporting main routes and providing niche service for essential rides, like transporting seniors to pharmacies or nurses to hospitals. Plus, it has the added benefit of allowing for ease of contact tracing when needed.
Passenger Information
Now more than ever, passengers want options to ensure they can ride safely and efficiently.
Real-Time Passenger Information: Now, transit systems can provide passengers with real-time information on bus location and number of passengers on board. This permits passengers to make informed decisions, allowing for capacity control on buses/trains and at bus stops and platforms. This creates confidence in the system.
On-Line/Mobile Trip Booking: For ADA paratransit passengers in particular, allowing riders to make their own trip booking gives passengers more control and reduces the need for crowded reservations centers once passenger counts pick back up.
Mobility as a Service (MaaS): Continuing the trend occurring before the Coronavirus, aggregating all public mobility services in a city on one smart app where trips can be planned, paid for and potentially subscribed to allows passengers to choose which mobility services they are comfortable with and provides other options should buses fill to their prescribed capacity in this era of social distancing on transit vehicles.
In addition, agencies should “leverage software solutions that reside on the cloud and can be accessible anywhere and from any device that has an internet connection,” according to transit tech industry expert Paola Realpozo. She continues, “whether it’s an enterprise software product that can be used by your office staff from home, as we now have experienced having to relocate due to a pandemic, or mobile applications that can give field workforce the ability to enter (and consult) information instantly without the need to wait until they visit the dispatch office, facility or office. Seamless operation, self-service tools, real-time field data will future-proof the agency.”
Summary
By adopting clean, nimble approaches to transit service that provide real-time passenger info, public transit agencies can attract riders back on the bus and be better prepared for a pandemic or other event that can quickly impact transit service. By having the proper tools in place, public transit agencies can be more flexible, resilient, and resourceful in providing the mobility services needed by our passengers and the public in general.
Paul Comfort, Vice President, Business Development for Trapeze Group, Host of the Transit Unplugged Podcast, Executive Director of the North American Transit Alliance (NATA) and author of the #1 Bestselling book, �e Future of Public Transportation, available on Amazon.
