The Dickhead himself

A huge job - but we are ready!

Posted by Neil McFarlane at Aug 31, 2012 08:50 AM | Permalink

I want to take a minute to thank EVERYONE who has worked so hard to get the word out about Saturday’s fare changes and Sunday’s service change. You can’t miss the white fliers posted at thousands and thousands of bus stops around the region. And when you ride the system, you hear operators and customer service personnel answering lots of questions. If you look a little closer, you’ll see new instructions on ticket machines, new maps at shelters, ads in newspapers, updated stickers on buses, and so forth. Behind the scenes, we’re responding to a huge volume of emails and phone calls, making presentations to stakeholders, reprogramming TVM software—and on and on. It’s a truly massive effort, and I greatly appreciate it.

Like the fare change, the service change is necessary for our financial sustainability. And like the fare change, it has its downsides and upsides for our customers. This means that we will have a mix of customers who are happy about the changes and some who are not. It is our hope that we have been able to provide both operators and our Ride Guides who are in the field interacting with customers, the information they need to respond to questions.

Again, I thank all of you who are helping get the word out and look forward to hearing reports back on how it’s going as you help our customers adjust to the changes.
Neil

No Zones!

Posted by Neil McFarlane at Aug 22, 2012 09:03 AM | Permalink

The countdown is on to one of the most historic changes in our fare system – no zones! Since becoming General Manager and visiting with operators, the number one complaint was that our fare system was too complicated. On the other side of the farebox, it’s not been a piece of cake for our customers either. I couldn’t have agreed more that simplifying our fares was needed. That’s why when we were identifying ways to address our budget shortfall – making our fare system simpler was a natural place to look. And soon – it will be simpler. While I know our operators will quickly adjust – our riders may need a little help so I ask you to ratchet up those good customer service skills to help them during the transition.

These fare system changes are just the start as we will bring on transfer ticket printers in about 9 months putting an end to those ‘tissue paper’ transfers. And on the horizon – transitioning to a state-of-the-art electronic fare system! There’s a lot more work to do and we will be looking to our operators and others to give us ideas. But the first step is less than two weeks away on September 1. Take some time to bring yourself up to speed on all the fare and service changes. If you have any questions, please look on TriNET or contact your manager. We will need everyone’s help to make this a seamless transition.

One hope I have is that more of our customers will take advantage of the $5 day pass (priced at 2 times the round trip fare), so we actually reduce the transactions at the farebox and TVMs. Making sure our customers know about this great deal will also be important.
We have a great plan to deploy our field resources (Supervisors, Ride Guides, security, etc) – but I would also like to encourage more of you to sign up as Ride Guides as we work to inform our riders.  Shifts will be two hours, and you will have a variety of times and locations to choose from (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FareChangesRideGuide.) We need your help.
Finally, I want to send a special thanks to our Operations, Marketing and many other staff who have been preparing for this big event. It’s been one heck of a lot of work – reprogramming TVMs, customer information display, ticket media, training us all, on and on—it’s been a great effort.  Thanks to all.

Best
Neil