Streetcar on the “Honor System”

Like most other rail street transit systems in the world, the DC streetcar should be on the honor system.  This system requires passengers riding the streetcar to have proof that their current ride is paid for, but does not require riders to show their ticket unless asked by an inspector.  This system is extensively used in Europe and in various American cities like San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

Honor system boarding allows people to board at any door of the vehicle and speeds up vehicle travel speed.  If you have a valid day or week pass or prepaid cash ticket, nothing would be required.  Just board and go.  If you have a Smartrip card, readers at each door would be available to register your payment.  Cash fares could be accepted at the driver’s door only, but this could be discouraged by increasing the fare (for example, by charging $2.00 at the farebox instead of $1.50 at the station machine).  The goal would be to encourage most riders to prepay their fares so the boarding process can happen smoothly and with a minimum of delay.

Fare verification would require random inspection of tickets.  First-time non-payers could be warned, repeat offenders could be fined or (in rare cases) asked to leave the train.  A reasonable first fine (after a warning) could be $50, with a maximum $200 fine.  Citations could be paid by mail or contested at the Metro or DDOT office, with judicial appeals available if required by law.  I’m not sure what to do about passengers that are not carrying photo ID. Some systems have difficulty compelling fare evaders to show ID, at worst they could be asked to leave the vehicle.

Having enough inspections to give people more than a 10% chance of being asked to show payment is a reasonable balance `between too many inspectors and rampant fraud.  With this level of inspection, the TCRP reports that most transit operators see between 1 and 6% non-payment rate.  For example, Phoenix’s new light rail transit line reports about a 1% non-payment rate with about a million rides per month.  For DC’s streetcar lines, three to five full-time inspectors for each line should be sufficient to provide this level of coverage, supplemented by additional temporary staff inspectors occasionally to provide more robust coverage and audits.

Inspections would be kept brief, paper fare media could be inspected visually, and Smartrip payment or passes could be validated by hand-held readers.  To reduce confrontation and security risks, inspectors might be sent in pairs, boarding the vehicle at both doors and meeting in the middle.

There are some alternatives to the honor system.  One would be to require all passengers to board at the front door and pay or show a pass, involving longer waiting times at stops.  Another would be to have a conductors at each door (I saw this in Germany) which would increase operating costs.  Finally, DDOT could somehow limit access to streetcar stations except through faregates, which is likely impractical or impossible without encasing the station and providing street-side doors for boarding like in Curitiba.

Since these alternatives are slower or more expensive, I recommend that DC follow other cities and use proof of payment/honor system for collecting streetcar fares.

London’s “Spider Maps”

Transport for London has these great bus maps that show routes traveling in all directions from major transit nodes. 

These maps are more abstract than the previously mentioned station-oriented bus maps.  They combine several useful features:

1.  A local area walking map, showing the location of the different bus stops keyed to a table of routes

2.  A schematic route map for the bus, showing routing to other transit nodes in the area

3.  A table of routes leaving from that node, either daytime or nighttime routes

These maps, Metro’s station area maps, Los Angeles Metro’s “12 Minute” maps (discussed here), and improved bus schedules are all created by CHK America, Inc. 

Some issues with this mapping method:

You have to name the “dots”.  Could DC residents agree on what to call the many new places we’d have to represent as a dot on a map?  Or would the dot names become conglomerations, like some Metro station names?

Our bus service seems more complicated.  Some routes only travel certain times or have “turn-back” service.  For example, there are some Metrobus routes that operate only two or three trips a day.  Is it better or worse to put them on the map?

Our buses are not as frequent as London’s.  This kind of map is most useful if the rider only has to worry about routing and not schedule.  Once a rider has to worry about bus schedule and timetables, it’s likely this won’t be enough information.

Infosnack and Greater Greater Washington Mentioned in the Post

I was mentioned in the Washington Post. Woot. Probably because Unsuck DC Metro mentioned me or perhaps Lena Sun of the Post has my business card after I talked to her at a WMATA board meeting, before I was writing more heavily for Greater Greater Washington. See this article, "Catoe should make gadfly bloggers his new best friends". We should convene a meeting of the WMATA bloggers and strategerize or something. I'm still looking to meet the bloggers from DCist, Metro Man, Why I Hate DC and We Love DC.

Board to Catoe: Cut service to balance the budget

According to this draft resolution, the Board will consider providing the following guidance to GM Catoe for preparing the FY 2011 budget, which starts next July:

Assume that jurisdiction subsidies will not likely increase

Assume a fare increase in line with inflation, approximately a 3% increase

Determine whether the FY 2011 budget can be balanced by funding preventive maintenance with capital funds, and assess how that affects the capital program

Propose how to keep MetroAccess costs from growing unsustainably

Recommend how to adjust rail and bus service levels to provide a balanced budget

The last item is key.  Once you’ve put fare increases above inflation and government assistance off the table, you have to find the money either through cutting service  or some other Metro expense.  Since last year’s budget was mainly balanced by cutting non-service Metro expenses, it seems unlikely that much more will be possible, leaving Metro’s staff in the uncomfortable position of recommending severe service cuts. 

As we discussed earlier, we prefer a balanced approach, with the burden shared evenly between subsidies, fares and service cuts.  We also strongly endorse measures to keep the growth of MetroAccess costs down, as well as working with local departments of transportation to speed up bus service, allowing fewer buses to provide the same level of service.

Arlington installs better meters

In some Arlington locations, drivers are now able to pay by credit card, right at the curb.  Unlike the multi-space pay and display meters showing up around the region, these parking meters are conveniently located right at each parking space, and do not require the driver to place a receipt on their dashboard.

The county is trying the new meters out for a 3 or 4-month pilot program.

The new meters are a drop-in replacement for the county’s existing parking meters.  A video I can’t find again shows how they can be replaced in less than 30 seconds.  The old meter is unlocked and the top and guts are removed, the new guts and a new top are installed.  The meters use existing coin boxes and poles.  According to Arlington County, the new meters are about $500 each.  They are solar powered, accept credit cards, and do not need to have supplies like receipt paper periodically replaced.

The brochure states that the meters can be administered remotely, report errors or malfunctions by text message, and can even accept cell phone or contactless credit card payment.

Arlington is currently undergoing a series of public review and board approval cycles for their draft Master Transportation Plan.  In the Parking and Curbspace Management element (PDF) of the draft plan, Arlington is contemplating a change to Performance Parking as one of its curbspace management tools.  The draft element needs to be approved by the County Board (scheduled for November 14, 2009) before it will be official guidance for staff to draft revisions to county ordinances. 

Assuming the Parking element is approved with something resembling Performance Parking, Arlington’s new meters would permit adjustment of meter rates at different times of day, and report data that allows staff to measure the relative popularity of different meters which would allow them to adjust rates based on demand.

Metro Budget Possibilities

Metro's 2011 budget starts out about $100M in the red from a preliminary analysis, but the General Manager has to submit a balanced budget to the Board by December. Here's some things he could consider:

Revenues: A fare increase is unavoidable this year. Metro should increase all fares by some base amount, about 5%. For Smartrip bus fares, this is about a nickel, maybe a dime. For cash bus fares, $1.50 is a reasonable increase that makes the cash payment easy to manage in exact change. According to data obtained from Metro, less than 15% of Metrobus riders pay cash. For Metrorail, off-peak fares should increase a dime at the low end to $1.45, and a fifteen cents at the high end to $2.50. Peak Metrorail fares should increase fifteen cents at the low end to $1.80, and the maximum fare should increase fifty cents to $5.00. Parking fees should increase a minimum of 5% (about 25 cents), and the Board should study whether parking garages that are completely full should have higher parking fees to manage demand. Even the bike locker fee should be increased by $5 (to $75 per year), with higher increases targeted to stations that have a waiting list.

The fare increases should have a broad base component, ensuring that all riders contribute to keeping Metro's budget balanced, and a targeted component to (1) overcrowded Metro services (like parking, peak rail and bike lockers), and (2) segments that are relatively price insensitive (like peak-hour commuters). This kind of fare increase should raise around $65M, about half of the amount raised by a much more targeted fare increase in 2008. Since Metro already assumed a $34M fare increase, that's $31M more than previously stated.

Subsidy: Last year, in one of the worst economies since WWII, Metro's funding partners were able to contribute an additional 3%, or $16M. This year, with the economy starting a recovery, we should expect the same or more. It is not fair or equitable to expect Metro's customers, who do not select the members of the Board or participate meaningfully in Metro's governance, to bear the primary burden of keeping the transit system solvent through fare increases or service cuts.

If the Board is unable or unwilling to hold down cost growth in areas like employee compensation (up $53M a year) or paratransit (up $20M), then the Board should be able or willing to go to its local governments and ask for the money those increases require. In discussions, Board members often treat this cost growth as unavoidable, but the experience with BART shows that it is possible to constrain the growth of labor costs, and the staff has repeatedly discussed ways to reduce Metroaccess costs. With the riders expected (as suggested above) to contribute about 10% more than last year, it is only fair that the subsidy should be increasing at about the same rate. Metro's funding partners should be expected to contribute no less than the increase in paratransit service, or $20M, but really it should be closer to $30M, or about 6% of the subsidy last year (subsidy levels typically increase every year, while fares increase only some years, that's why it's not 10%).

Cost reduction: According to this presentation, reducing Metroaccess to the mandated 3/4 mile ADA corridor would save $2.8M per year or more. Another idea would be to ask jurisdcitions to stop dropping their own federally subsidized paratransit programs, and directing their constituents to use Metroaccess, as the District did last year. Metro could also implement a mandated 2-3% cost reduction effort in all departments except public safety, which would save about $3M per year. The board could decide to implement the "escalator to stairs" concept, with a delay between when the escalators are no longer maintained and the capital expense to convert them to stairs, saving them up to $1M per year. They could implement the cost reduction strategy of closing underutilized station entrances on Metrorail, as proposed last year for a savings of about $1M per year. They could continue to propose cutting Metrobus lines that underperform, or jurisdictions could offer to take them over, as Fairfax and Arlington Counties did last year. Finally, they could propose cutting Metrorail service frequency outside of rush hour, going to 15 minute headways on weekdays and Saturdays during the daytime, which could save another $7.5M per year. Some of these service cuts are painful, but the budget gap is huge.

The total of everything above is about $75M per year, so the GM and the Board are going to have to find even more cost reductions, more subsidy increases or more fare increases than what I've mentioned above. It's going to be a tough budget year.

Preliminary Metro Budget Forecast

As reported in the Washington Post, Metro’s staff released a report for the Board’s Finance Administration and Oversight committee meeting this Thursday.  Next year will certainly be a challenging year for Metro.  According to the report, even after an inflationary fare increase of 4-6%, and continued deferral of preventive maintenance, Metro’s supporting jurisdictions would still be required to chip in almost 20% more than last year’s budget ($107M).  Since such a large jurisdictional subsidy increase is almost certainly not going to happen in this budget climate, we will likely be looking at a much larger fare increase as well as debates over service cuts. 

Fortunately, the Board has a lot more time to contemplate budget-balancing measures this time around.  Last year, the Board ended up with a very compressed schedule, forcing the jurisdictions to come up with budget-balancing service cuts for non-regional Metrobus routes only.  Under pressure from riders, the board implemented limited cuts while funding the remaining gap through borrowing, increases in subsidies, and administrative cost reductions.

What’s driving this deficit?  In short, higher costs and lower revenues.

Due to contractual obligations, Metro needs to pay its workers about 3% more than last year, from promotions as well as cost of living increases.  That’s about $20M of the gap.

The cost of Metro’s pension plan, health care (retirees and current workers) and other benefits contribute about $33M to the gap.  Without more information about Metro’s union agreements, it’s hard to say much more about these issues.

Metroaccess, WMATA’s paratransit service for the disabled, has been increasing in cost rapidly this past decade, up to almost $100M per year in costs, and contributing $19.7M to the budget gap.  Because paratransit fares are limited by law to double the equivalent fare by transit, very little of this cost is paid by riders, typically 5-6%.  This budget item is expected to grow as the population ages and riders from other jurisdictions choose to use Metroaccess as opposed to services in their home jurisdiction.  For example, passenger trips in 1998 were about 250,000, while budgeted trips in 2009 were 1.8 million and are projected to grow to 2.5 million in 2011.  In the meantime, Metroaccess expenses in 1998 were about $10M, in 2009 were $78.5M, and in 2011 are expected to be $98.6M.

The costs mentioned above are structural.  Without changes in Metro’s employee compensation agreements and in the way Metroaccess is delivered, those budget items will increase every year for the foreseeable future.  Increases in ridership, fares, and jurisdictional subsidies should be structured to provide for a reasonable amount of growth in employee compensation and contracted paratransit service.

Energy costs continue to increase, contributing about $10M to the budget gap.  This budget item is subject to fluctuations in the energy market.

Revenues:  Metro calculates that ridership will grow about 1% from last year after accounting for the effect of a fare increase.  Combined with a 4-6% fare increase, Metro calculates that about $44M in new revenue will be available next year.  However, all of this increase in revenues is wiped out due to a drop in advertising and other revenue.

Coming up, where Metro could save money and what a fare increase proposal could look like.

Metro Customer Service Complaints

At a meeting of a Metro board planning committee (audio), on Thursday Metro staff presented the results of the track maintenance this past Labor Day weekend. According to the staff member giving the report, the track repair was completed successfully, and the shuttle service provided was a success.

However, Metro Board Member Jeff McKay(?)'s experience with the shuttle service was anything but smooth. According to Mr. McKay, he and dozens of other customers waited 35 minutes for a shuttle from Rosslyn, and when it arrived, there were four of them at the same time.

When the customers finally arrived at the Pentagon station platform, they found out that the train had left just a couple of minutes before, taking only three people, and the wait for the next train would be 40 minutes. Mr. McKay asked the station manager why there was no communication between the station level and the street level, where a bus supervisor could have alerted the station and train operator to hold for incoming passengers. According to McKay, the station manager told him that due to a new safety policy, he was not allowed to use his cell phone (this is not accurate - the new policy only applies to vehicle operators, not station managers).

Another Board member (Catherine Hudgins of Fairfax?) asked Metro staff about other customer complaints recieved that weekend. Staff said that they received only 90 customer service complaint phone calls that weekend, which was pretty good considering their ridership. The only problem is that the customer service phone line is only open from 8am to 5pm, M-F. My calls to that line outside of business hours were directed to call back later, with no option to leave a message.

Staff also did not mention the customer service complaints they recieved from other methods. Metro accepts customer service complaints via the web. Since last year, they have returned emails to the customer service email address without response.

Unlike other government agencies in the area like Arlington County (@ArlingtonVA), DDOT (@DDOTDC) and other transit agencies like BART (@SFBART), Metro's twitter account doesn't follow anyone, and to my knowledge has only responded once via Twitter to a customer complaint, when I directly brought the customer's complaint to the attention of Metro by another means. Other companies like Comcast track traffic on Twitter to get a sense of their customer's complaints and needs.

So is Metro doing enough to listen to customers? Should the complaint line have a voicemail option? Should WMATA listen to what its customers are saying on Twitter or is that a waste of time?