AGENDA #5d

MEMORANDUM

TO:

Roger L. Stancil, Town Manager

FROM:

Steve Spade, Transportation Director

SUBJECT:

EZ Rider System Assessment and Improvements

DATE:

October 22, 2007

PURPOSE

The purpose of this information item is to provide the Town Council with an update on the status of staff efforts to examine and evaluate the EZ Rider Division of Chapel Hill Transit.

BACKGROUND

Chapel Hill Transit provides Demand Response service throughout the towns of Carrboro and Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina. Demand Response service consists of three services: Shared Ride, Feeder Service and EZ Rider. The FY 07/08 operating budget is approximately $1.4 million and EZ Rider service provides approximately 250 rides per day.

When I began as Transit Director my goal was to evaluate transit services to ensure the town provides the highest level of service in the most cost effective manner. First, we focused on improving the quality of service in the fixed route system, including maintenance operations, service reliability, staffing and policy evaluation.

During my budget presentation to the Council on February 28 2007, the analysis of EZ Rider was identified as a primary activity for the 2007/08 fiscal year. This task would consist of several activities:

  1. Create an advisory committee of users, advocacy groups and potential funding agencies to analyze rules, procedures and processes. Create a committee of EZ Rider staff to do the same.
  2. Retain a consultant to analyze the operations of the demand response system and recommend opportunities for system improvement.
  3. Investigate ways to work more collaboratively with other regional providers and funding agencies with the goal of providing more effective services and identifying possible funding sources in addition to the current Chapel Hill partners.

DISCUSSION

FY 2007/08 Budget Changes

We made several overtime management and staffing changes to allow EZ Rider to operate more efficiently.  After one quarter of operation this fiscal year, these changes have had a positive budgetary impact, reducing the projected annual expenditure for wages from $772,000 to approximately $690,000.

System Analysis

Eleven persons were selected to serve on the EZ Rider Advisory Committee, representing various ages, ethnicity, disabilities and communities.

Below are the key concerns raised by the advisory committee and EZ Rider staff:

EZ Rider Advisory Committee

  1. Poor service quality - long wait times for will calls, long travel times, inability to schedule for times wanted
  2. Poor phone service - phones don’t work, cant get through on lines, poor customer service from telephone attendants
  3. Scheduling - scheduling is poor, inefficient, non customer service focused.

EZ Rider Staff

  1. Scheduling is poor, need to revamp the scheduling process to become more efficient, eliminate duplicating and overlapping trips.
  2. System capacity. The system is at capacity and drivers are challenged to make trips and often run late.
  3. Rules and procedures. Chapel Hill Transit needs to improve the certification process, implement rules on no shows, cancellations, etc. in order to better control costs and make better use of driver time.

Short Term Improvements

The short term action steps listed below are designed to improve service, better train personnel and deal with capacity issues.

  1. Reorganize staffing to return to pre-July 1 status.
  2. Evaluate phone operations and establish a performance monitoring system.
  3. Review scheduling practices to look at opportunities for grouping trips or operating collaboratively to provide more efficient service, thereby improving system capacity.
  4. Modify the ADA certification process to conform to Americans with Disabilities guidelines as well as other regional transit operations to ensure that all new customers meet ADA certification requirements.
  5. Review daily operations to implement any immediate improvements that can be made in operations, dispatching or scheduling.

These short term actions steps can be implemented with in 30 days.

Long Term Activities

Over the next several months we will continue to engage the committees in a review of system performance and to review operating policies and procedures as follows. 

  1. Develop and distribute an RFP for a consultant to evaluate EZ Rider operations, services and policies for long term improvement.
  2. Investigate options to replace Strategen, our scheduling software.
  3. Purchase and install Mobile Data Terminals on all EZ Rider vehicles.

Budget Implications

Below is a summary of budgeted items.

  1. The FY 2007/08 budget included a recommendation to use State Maintenance Assistance Funds to pay the consultant for our operations review.
  2. The cost to replace Strategen is not included in the budget.  If a further examination indicate that it is in the Town’s best interest to replace Strategen it will be necessary to amend an existing capital grant or seek new funding to purchase the new software.
  3. Mobile data terminals are included in a recent grant awarded by the North Carolina DOT.