Capital Metro Transit - Austin, Texas

CAPITAL METRO
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ADVISORY COMMITTEE
MINUTES

DATE:                     February 3, 2004
TIME:                     6:00 P.M.
LOCATION:          Capital Metro Transit Store
                                 323 Congress Ave, 1st Floor

Members:              Rene' Barrera, Mike Waddles, Thomas Gunther, and Ruth Young

Associates:             Joseph Thornton and Jerry Balaka

Staff:                       Roberto Gonzales, John Hodges, Barbara Chavis, and Dina Vaquera

Meeting called to order at 6:08 PM.

January minutes tabled, not a quorum.

Rene' announced to the committee that on Monday, February 9th at 6:15 PM, there will be a Campo 2025 Transportation Plan Meeting at Joe C. Thompson Center. There will be some amendments made to the 2025 plan. Rene' stated that it is always good to be aware of what's happening in the strategic planning of our region.

Rene' also complimented Sandra Maggitt for being thorough with the minutes and providing great detail. Rene' stated also that there are things that he has said that are probably not heard he tends to mumble. There are corrections from time to time, but there are very few.

Route #37 - Roberto Gonzalez

Roberto discussed the removal of the northbound bus stop at Hancock Center. He illustrated the location of the stop and presented a photo of the stop. Roberto stated that the stop in question was location at Wilshire and that it was removed because it was too close to the exit ramp and that there were a couple of rear end collisions that occurred at this stop. He also stated that are also railroad tracks, a lane that turns, a bridge that goes over Airport Blvd and a lane that goes right. By law, CMTA vehicles have to stop at the railroad tracks no matter where these tracks are located. Roberto stated that he has not been to that area lately, but would consider going out to take a look to see if there is a possibility of a stop. As mention, having removed a stop once in the last few months, and if he was to propose a stop location across from the Hancock Center, he would have to look at the consideration of a vehicle making the stop, then maneuvering one lane over because of the right turn, and making an immediate stop again in the middle of lanes for the railroad tracks an continuing forward. Roberto stated that he did not have a definite answer for the committee, but these are the issues that would have to be looked at when proposing this stop.

Rene' stated that what he recalls is that this is a heavily congested area. Roberto stated that the area is very narrow. Roberto asked if a specific member or a general comment brought up the comments. Rene' stated that a specific member made the comment.

Thomas requested to know where the population for this stop be coming from. Roberto stated that the population usually comes from the Cameron Road and Sears area. Coming from Sears, you would have to cross under the highway and walk down. Typically, frontage roads are very difficult for CMTA to serve because the highway causes barriers. At 38 ½ Street there is a way for pedestrians to get across. There are also ways to cross at 32nd Street/St. David's, at 26th Street and the next one is at Manor Rd. The next available location to cross is not until 51st Street.

Rene' asked if the main locations, such as HEB and the Sears Shopping area, is what the customers are looking for. Roberto stated that he talked to people at the HEB and found that this is somewhat of a destination. There are people that come from the Cameron Road area, typically people of Hispanic descent that catch the 37 all the way down to 38 ½ and walk across to Fiesta, which caters to them more than Sears.

Roberto stated that he will take a look at the area, but these will be the issues.

Rene' stated that he would like to talk more about the amenities. Ruth asked if the stop at 6th and Guadalupe for route #982 had been taken away and where is the stop now. Roberto stated that the stop was taken away and CMTA did was made a permanent route that would service Congress and 3rd. The buses are turning down 5th street off Guadalupe and Roberto asked the operators to leave people off until they can signs placed there. There is a work order to have signs placed at 5th and Lavaca and 5th and Colorado, the next stop will not be until the bus gets to the layover at 3rd and Congress. The stops should be placed within a day or two for both the #982 and #983 routes. Roberto stated that he was approached last week by one of the operators and he told her to go ahead and leave people off, because it is an authorized stop even though the flags are not there, and they will be put there.

Ruth stated that approximately a week or two ago, there were two people that ride the #982 that had been there between the hours of 6 and 6:30 and were very upset because the operator wouldn't stop there and let them off. Roberto stated that he has told the operators to come by and ask if they have any questions or issues to come by the Planning Department to see if this is a reasonable request. He also stated that he could ensure the committee that this week it would be done. He also stated that the customer can ask the operator to let them off at the requested location, and if the customer has a problem they can contact someone in the Planning Department to talk to the operators. Ruth stated that there was also an issue when the #986 bus did not make the stop. Roberto stated that the #986 does not take that pattern, only the #982 and #983. Ruth stated that the #986 goes by the Post Office and because of the word that got out, this operator did not stop in front of the Post Office for the #986. Roberto stated that the sign is there, and Ruth stated that the operator didn't stop, went down to 5th Street and would not let the people off until they became very irate. She also stated that there were six people on the bus that wanted to get off at 6th and Guadalupe and there was almost a war going on. Finally, one woman in the front of the bus starting shaking the door and stated to the operator that if he didn't let her out of here it would be his head. The operator then stopped at 5th and Guadalupe, and this happened a few weeks ago. Ruth stated that she thought they would have heard something about this. Roberto stated that when something like this happens, the customer can indicate via e-mail in a matter of minutes. Roberto stated that he knows that there were no changes made to the #986.

Ridership Numbers - Roberto Gonzalez

Roberto presented samples of the #100 Airport Flyer ridership numbers during this Fall. He stated that initially when the service started, they were getting about 175 riders per day. Approximately a year ago a second vehicle was added which increased the frequency. According to the Automated Passenger Counter, ridership is currently about 250-300 passengers per day. Cost per passenger hasn't really changed; even though ridership has doubled the cost to operate has doubled.

There have been a couple of new changes that started this January. First, this route has been diverted and changed to service the new Austin Hilton Convention Center Hotel. This was a nice arrangement with the managers, but after speaking with them a couple more times they were receptive towards service and wanted to make sure they could keep working with CMTA. There is a little bit of kink right now because of the streets that Capital Metro was going to use because they are using them still for the storage of construction material. As soon as these are worked out, Capital Metro will have a better, more ideally location between the Hilton Hotel and the Convention Center. Right now the service is within a half block of the Hilton.

Secondly, this past Fall, the Hilton Hotel at the Airport is being serviced by the #100. They are heavily promoting the service so that people staying there come to downtown for whatever reason they want to and return back very efficiently. They like the option because they typically get request to transport guests to downtown. This ties up there vehicles, which are sometimes needed for other purposes. Roberto stated that they are seeing some good and positive things happening on the Airport flyer and would continue to look at this Spring to see how it develops with the new Hilton opening.

The Thanksgiving and Christmas numbers spiked up, which partly was the result of the University of Texas students going home for the holidays.

Jerry stated that there are a lot of questions from people flying in that wanted to know where the #100 goes. He stated that Janice Foster of the Convention Center Bureau designed a map, which shows each hotel and the map would need to be aligned to the route. Roberto stated that if Jerry could get him a copy of the map, they could try to contact Janice Foster and try to work something out.

Rene' stated that they talked a while back about the electronic Kiosk coming and wanted to know if they were still far away on the horizons. He stated that this seem like the ideal interactive kind of way to do this and with the hotels already plugged in, the Airport would be a good location for this.

Rene' asked if the Hilton was doing a cost share as far as marketing. Roberto stated that they are. They are promoting it actively amongst themselves and amongst the guest. Also, the marketing team from Cynthia's shop has produced specific type of flyers to help convey some of these issues more easily to the people at the airport.

Late Night Bus Route & Tour of the Town - Roberto Gonzalez

Rene' asked if the Late Night Bus Route also include the first Thursday route. Roberto stated that the first Thursday route is doing very well. They are picking up about 300 to 400 people a night and sometimes a little more. Roberto stated that he received a call from Gail Armstrong suggesting that they tone it down because it was getting out-of-hand with the parking, drinking, merchants, and other things.

The initial goals for the evening shuttles were to have 150 - 200 people or more per night per route. Right now the routes are averaging about 70 riders per night per route. There have been spikes when the Austin City Limit festival took place, which average 500 people per night. The numbers depends on the activity that is happening. Next month the task force will be going out with staff to talk to people on Thursday and Friday evening to let them know the service is out there if they have issues with parking, etc. They will also be getting feedback from the riders.

Rene' stated that he would be interested in finding out from the parking lot perspective as far as the business come in, how many are hopping on and circulating. Roberto stated that this is a question they would ask the task force.

The Night Owl Services update for the North is approximately 80 riders per night, the East is about teens and the South along Burton Drive is about 30 to 40 per night. This is not ideally where they want it to be but it is doing what it suppose to be doing. The goal expected was 150 - 200 riders per night. People take advantage of the services when they know the crowd is not going to be manageable.

Thomas asked if it was possible to market the Night Owl Services under an E-Bus name, because the E-Bus has gotten a lot of publicity, especially on the UT campus. Roberto stated that they haven't discussed this, but the E-Bus came from the students themselves. It was whatever they thought would be easy for them to remember. Roberto stated that he praises the students and that they are best at marketing the service. Jerry stated that the N. Lamar and the Riverside bus are also student areas. The students are probably aware of the E-Bus and not aware of the Night Owl Bus and can't distinguish the difference. Roberto stated that this is something that they need to take a second look at.

Jerry asked if the ridership on the Night Owl services not primarily UT students. Roberto stated that there are people who work downtown and people who work in different parts of the community that transport them.

Amenities Update for FY2003 - John Hodges

John stated that he is prepared to update the committee on the shelters. An overview, for the fiscal year '03, there were 89 separate shelters installed. There were 15 different projects, where some had more than one shelter. Amenities wise, there were approximately 2 linear miles of new sidewalk placed as part of the amenities program. Since the BGA program, there has been 29 linear miles of sidewalks placed. This is pretty good activity as far as shelters. It matches what the normal activity for a year and the year's pass. This could be done without being fully staffed.

Rene' asked if these were the standard hockey style shelters. John stated that they were. Jerry asked if these were strictly mainline. John stated that some were shuttles and some were mainline. From a facility standpoint there's no difference. To the Fixed Route and the service providers in planning, there's a difference. Roberto stated that UT shuttles were mixed in. John stated that examples would be the Law School, Dean Keaton at San Jacinto, Intramural Fields, and Lake Austin Blvd. Even though it's not fiscal year 2003, the Northwest Park and Ride has different kinds of experimental windbreaks. There has been feedback from focus groups and talking to customers, and CMTA is trying to come up with a windbreak design of material that works for them. They have been experiencing with the ones at Northwest Park and Ride.

The important issues during fiscal year '03 is the fact that we went not being fully staffed to being fully staffed by 01 August 03. Also, this is when the amenities program was consolidated. Amenities projects would occur all over Capital Metro. Some were in maintenance, some under Elaine Timbes; the BGA project was under our department and myself. The President/CEO and the Board realized that this was inefficient so they consolidated it all under the Facilities Design and construction where a project manager could be hired to lead the amenities program which became full speed by August 1st. Since that time, Travis Hausmann has been able to push the program. With service planning, they have identified about 600 different service level locations where they know is in need of amenities attention. They have set a goal and represented to the Board that they will have all 600 locations achieved in a 2 years time frame. Some of the amenities are easy and some have slope and utility problems. One project, with a good bid, can put in one of the easy amenity for $7000 - $7500. This means that all they have to do is find a contractor to go and do it. The state statue says that if a public works project expected construction cost is $8000 or more, they would have to have a registered engineer to be part of this process. This would add some cost, but mainly it adds some time. Before an engineer would stamp the drawing he would probably want a surveyor to go out. Then you have other procurement events and other time frames to plug into it. Just doing one sheltered based bus stop could take eight months. With all the pieces and sequences, and there are any kinds of issues because of the engineer components, what they are doing with Travis is putting in place a new series of task order contracts. On the big park and ride there are task order contracts in place for engineering disciplines, architects, and appraisals. What this does for Capital Metro is shorten the whole process. Every time they need to procure something within the service, there is a minimum of three months, if everything goes well.

Rene' asked if they could go with the pre-fab as part of the construction in order to lower the cost and avoid the seal. John stated that they could, and what they are doing is putting some pre-fab shelters under a task order contract. Pre-fab is a little deceptive in it's description, because what they found when investigating all the manufactures is that they do not have it where you can just go and buy them. They let you order and then they fabricated them. This is not an appreciable time improvement like going to a pre-fab compared to going with their standard shelter.

During the Board meeting in February, they will be asking the Board to approve construction management services so that they can go ahead and have field inspectors when they start. They also sent to procurement two different requests to procure task order contracts for concrete and explanation specialists. The reason for doing this is that once the task order contract is in place and there is a new location, you can just take the contract out and say work here. You then have a two-day time frame instead of a three-month procurement time.

John stated that they want to upgrade the level of quality of each bus stop types. This will extend beyond the two years and will be ongoing. This will improve all the levels of quality at all the different levels of the bus stops starting with the base stops. This is part of what they are doing, and also working with other people at Capital Metro to finish GIS system where every bus stop is located electronically. This will confirm what amenities are at each bus stop and there will be digital pictures. The prototype is in place but has not confirmed the integrity of all the data. This will be a component when redoing the amenities program. Capital Metro has contracted for the purchase of 500 litter containers; this is something Travis has done since he has been at Capital Metro. January Board has approved the contract for the construction of 35 new bus stop projects, also approved was a new contract to fabricate and install 20 additional shelters and 100 benches. The point of this is that Travis has been with Capital Metro since August and they are already seeing them getting strategically prepared for a huge amount of work and some of the work has actually started. This started in 2004, the planning started in 2003.

Rene' stated that he can see that this is a lot, but what would help them is if they could get a spreadsheet to analyze the cost of ridership, bus routes and schedules. It helps to have something tangible. John stated that he would work with the committee to get drafts that mostly try to instill the format. This will give you the information you need rather than a pile of information that will not get your attention. Rene' stated also that his vision would be that this is something that could be on the website as showing this fiscal year they have made this much progress. John stated that Travis is maintaining a spreadsheet.

Rene' asked if the guidelines for the bus stop placement changed throughout the year. He is hoping that CMTA has standards where there are no guide wires near bus stops because this could be a hinder if you are running to a bus stop. This would make the customer experience much more pleasant if you have these standards. John stated that this is a good point to illustrate and this is exactly what Travis is going to do. One element not mentioned is that CMTA is working closely to Community Connections activities where they go out and have long sessions with the neighborhood and they identify projects that they want Capital Metro to do. There are a lot of those initiatives that are connected to the amenities program.

Rene's stated that the lighting on 5th Street is a good example of customer improvement not only as a safety element but for visibility and reduces maintenance cost. John stated that Travis is currently in the process of installing seven different locations with state of the art light in places where the light was minimum. When CMTA has to go over to put a wire over a light, this could cost anywhere from a minimum $1500 to $3,000 or $4000. They have had some manufacturers of the lighting system that said if Capital Metro would let them put out the lights, they would put them out for free because they needed a real beta test to see how the lights were used and abused. If they work out nicely, CMTA will go ahead and put out hundreds of them in places where bus stops have security issues or just safety issues. All these things will be marketed within the next one or two weeks.

Ruth stated that she has a bus stop assessment that was made out in 2001, with all the things that goes back to say what Capital Metro was going to do and how they were going to do it. She requested a voice mail of the things John stated that Capital Metro was going to do so that they wouldn't go back to 2001, 2002, and 1999. She stated that the committee never got the feedback on the big packet that they were given about the bus stop assessments. Every time there is a new employee, they reiterate the same thing over and over which doesn't seem like Capital Metro has done a lot of progress during 1999 or 2000. She stated that what disturbs her is that the people on the outside do not see progress. John stated that he is in the middle of it so he can see a lot of activity and the committee can't see that. He stated that there are two parts and he would have to figure out the best way to communicate this. One, what is really going on and how much of it they are doing. Two, what are they doing with the items that they are not building on right now, for example, the 600 item list. What he wants Travis to do is improve the communication and the spreadsheets so that it will make sense to the committee.

BJ stated that since CSAC exists and the website exists, is it possible to put a place on the website where the committee and go in and track down all the paperwork and have a check mark when it happens. That way they can keep up with what has happened and what is promised. John stated that he thinks this will be easy to do, and that the key issue is trying to agree on what form it will take so that it makes sense to you. For example, John stated that he could sit down and looked at his notes and know exactly what it means, and you looked at it, it may not mean the same thing to you as it would to him. He stated that he thinks they could do this and that it will be easy. They would need to refine the format of how they present the information so that it makes more sense to the people who want to look and see what's going on. BJ stated that a grid or something where things like 2001 could go all the way to the accomplishments in 2003 or 2004. John stated that he will check with the IT Department to find out what all would be involved to get this started and will come back to discuss and see if there are any other issues, if so, what are they.

John asked the committee what format they would like to see. Rene stated that one way to label this would be to show on the map where these places have been completed. This would be a visual way this would help him in addition to spreadsheet he could see what part of town is coming together. John stated that he thinks Rene' Brill's project allows for them to do this now, but he will do homework on this and come back and let the committee know what was founded and what can be done.

Rene' stated that with the park and rides you do ribbon cutting, and with the bus shelters you don't do ceremonies. John stated that they had a ribbon cutting on some of the stops that were just finished on Loyola Lane. Also, on some of the larger stops they have ribbon cuttings and a lot of the smaller ones they don't; they just finish them and go to the next one. Rene' stated that with the Adopt-a-Stop Program, this will bring some more visibility to the whole program and public involvement as well.

IVR Focus Group - Barbara Chavis

Barbara made a correction to the topic, it should not read ATPS (Automated Trip Planning System), but should read IVR (Interactive Voice Response System). There are two major projects going on in the Call Center.

In the next sixty days, Capital Metro will need participants from the CSAC committee to participate in a Focus Group which will give Capital Metro feedback about the development of their Interactive Voice Response unit call flow. Barbara stated that she does not have specifics on how they are going to administer the process on how they are going to get feedback from the focus group. They are going to try to design it where the participants can do this from home, maybe call in. There may be the need for some organizational meeting in order to step through some of the processes. For further explanation, your Interactive Voice Response unit will be voice activated and touch tone activated so that when you call the 474-1200 number, it will enable you to get bus route and schedule information 24-7. Capital Metro will also have an Interactive Voice Response System in STS and they will have a focus group as well. The kind of feedback that CMTA is seeking will be the call flow process, how easy it is to use, is it user friendly, and would like to get three to four volunteers to participate give them feedback. The implementation date is scheduled sometime early summer. They are working very fast and furious to make this happen even sooner. Each participant will be provided with additional information on the location, time, and type of participation CMTA would like to get from you.

Ruth stated that this sounds interesting. The question was asked to know what would be the group's focus and would the group do. Barbara stated that the focus group will give CMTA feedback on the development on their Interactive Voice Response unit. For example, when calling your bank, a voice will tell you to enter your account number or speak your account number and it walks you through that. This is not new technology; it's been out there for some time and this is the type of technology being talked about. The relationship to the Automated Trip Planning System is that it will be integrated into the Interactive Voice Response unit where you can do your trip planning via the phone. When given a point of origin and a point of destination, the system will give you that information back. Another part of the project on the Automated Trip Planning System is that it will be placed on the internet. The customer can either go on directly to the internet for their trip planning or call the 474-1200 number and do their trip planning.

On the Special Transit in the Call Center, they will also have a Voice Interactive Response unit which will allow their clients to do their trip planning. Barbara stated that what she is recruiting for is for the Fixed Routed/474-1200 GO-LINE. The volunteers so far are Ruth Young, Thomas Gunther, Jerry Balaka, BJ and Rene' Barrera.

Thomas asked when the entire implementation (the internet, telephone) will be complete, will it be this summer. Barbara stated that they are already involved in the testing of the Automated Trip Planning System. There is probably another 30 days left on the testing and they would like to have this shorten and complete testing by March 1st. Before going live to the public, it will be expanded to all agents in the Call Center so that they will begin using it for another level of testing. They are also planning for a very soft implementation in rollout. Before doing the big media campaign and information campaign, they are going to open it up, use it, and test it until it is as near perfect as possible to work out all the bugs and glitches.

Also, during the last meeting, there was a request for the Great Customer Care Program for the committee. This is a work in progress and you will be hearing more about this at the Board meeting. The committee will also receive updates and Barbara will invite Rick L'Amie to come out and discuss the Great Customer Care Program.

Rene' stated that he failed to mention to Mr. Hodges that it would be nice to advertise when they go to the pre-fab shelters. March would be a really good example of using art in public places and bus shelters, it would be real effective. If anything it would help keep them well maintained because people will respect them and appreciate them more.

Rapid Transit Subcommittee - Tepper - No Report
Amenities Subcommittee - Patterson - No Report
Technology Subcommittee - Greenwalt - No Report
Fixed Routes Subcommittee - Jerry Balaka- No Report
By-law changes - Tepper/Barrera - No Report
Others -CSAC Membership - Will have a meeting next week with Barbara Chavis, Dianne Mendoza, Carl Tepper and Rene Barrera to start brainstorming on ways to facilitate more membership whether it is advertising or other organizations tapping in to existing committees. If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations you are welcome to forward to them and to be part of the membership committee.

Per Rene', December Minutes will continued to be tabled due to the absence of Carl Tepper and David Patterson. January minutes will have a correction from Carl regarding his comments on the bus shelter and amenities, which has been added to the record.

Rene' stated that the correction to the January Minutes is on page 5. The comment is that Rene' directed comments towards the efforts towards Capital Metro and the Board to allow "multi disciplinarians" and show say "inter disciplinarians" efforts where you would have someone from the public like CSAC involved in the focus group deliberations. Multi is not the word that he was looking for and that he didn't stated. What this accomplishes is that the last sentence would be an external customer as well as an internal customer, even though you are talking about growth. This would be really important when you have a cross-functional high quality results. This would pull all the players together.

January Minutes were motioned to approved and second.

Bring in Steve Herrera to discuss and possible take a tour on the new articulated bus, the longer 60 foot bus. There will be an invite sent during that month to visit. There will be a presentation from the vendor.

Joseph asked to know if there was anything known on whether or not they will be voting on Light Rail or Commuter Rail. Barbara stated that they will have to bring in Sam Archer to speak on this.

Mike commented that he received a call from someone at Metro regarding the ribbon cutting of the Northwest Park and Ride, but was not able to attend due to his job. Rene' asked that when there are future ribbon cutting, to have the time frame more flexible for those that have to work.

Action Items:
Check dates to reschedule during the Spring for follow-up on route numbers for the Tour of the Town shuttle.

John Hodges will follow-up with Renee Brill on the Bus Stop Database Project.

Send Great Customer Care Program to committee members.

Future Agenda Items:

Transit Watch Program - Pam Rivera
Introduction of new VP of Vehicle Maintenance./Steve Herrera/Articulated Buses
Bus Stop Database Project update - Renee Brill

Meeting Adjourned.

Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority
2910 East 5th Street | Austin, Texas 78702 | (512) 389-7400
Specific Route Information | (512) 474-1200 | (800) 474-1201