Episode 30
Tackling today’s biggest challenges at four transit agencies
Across North America there are four fundamental issues facing transit agencies:
- Getting enough buses
- Getting enough people to fix and drive the buses
- Getting enough funding to keep running the buses
- Getting (cyber)secure
The bus manufacturing crisis is forcing many transit agencies to get creative at keeping buses running longer. Workforce shortages mean agencies are getting creative at finding and hiring enough people. With a fiscal cliff looming for many agencies, finding ways to save money and still offer the same level of service means finding some new ways to connect people on something other than a 40 foot bus. And every week someone makes the news for getting hacked, so keeping systems secure is a lot harder than it used to be.
Joining Paul on stage for a transit leaders roundtable at TripSpark Ignite are:
- Pam Shepherd, Executive Director, Federated Transportation Services of the Blue Grass
- Ryan Landers, General Manager Lawton Area Transit
- Randy Anderson, Operations IT Systems Administrator CityBus – Greater Lafayette Public Transit
- Matt Maier, Director of Operations Lake Tran
What makes this roundtable unique isn't that they are talking about these issues, but that they've found creative and innovative ways to address them. Learn how:
- Simple ads on buses are getting more applications
- Creating flexible schedules has brought in a whole new group of drivers
- Making sure every usable part of a bus at the end of its life is used to extend the service life of the rest of the fleet
- Auditing your system is the first step to actively preventing hacks on your systems
Sit back and enjoy a fun, interesting, and informative discussion about the top issues facing our industry and how four agencies are meeting them head on.
Next week on the show we have an interview with Faye DiMassimo. When Paul interviewed her, she was leading Chatham Area Transit in Savannah, Georgia, but since then she has a new job with the City of Savannah. Her job still involves connecting people, but has a much bigger and more interesting mandate than transit alone. It's not often we have an interview where we get to talk with someone before and after a career transition. Make sure you tune in for this one!
Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo https://www.modaxo.com
- Host: Paul Comfort
- Producer: Paul Comfort
- Editor and Writer: Tris Hussey
- Executive Producer: Julie Gates
Special thanks to:
- Brand design: Tina Olagundoye
- Social Media: Tatyana Mechkarova
- Marketing content, Transit Unplugged Newsletter, & transit puns: Tris Hussey
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00:04 Introduction from Tris Hussey, Editor Transit Unplugged
01:11 Transit Leader Roundtable at TripSpark Ignite
01:51 Introducing the Panelists: Leaders in Transit
02:23 Tackling Transit Challenges: From Driver Shortages to Public Amenities
06:00 Innovative Solutions and Success Stories in Transit
11:25 A Day in the Life of Transit Leaders
22:38 Navigating Post-COVID Challenges and Opportunities
23:18 Ridership and Revenue Trends: A Closer Look
25:06 Innovative Solutions for Transit Systems
33:33 Embracing Technology for Future Growth
37:32 Personal Insights and Agency Success Stories
42:07 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests, and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Modaxo Inc., its affiliates or subsidiaries, or any entities they represent (“Modaxo”). This production belongs to Modaxo, and may contain information that may be subject to trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights and restrictions. This production provides general information, and should not be relied on as legal advice or opinion. Modaxo specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and will not be liable for any losses, claims, or damages arising from the use of this presentation, from any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken in response to it.
Transcript
. Tris Hussey: This is Transit Unplugged.
Speaker:I'm Tris, Hussey, editor of Transit Unplugged.
Speaker:And welcome to our transit leaders round table recorded live at TripSpark
Speaker:Ignite in Nashville, Tennessee.
Speaker:Joining Paul on stage for this transit leaders round table are
Speaker:Pam Shepherd, Executive Director, Federated Transportation Services of
Speaker:the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky.
Speaker:Ryan Landers General Manager.
Speaker:Lawton Area Transit in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Speaker:Randy Anderson Operations IT Systems Administrator at City
Speaker:Bus, Greater Lafayette Public Transit in Lafayette, Indiana.
Speaker:And Matt Maier Director of Operations at LakeTran Lake County, Ohio.
Speaker:In this dynamic conversation.
Speaker:Paul and these leaders talk about the major challenges facing public transit
Speaker:in North America and around the world.
Speaker:Getting enough people.
Speaker:Cyber attacks, getting enough buses and funding.
Speaker:And in this conversation, these leaders share what they've been doing to
Speaker:overcome these challenges and keep their operations running better than ever.
Speaker:Hope you enjoy this episode and stay tuned to the end for what's coming
Speaker:up next week on Transit Unplugged.
Paul Comfort:Today we're going to do a Transit Unplugged CEO Roundtable.
Paul Comfort:I'm excited to bring you basically some insights from transit
Paul Comfort:leaders that work with TripSpark,
Paul Comfort:this is going to be a fun, a fun event, I think.
Paul Comfort:Why don't we invite our four panelists up?
Paul Comfort:And, why don't you all give them a round of applause as they come up?
Paul Comfort:Basically what we do is this is a conversation with four leaders.
Paul Comfort:And it's an opportunity for us to share about, not just the trends.
Paul Comfort:But how they are specifically affecting transit agencies, it's not the trends,
Paul Comfort:it's the trends down to specific agencies.
Paul Comfort:So I love this conversation we do here.
Paul Comfort:and I'm just going to.
Paul Comfort:Introduce them in the order that, I, I wrote them down.
Paul Comfort:They're not sitting in the, in this order.
Paul Comfort:But Matt Meier from Lake Tran Cleveland, Director of Operations.
Paul Comfort:Give him a wave.
Paul Comfort:Randy Anderson from Citibus, Greater Lafayette, Ops and IT Administrator.
Paul Comfort:My friend, Pam Shepherd, who's Executive Director of, I love this name,
Paul Comfort:Federated Transportation Services of the Bluegrass in Lexington, Kentucky.
Paul Comfort:And, Ryan Landers, who's general manager of, Lake Tran Area
Paul Comfort:Transit in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Paul Comfort:All right, you ready for this?
Paul Comfort:It's gonna be fun.
Paul Comfort:Let's dive in right away.
Paul Comfort:Let's just go into what are your challenges.
Paul Comfort:Tell us about, you know, your one or two biggest challenges in your transit agency.
Paul Comfort:We'll start with you, Pam.
Paul Comfort:We're going to move down this way, and then we'll come back to you.
Paul Comfort:what's your one or two biggest challenges, and what are you doing about them?
Paul Comfort:What can we learn from?
Paul Comfort:What's your tried, maybe that didn't work, tried that did work?
Pam Shepherd:Well, I mean, I think everyone We never dealt with the
Pam Shepherd:deal of trying to get vehicles.
Pam Shepherd:We dealt with not having chips.
Pam Shepherd:We didn't have seats.
Pam Shepherd:Every time that you go out for, to get a bus, there'd be something else going on.
Pam Shepherd:And so it seems like, that that's looking a little bit better.
Pam Shepherd:I mean, we just, our state just went out for a new bid and it's, it's out there and
Pam Shepherd:people are being able to order off of it.
Pam Shepherd:I actually was able to order some buses and I got some in.
Pam Shepherd:so it, that part of it's looking a little better, but the thing about it
Pam Shepherd:is we are always going to be behind because we've been behind for years
Pam Shepherd:and so you're trying to catch up.
Pam Shepherd:Since COVID, you know, everything went off for production and then Ford Motor Company
Pam Shepherd:made a change in what they were doing and so they were down that year, so it just.
Pam Shepherd:Over and over and over.
Pam Shepherd:So, and then of course the other issue is driver shortages.
Pam Shepherd:And this was something we talked about when we first got together.
Pam Shepherd:It was really, really strange because I spent Thousands and thousands and tens
Pam Shepherd:and thousands of dollars on advertising.
Pam Shepherd:Every type of advertising I could think about, you know, spend all the
Pam Shepherd:money with Indeed and everything else.
Pam Shepherd:Anytime anyone would tell me something, I would go out and
Pam Shepherd:try to figure out how to do that.
Pam Shepherd:Well, it's kind of funny is that probably in the last three months I've gotten
Pam Shepherd:more applications with actually no advertising except on the back of the bus.
Pam Shepherd:I have.
Pam Shepherd:These, you know, just I had them made up at a printer and I've just had them put
Pam Shepherd:on their vinyl onto the back of the bus and when my price went, you know, when I
Pam Shepherd:increased the My employment on my pay, I put an X through it and put another one
Pam Shepherd:showing that we were increasing price, that we're going to pay our employees,
Pam Shepherd:and that actually in a few, I also got yard signs, and I had them now, you can't
Pam Shepherd:put yard signs everywhere that you want to, like election signs, so I put them
Pam Shepherd:in front of my building, and I gave them to some of my drivers, and they actually
Pam Shepherd:put them in their yards in their own homes, so that kind of took them around
Pam Shepherd:town and different places we were, so actually, I've gotten more, people
Pam Shepherd:applying just off of the simple stuff.
Pam Shepherd:So, I mean, you know, I listen to everybody and I just try to do anything.
Pam Shepherd:So that's just kind of what came out.
Paul Comfort:I love that.
Paul Comfort:Don't y'all love that?
Paul Comfort:Alright, Matt, go ahead, buddy.
Matt Meier:Alright, so we also have challenges hiring as well.
Matt Meier:Mostly drivers and mechanics.
Matt Meier:Mechanics has really been the, huge problem for us.
Matt Meier:for drivers, we actually went to a hiring event type of situation where anybody
Matt Meier:who showed up to the hiring event, they got a interview, no matter what.
Matt Meier:that actually helped quite a bit.
Matt Meier:You know, we had, obviously, we weren't scheduling interviews for
Matt Meier:people who weren't showing up.
Matt Meier:I'm sure that that's happened to quite a few people here.
Matt Meier:but we also, with our mechanics, we partnered with a technical facility
Matt Meier:very close to us and now we are, we are starting a program where the
Matt Meier:people that are at the technical facility can actually come to Lake
Matt Meier:Tran, start working on vehicles and, So, we're going to be putting
Matt Meier:that into place probably next year.
Matt Meier:So we're really hoping that that's going to really boost our mechanics.
Paul Comfort:Pam, I'm gonna use your example as I start, you know, I talk every
Paul Comfort:week around the world, different places.
Paul Comfort:That's a great, I never thought about yard signs.
Paul Comfort:An actual campaign, you know, like you're, that's a great idea.
Paul Comfort:And have your drivers put them in the yard, that's awesome.
Paul Comfort:All right, thanks.
Paul Comfort:Go ahead, you have one more?
Matt Meier:I do have one more, actually.
Matt Meier:We are also starting a thing called FlexDriver.
Matt Meier:So, a lot of people these days, they kind of want gig work, right?
Matt Meier:So, what we're doing is we're putting together a program where,
Matt Meier:you know, a person can choose the day that they want to work.
Matt Meier:They have to work a four hour shift.
Matt Meier:And, you know, we train them up, we get them ready to go, and then it allows
Matt Meier:them flexibility in their schedule.
Matt Meier:That's the biggest thing for us.
Matt Meier:And I think that's really going to help.
Paul Comfort:I love that.
Paul Comfort:I mean, that's what, that's the theory behind Uber, you know,
Paul Comfort:Userve, all these companies.
Paul Comfort:they get Aunt Susan, who has three hours, when her, you know, when her kid is in
Paul Comfort:daycare, where she can go out and drive, and it's a whole different type of driver
Paul Comfort:than somebody who wants to get in uniform, come in, check in in the morning, you
Paul Comfort:know, are you rested, alert, ready to work, and get their shift work, and go out
Paul Comfort:and drive for eight hours with somebody, you know, watching over their shoulder.
Paul Comfort:It's very interesting.
Paul Comfort:Yeah.
Paul Comfort:Yeah.
Paul Comfort:We had a conversation last night over dinner.
Paul Comfort:A bunch of us were out and we're like, Where's all, where is everybody?
Paul Comfort:Where's everybody making the money?
Paul Comfort:Where, how come they're not working?
Paul Comfort:So, that's good.
Paul Comfort:I think Suzanne was asking me those questions.
Paul Comfort:Yeah, go ahead, buddy.
Ryan Landers:Alright, I could probably bore y'all with all the rest of the, I
Ryan Landers:guess problems that we actually have, but one particular area that we had
Ryan Landers:an issue, and it's been probably about eight years going, is public amenities.
Ryan Landers:we do not have an actual transfer center building, and for about eight
Ryan Landers:years now we've been trying to get one.
Ryan Landers:And we've, you know, gone the political route, we've gone the, You
Ryan Landers:know, other agencies, everything.
Ryan Landers:And so, over the past year, we needed to really step up our focus.
Ryan Landers:And so, we started, among another things, huge marketing campaign.
Ryan Landers:And we started to reach out to, our clients.
Ryan Landers:Our public schools to try to get the youth involved in our,
Ryan Landers:in transit a little bit more.
Ryan Landers:and we started a, ambassadors program.
Ryan Landers:And so we go out and we teach kids, you know, how to ride the bus, get on.
Ryan Landers:And it led to among other things, our very own mascot.
Ryan Landers:We have an actual tire as our mascot and we did buy a mascot costume.
Ryan Landers:Funny enough.
Ryan Landers:I'll show you pictures later.
Ryan Landers:and that has generated.
Ryan Landers:We need enough support that I guess recently, in the past week, we were
Ryan Landers:finally approved by our city council to go after up to 25 million dollars in
Ryan Landers:a grant application for new building, not just a transfer center, new
Ryan Landers:administration, new maintenance facility, as well as hybrid electric buses.
Ryan Landers:So, we finally, Have, I guess gotten over that mark, and got that public
Ryan Landers:support that we've kind of had.
Paul Comfort:And you credit your mascot for that?
Paul Comfort:Absolutely.
Paul Comfort:Bouncy?
Paul Comfort:Really?
Paul Comfort:Oh yeah, Bouncy.
Paul Comfort:That's the name of the mouse.
Paul Comfort:Does it look like the Michelin Man or what's it look like?
Paul Comfort:Oh yeah, no, I'll show you pictures, yeah.
Paul Comfort:Alright.
Paul Comfort:Wow, that's amazing, man.
Paul Comfort:That's a great story.
Randy Anderson:Alright, so kind of three main challenges, as we've heard
Randy Anderson:here on, I mentioned previously, is operator shortage, has, you
Randy Anderson:know, been a challenge for us.
Randy Anderson:We've been able to recruit and have good, you know, new hire classes,
Randy Anderson:but just the attrition rate, of those classes just hasn't, kept up
Randy Anderson:with, what we, what our needs are.
Randy Anderson:one thing that, our, we have a new CEO, he just came on board about a year and
Randy Anderson:a half ago, but he came from, Ohio was one of the places that he was at, and
Randy Anderson:Ohio, they actually have a lower age of, drivers that they allow, and being
Randy Anderson:that we have Purdue University, and we get a peak when, the university's
Randy Anderson:in session, we, it would be nice to be able to have, kind of, like, surge type
Randy Anderson:drivers, if you will, in the program, so.
Randy Anderson:But with the state and the MDOT DMV, they limit our age for the bus operators to
Randy Anderson:21, whereas in Ohio, I believe it's 19, could be 18, I'm not for sure, but anyway,
Randy Anderson:but they would have student drivers would come in to augment the staffing for the
Randy Anderson:operators, so he's starting to work with some of the state entities to figure out
Randy Anderson:how we can potentially drive the age down for the, requirements for the drivers
Randy Anderson:to try to get in that population pool.
Randy Anderson:And that also helped not having to hire those full time and or part time operators
Randy Anderson:or just be natural through the students.
Randy Anderson:Funding is also an issue.
Randy Anderson:We have not received, I think it's been 10 years since we've had any
Randy Anderson:type of increase from the state.
Randy Anderson:for the state, state level funding.
Randy Anderson:so we're looking at other revenue streams, advertising, historically we had also
Randy Anderson:included the fares for the students, in our regular fixed city routes and we're
Randy Anderson:entertaining and looking at do we start having passes actually required for the,
Randy Anderson:students for our, our non, campus routes.
Randy Anderson:You and then we are also, we're putting in, we've got an issue
Randy Anderson:with our communication systems.
Randy Anderson:It's, due to height limitations because of our airport.
Randy Anderson:we do not have coverage in our fringe areas.
Randy Anderson:now we've expanded some of our routes a little bit.
Randy Anderson:We don't have the radio coverage there, so we're looking at a
Randy Anderson:cellular based, radio system.
Randy Anderson:and one reason for that is that we are also mates of a COA as well
Randy Anderson:as a facility relocation We don't know where we're going to end up.
Randy Anderson:We actually have and own the tower on our building so to kind of help future proof
Randy Anderson:things, so no matter where we end up from a location perspective we will have radio
Randy Anderson:coverage wherever we're at with cellular based because we're you know, you can,
Randy Anderson:as I've told the operations manager, if you wanted to you could dispatch from
Randy Anderson:your cruise ship when you're out in the ocean when you get go cellular base, so
Paul Comfort:That's interesting, you should check out those Orion
Paul Comfort:dudes, that's what they dO, yeah.
Paul Comfort:Let's go back into an interesting question, I always like this one.
Paul Comfort:I mentioned yesterday, I've done, you know, small, medium, and
Paul Comfort:large systems, been in management.
Paul Comfort:And I want to know from you, what is your day like?
Paul Comfort:What's a day like?
Paul Comfort:You know, I know that no day is the same.
Paul Comfort:But give us an approximation.
Paul Comfort:Just a one minute summary of what is a day or a week like in your life.
Paul Comfort:Let's start with you.
Paul Comfort:With me?
Paul Comfort:Alright, why not?
Paul Comfort:Yeah.
Matt Meier:So I'm, I'm very project based.
Matt Meier:A lot of my job is just making sure that all of these projects are moving along.
Matt Meier:So, my, I'm always buried in spreadsheets, you know, making sure
Matt Meier:that the timeline is meeting what our expectation is, things like that.
Matt Meier:You're the director of operations.
Matt Meier:I should have said that ahead of time, what your title is.
Matt Meier:Yes.
Matt Meier:And, you know, a lot of, you know, overseeing the actual operations as well,
Matt Meier:you know, I don't, I would say that no day is the same, you know, just like you said.
Matt Meier:And, you know, most of the time it's following up on projects,
Matt Meier:you know, following up with people, you know, all that.
Paul Comfort:Let me ask you, so who do you report to?
Paul Comfort:I, I report to the CEO.
Paul Comfort:And how often do you interact with the CEO on a, you know, on a, not a casual basis,
Paul Comfort:but, you know, a meeting or whatever?
Matt Meier:Probably once or twice a day, if not more.
Paul Comfort:Okay, if you have regular interactions, the CEO wants to know
Paul Comfort:what's happening, you're reporting.
Paul Comfort:Are you giving your CEO written reports, or is it normally verbal?
Matt Meier:Just verbal.
Paul Comfort:Okay, that's interesting.
Paul Comfort:Always interesting to see all the different dynamics, how things work.
Paul Comfort:alright.
Paul Comfort:Let's go with you.
Paul Comfort:Tell me about your life.
Ryan Landers:well, first thing in the morning, I look at my morning report
Ryan Landers:from my dispatcher telling me who called out that morning, or whatever.
Ryan Landers:So, that's always a lovely email that you get first thing.
Ryan Landers:I would say the first thing I kind of do is, meet with operations,
Ryan Landers:my operations director first, kind of get a, kind of layout.
Ryan Landers:You're general manager, I should have said.
Ryan Landers:I am the general manager, yes, yeah.
Ryan Landers:and then after that, I'll go in, to maintenance, kind of get a, you
Ryan Landers:know, FYI, here's what's going on.
Ryan Landers:And then, kind of meet with staff.
Ryan Landers:here's what we're doing, and then give them multiple projects to do,
Ryan Landers:so they're loving the fact that I'm not there this week or whatever,
Ryan Landers:so they can just do what they want.
Ryan Landers:they're not, though, so but yeah, it's just not every day is, is the same.
Ryan Landers:you know, we try to do different things, just to kind of keep moving,
Ryan Landers:but, you know, it's, it's kinda So, it sounds like to me you don't manage
Ryan Landers:from behind your laptop, right?
Ryan Landers:You're getting out walking.
Ryan Landers:As soon as you get there, you're going out in the garage, meeting with everybody?
Ryan Landers:Yep.
Ryan Landers:No, I want to put a face to, to everything.
Ryan Landers:You know, my doors, I hate the cliche, the door's always open, but, it's true.
Ryan Landers:Anyone can come and talk to me.
Ryan Landers:I want to talk to them.
Ryan Landers:and it's not about transit all the time.
Ryan Landers:I want to talk, you know, did you watch the game last night?
Ryan Landers:no, because I had to get up early.
Ryan Landers:So, yeah, I'm just a personal guy.
Ryan Landers:I don't, you know, I don't like to talk about business all the time.
Ryan Landers:It's fun to talk about business, but people have other lives outside of it.
Paul Comfort:How many folks do you have That aren't out on the road in your, in
Paul Comfort:your staff, would you say, that you're interacting with when you're there?
Ryan Landers:Well, we're, we're limited on space right now, hence why we have
Ryan Landers:to get a new operations facility.
Ryan Landers:but, so I actually had moved my HR person into my office, and so I actually
Ryan Landers:have like a colleague there now.
Ryan Landers:so, I would say we probably have about 10, 15 people.
Ryan Landers:That's great.
Ryan Landers:Excellent, thank you.
Ryan Landers:Randy, what's your life like?
Randy Anderson:So, I'm IT manager and reporting to the CEO, so I start off
Randy Anderson:my day by going into operations and dispatch and confirming that all the
Randy Anderson:technology is working correctly, we don't have any issues with any of the buses.
Randy Anderson:Then I start looking at some of our, more of the IT metrics, let the
Randy Anderson:operations manager and the others deal with their own metrics, but, uh.
Randy Anderson:Take a look at the security analysis.
Randy Anderson:Do we have any threats that have hit us overnight?
Randy Anderson:Is that common?
Randy Anderson:The cyber security thing?
Randy Anderson:Yeah, I try to do it every day.
Randy Anderson:I mean, are you getting attacked?
Randy Anderson:We see about three to four attacks a week coming in.
Randy Anderson:Nothing serious, but at least they're trying to infiltrate our system.
Randy Anderson:We see more on, we don't host our website.
Randy Anderson:But we see more, things going on with our, our, actually our corporate website, our
Randy Anderson:company website than we do our internal.
Randy Anderson:but we do see, you know, attempts being made.
Randy Anderson:most of them are international.
Randy Anderson:We've had a couple, that have actually, you know, surface from
Randy Anderson:various states within the U.
Randy Anderson:S.
Randy Anderson:I don't know if it's college students, or what, trying to infiltrate it, but,
Randy Anderson:then look at the antivirus, and make sure we don't see any threats there.
Randy Anderson:We've become a lot more diligent, in looking at doing our, penetration testing,
Randy Anderson:both external and internal, we've shored things up, I know when we first ran
Randy Anderson:the test, it was surprising, this was a couple years ago, but if you have not
Randy Anderson:done this at your agency, I would strongly encourage you to look at all of your, you
Randy Anderson:know, servers, your workstations, your applications, both internal and external,
Randy Anderson:and make sure that they're, you know, locked down as much as they can be, to
Randy Anderson:reduce your exposure to, you know, others.
Randy Anderson:Obviously, the risk from, internal operators is just, you know, as high
Randy Anderson:as external threats, but, you know, don't, don't take that lightheartedly.
Randy Anderson:I know that, you know, there's a company in town, just a month or so
Randy Anderson:ago, got hit by a, security threat.
Randy Anderson:So yeah, and then, you know, the rest of the day is just, working with the
Randy Anderson:staff, try to evaluate, go out and look at what tools we use in Microsoft 365.
Randy Anderson:for our office suite.
Randy Anderson:So, I'm constantly looking at what, what tools are available both for
Randy Anderson:Microsoft 365 and other, companies that can help us, with our daily needs.
Randy Anderson:Be it doing surveys, just day to day tasks that the finance may be doing, so.
Randy Anderson:Yeah.
Randy Anderson:That's interesting.
Paul Comfort:You know, we, we, Because we are connected, you know, Trapeze,
Paul Comfort:Modaxo, TripSpark, because we're connected to so many agencies across
Paul Comfort:the country, we get notice of when a transit agency is attacked, cyber attack.
Paul Comfort:And Simon, wouldn't you say it's about every week?
Paul Comfort:About every week, somebody, we're getting an email, I can say this one
Paul Comfort:because it was public, Kansas City, my, my buddy there, you know, and all the
Paul Comfort:guys there, they've got a, you know, a hardened system, but ransomware, shutdown.
Paul Comfort:You know, we're shutting you down unless you pay a ransom, and they didn't pay
Paul Comfort:it, but it was a major deal, I was actually doing a presentation with him,
Paul Comfort:with Frank White, the CEO, at SWATA, the Southwest Transit Association Conference,
Paul Comfort:a month or so ago, and he didn't have his presentation, because his laptop and all
Paul Comfort:his, everything got shut down, you know, and he was like, I have to redo it, so
Paul Comfort:it's a serious threat, I'm serious, like every week, a transit agency gets attacked
Paul Comfort:in some way, in the country, and there's probably more, like you said, I know that
Paul Comfort:our, Our, our internal infrastructure, the guys that are in charge of IT at our
Paul Comfort:big corporate overlords, not the right word, but you know what I mean, the guys
Paul Comfort:that run all the IT stuff over us, in the, in the cloud, they're saying we're
Paul Comfort:getting, I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pokes from people
Paul Comfort:overseas on our system, I mean, it's a serious deal now, cybersecurity is like,
Paul Comfort:top of mind for everybody, how many of you saw the AT& T thing, you know, last
Paul Comfort:week, some of the biggest, most secure companies are coming out saying, oops,
Paul Comfort:Sorry, your information got hacked.
Paul Comfort:And we're like, wait a minute, you're a credit reporting agency.
Paul Comfort:You're supposed to be the most You get the drift.
Paul Comfort:So, you gotta make sure that you are, like you said.
Paul Comfort:and any resources that you're aware of that anybody could, could find
Paul Comfort:more information about that at?
Randy Anderson:I know that, we have, cybersecurity insurance, like, probably
Randy Anderson:most of you may or may not have, but, I know through our cybersecurity,
Randy Anderson:agency that they actually offer, pen testing at no charge, at least, Once
Randy Anderson:a year, it's not the remediation, but at least the pen testing.
Randy Anderson:So, I, you know, encourage you to start with your cybersecurity insurance
Randy Anderson:company, because they obviously want to help you, because they don't
Randy Anderson:want the exposure for you getting hacked and having to pay out, so.
Randy Anderson:They have a lot of resources available to them, and then, I just, I've got
Randy Anderson:a couple of resources, locally, some, security companies that I, IT security
Randy Anderson:companies that I, you know, reach out to and get some ideas on some things to
Randy Anderson:do, and just a little plug to TripSpark, you heard me, hey, I didn't go into the
Randy Anderson:servers and check things, I can tell you that I've been, I've been at CityBus for
Randy Anderson:seven years, and, and it's been very, Reassuring, the stability that I've seen
Randy Anderson:in both the hardware and software of West Street, I just, for the most part,
Randy Anderson:I don't have to worry about it, which is a good thing, so I can be confident
Randy Anderson:when I'm coming in at the start of the day, that, you know, 99 times out of
Randy Anderson:100, I'm not going to be dealing with, a system issue, for operations, so.
Paul Comfort:Awesome.
Paul Comfort:Thank you.
Paul Comfort:That was a great, great comments.
Paul Comfort:Pam, what do you got?
Paul Comfort:What's a day in your life like?
Paul Comfort:I know you've got stuff all over.
Pam Shepherd:Well, okay.
Pam Shepherd:So, I'm the executive director.
Pam Shepherd:I report to a board.
Pam Shepherd:I'm also the president of the Kentucky Public Transit Association, so I
Pam Shepherd:kind of wear some different hats.
Pam Shepherd:But one thing is, I tried to make sure that we worked in a building
Pam Shepherd:before that was on one floor, and they can attest to this out there, is
Pam Shepherd:that if I scream, they all knew it.
Pam Shepherd:They could hear me in the building.
Pam Shepherd:So when we moved to the new building, I'm upstairs, and so anybody would ever,
Pam Shepherd:like, oh gosh, he'd report upstairs.
Pam Shepherd:And so people would freak out, because any time you have to go up the steps
Pam Shepherd:to go see Pam, it could be danger city.
Pam Shepherd:But anyway.
Pam Shepherd:But, so I wanted to make sure that when we move to the larger building
Pam Shepherd:that unless I'm under a terrible deadline and I've got something
Pam Shepherd:that's really, really due, that I will come down those steps every morning.
Pam Shepherd:So when, even at my house in the morning when I get up the
Pam Shepherd:first thing I call dispatch.
Pam Shepherd:You know, I just want to know what's going on, if everything, nothing's
Pam Shepherd:broke down, you know, everybody's there.
Pam Shepherd:And, so, I'm trying not to be micromanager, but I also work for
Pam Shepherd:people that you never saw, that you never, but I wanted everybody to see me.
Pam Shepherd:I want to be able to interact even when the drivers are coming and going, but.
Pam Shepherd:I get to the office and I work my way down the steps and I go around and I go to
Pam Shepherd:different offices and the administrative part, the call center, and I there, I work
Pam Shepherd:my way over to dispatch and I go back to the garage and then I've gotten everything
Pam Shepherd:and handed it out and gone back upstairs.
Pam Shepherd:But I just want to make sure that my employees and that we're all one
Pam Shepherd:big family that they know that I'm there and they can come to me and
Pam Shepherd:they know that anything that they need I don't want to ever be off
Pam Shepherd:limits just because I'm upstairs.
Pam Shepherd:And so that's why I try to make sure everyday that I do that, so they hear
Pam Shepherd:me coming, but now they don't hear me as much as when I'm upstairs and I scream.
Pam Shepherd:So, but that's kind of not that I wouldn't do that.
Pam Shepherd:But anyway, but I just I think that that's one thing that as an executive
Pam Shepherd:when you're over a group of people, and you've got to let Your team and
Pam Shepherd:everybody that's in charge, be in charge of their own little nick, but you've got
Pam Shepherd:to make sure that everybody has access to you and that you're not untouchable.
Paul Comfort:To summarize, I think, you know, what we can glean from this is, all
Paul Comfort:of you seem to be very hands on managers.
Paul Comfort:Manage it by walking around, you know, we have time, we have to be in our
Paul Comfort:office, but since we're leading people.
Paul Comfort:And we're managing things in these roles.
Paul Comfort:You need to make sure that you don't over emphasize just the managing things,
Paul Comfort:but you also have the leading people.
Paul Comfort:I think especially, to be honest with you, in this post COVID world, there
Paul Comfort:needs to be a lot more interpersonal connection, there was a lot of that that
Paul Comfort:was missing from our lives during the pandemic and so maybe even going overboard
Paul Comfort:on connecting with people like you were saying about, you know, how are you doing?
Paul Comfort:What's going on?
Paul Comfort:You know, did you see the game last night?
Paul Comfort:Whatever, some interpersonal connection, right?
Paul Comfort:With your team so it feels like a family more.
Paul Comfort:yeah.
Paul Comfort:That's good.
Paul Comfort:That's good stuff, man.
Paul Comfort:Okay, so let's go to the next question then.
Paul Comfort:I want to ask you all to give a little bit of a tidbit.
Paul Comfort:I know we're trying to not say post COVID anymore, but we're trying to get
Paul Comfort:past that and get to the new reality.
Paul Comfort:But what's your ridership and revenue trends like?
Paul Comfort:That's, you know, everybody's talking about the fiscal cliff and ridership
Paul Comfort:not back up to where it was, and we're trying to figure out what the new norm is.
Paul Comfort:Just give us real quickly where you're at in all that.
Paul Comfort:Start with you, Randy.
Ryan Landers:All right, so we're probably about 70, 80 percent back to normal.
Ryan Landers:I, I would say our biggest rise, um, so we have an interlocal
Ryan Landers:agreement with our public schools.
Ryan Landers:So they, they pay us a one time fee each year and every, Lawton public school
Ryan Landers:kid can ride free of charge, as well as the staff and everything like that.
Ryan Landers:And that probably encompasses, I would say about 30 percent of our ridership.
Ryan Landers:And that's probably been our biggest rise.
Paul Comfort:They pay you?
Ryan Landers:They pay us, yes.
Paul Comfort:Based on what?
Paul Comfort:Based on a total flat fee or?
Ryan Landers:It's just a flat fee.
Ryan Landers:Yeah, okay.
Ryan Landers:Yeah, but that the revenue that we've actually generated for the last, I
Ryan Landers:don't know, four or five years that we've had that service, that's actually
Ryan Landers:helped us with our local match with our vehicles and everything else.
Ryan Landers:that's been a huge, huge help.
Ryan Landers:And so because we were able to save money over the last three years, because we had
Ryan Landers:COVID money and everything, that's why we've been able to apply for the grants.
Ryan Landers:But yeah, ridership is, is one of those, you know, interesting things.
Ryan Landers:We're about to change our routes, hopefully in the fall.
Ryan Landers:we're actually reducing our routes, but we're making it more efficient, but
Ryan Landers:we're gonna be adding some microtransit.
Paul Comfort:A lot of people are doing that, by the way.
Paul Comfort:It used to be that bus routes, you know, were the same forever and a day,
Paul Comfort:but people are much more responsive to what's happening now with ridership.
Paul Comfort:They're establishing, okay, if we don't get an average of 10 passengers
Paul Comfort:per hour on this route, I'm not going to run a 30 or 40 foot bus down here
Paul Comfort:on 30 minute headways all day long.
Paul Comfort:So we're going to take it away and through hearings and then.
Paul Comfort:Drop in microtransit as a way to cover it.
Paul Comfort:And sometimes they're not even providing the microtransit
Paul Comfort:directly, they're contracting out the taxi cabs, or Userv, whatever.
Paul Comfort:You got anything like that happening?
Ryan Landers:No, we have TripSpark ah, yay.
Ryan Landers:No, no.
Ryan Landers:so, no, actually we would not be able to do half of the services without Trip
Ryan Landers:Spark, mainly good rides on demand.
Ryan Landers:that was a big selling point.
Ryan Landers:you know, one of the new services that we're wanting to start up is a service
Ryan Landers:onto Fort Sill, where they reached out to us to kind of help out soldier wellness.
Ryan Landers:they were having a lot of DUIs, a lot of wrecks.
Ryan Landers:a lot of soldiers do not have access to vehicles, and we do not have a.
Ryan Landers:really dynamic Uber Lyft or taxi service So when they reached
Ryan Landers:out, the mayor, command sergeant major had reached out to us.
Ryan Landers:Hey, can you do this?
Ryan Landers:Yes, we can do this.
Ryan Landers:Ironically enough, it was like a week after we signed
Ryan Landers:the contract with TripSpark.
Ryan Landers:you know, we reached out to our account, person, Melody, and, she said, Hey,
Ryan Landers:we have this product, Rides On Demand.
Ryan Landers:Very next day, I got a demo of, of that product and, you know,
Ryan Landers:I think a week later, did a presentation in front of council.
Ryan Landers:They loved it.
Ryan Landers:Our night owl service.
Ryan Landers:we recently run into a couple of issues, mainly because of vehicles.
Ryan Landers:You know, trying to get the funding for that.
Ryan Landers:But, that's my main project that I have, starting next week, actually.
Paul Comfort:Very cool.
Paul Comfort:Shout out to Melody.
Paul Comfort:Hey.
Paul Comfort:Alright, tell us about what your revenue and
Randy Anderson:So, the ridership, as I mentioned before, we're
Randy Anderson:basically at, pre COVID numbers.
Randy Anderson:we had, so month of March, this year we had 435, 000 rides.
Randy Anderson:month of March 2019, we had 465, 000.
Randy Anderson:and you know, right now we are running three blocks short on a daily basis.
Randy Anderson:So, we're about 8 percent down on, the blockage.
Randy Anderson:And then.
Randy Anderson:we've got, five percent, we're down about five percent on ridership, so
Randy Anderson:we believe that if we actually had the operators and the actual three
Randy Anderson:extra buses en route on a daily basis, We'd be exceeding our 2019 numbers.
Randy Anderson:you know, one thing to talk about the operators, just kind of sidebarring a
Randy Anderson:little bit, but one of our sister agencies down in Bloomington, what they've done
Randy Anderson:is they've taken some of their local funds, for their late night work and sent
Randy Anderson:that over to Uber and Lyft to fund them.
Randy Anderson:Cut back on the late night service.
Randy Anderson:I think they cut back after 10 p.
Randy Anderson:m.
Randy Anderson:now, where most of the routes are now, augmented with Uber and Lyft type service.
Randy Anderson:They, they haven't implemented microtransit or rides on demand, but
Randy Anderson:they've decided to go with Uber and Lyft, and they've found, economies
Randy Anderson:of scale on doing that, where it's actually costing less, even though,
Randy Anderson:so they're still charging, the regular fare for the passengers and then they
Randy Anderson:will supplement the extra, through the local funds to Uber and Lyft.
Randy Anderson:But they're finding the cost to do that is actually less than having that 35,
Randy Anderson:foot bus out on, or 40 foot bus out on the street and paying the operator.
Randy Anderson:So, but, yeah, right now, we're, you know, from a ridership
Randy Anderson:perspective, we're in good shape.
Randy Anderson:How about money?
Randy Anderson:Revenues?
Randy Anderson:So, revenues, we are, As I mentioned before, state wise, we're looking to
Randy Anderson:get increased at funding, we're flat on revenue right now, and with the cost
Randy Anderson:of, you know, green energy, we're, we've got some hydrogen fuel cell buses coming
Randy Anderson:in, the cost of those vehicles plus the operational fueling cost, we have
Randy Anderson:to find additional streams, so we're looking at, you know, advertising and
Randy Anderson:other methods to help, you know, I'm also trying to figure out, do we look at
Randy Anderson:an additional, you know, increasing the tax, the local tax rate that we get, you
Randy Anderson:know, is, potentially another stream, but yeah, the revenue is definitely,
Randy Anderson:uh, tight and, we are looking at some shortcomings about two years out,
Randy Anderson:some of the projections right now, so, we've been working to deal with that.
Randy Anderson:All right, Pam, I know you're in a different world because you're Medicaid
Randy Anderson:some, but tell us where you're at.
Pam Shepherd:We're probably back around 85 percent pre COVID.
Pam Shepherd:the thing is, I think it's been really difficult is trying to get the amount
Pam Shepherd:of money that's being paid to us as brokers and then back to the providers.
Pam Shepherd:Because, since COVID, it's been kind of up and down and trying to get a standard.
Pam Shepherd:So if you go up here, you go down here, and it's been
Pam Shepherd:kind of that way since COVID.
Pam Shepherd:So I'm hoping that we can get a more of a flat line on to be able.
Pam Shepherd:So the brokers and the providers and everyone's going to be doing okay.
Pam Shepherd:I just think it's been very, very difficult because you get it at one part,
Pam Shepherd:And then now your utilization is going up.
Pam Shepherd:So when the utilization goes up, then you're needing more money.
Pam Shepherd:So then it's like, okay, so we're looking at that.
Pam Shepherd:So I think until we, everyone gets back to 100 percent of where we were before,
Pam Shepherd:to be able to totally gauge the amount of money that's going to be put into that,
Pam Shepherd:it's going to be a little bit difficult.
Pam Shepherd:I think that things will even back out because, you know, overall, I'm okay.
Pam Shepherd:It's just from year to year, it's not, it's kind of up and down.
Pam Shepherd:I think that people were, they had money that they were given from grants
Pam Shepherd:to purchase vehicles, but then you couldn't buy vehicles, so a lot of
Pam Shepherd:people have got some dollars that they still have that they're being able to
Pam Shepherd:actually use for capital equipment now.
Pam Shepherd:So, hopefully that people will be able to get their fleets back up, over the,
Pam Shepherd:deal of longevity and, useful life.
Pam Shepherd:I know that, If anyone, this might be a little sidebar, but, if, used
Pam Shepherd:to be that you'd look at, you know, 100, 000 miles in five years and, you
Pam Shepherd:know, on, on cutaways and things like that that was past its useful life.
Pam Shepherd:But I found out because of having my own garage that, hey, I can change an
Pam Shepherd:engine, I can change a transmission, I can make that bus go further.
Pam Shepherd:And being able to have great mechanics to do that.
Pam Shepherd:And when people thought, oh.
Pam Shepherd:This vehicle isn't even good anymore and then they would try to sell it, but
Pam Shepherd:having the ability to get that vehicle back out on the road and up and going
Pam Shepherd:and just doing a few things to it.
Pam Shepherd:And so, you know, it's nothing for me to have a cutaway.
Pam Shepherd:I have several now that has 500, 000 miles on them.
Pam Shepherd:So, you know, and they're running 500.
Pam Shepherd:And I mean, I would have never said that before COVID.
Pam Shepherd:But, you know, when you couldn't get something, you
Pam Shepherd:had to do the best you could.
Pam Shepherd:And if you had a wrecked vehicle out in the parking lot, it's like, Oh, well
Pam Shepherd:we just put that engine in there, and he'd go, Okay, we're gonna get that
Pam Shepherd:engine, we're gonna put it back in here.
Pam Shepherd:And I'm, it was the things that you never thought of.
Pam Shepherd:And I mean, they had to be very, very creative also during that time period.
Pam Shepherd:As you know, with parts you couldn't get a part and you, you know, it's like, and my
Pam Shepherd:mechanic, he, Jimmy would always say, no, no, we're not getting rid of that because
Pam Shepherd:they'd be out there getting screws and bolts and everything in the world off of
Pam Shepherd:it just to make sure that it could run.
Pam Shepherd:So I mean, that was the, the way of the world.
Pam Shepherd:I mean, we look at things so much differently, not only from being
Pam Shepherd:isolated and everything else and like wiping your milk off to actually
Pam Shepherd:having to be creative to keep, because we had a job that never stopped.
Pam Shepherd:You know, other people could go home and work from the house.
Pam Shepherd:That bus didn't run from the house.
Pam Shepherd:So, you had to learn a lot of new creativity.
Paul Comfort:That's great, Pam.
Paul Comfort:Matt?
Matt Meier:so we actually increased our services at the pandemic because
Matt Meier:we wanted to make it easier for people to get around during that time.
Matt Meier:So, with that, we didn't have nearly as much of a ridership drop just because,
Matt Meier:you know, it was easier to get around, more buses on the road, so you felt
Matt Meier:more comfortable getting on the bus.
Matt Meier:we're, we're currently 16 percent up from where we were, and that's huge for us.
Paul Comfort:So you're at 116 percent of 2019 ridership.
Matt Meier:Yeah.
Paul Comfort:That's amazing.
Matt Meier:And we, we put a lot of, you know, we put, you know, 40 minute headways
Matt Meier:where it used to be, hour headways.
Matt Meier:You know, we were adding routes during the pandemic.
Matt Meier:You know, we increased our hours.
Matt Meier:We did all sorts of things to help with that for the community.
Matt Meier:Yeah.
Matt Meier:You know, we also, you know, during that time, we're, you know,
Matt Meier:delivering food to people's homes, you know, during, stuff like that.
Matt Meier:as far as revenue goes, like, we're, we're sales tax, so, we've seen, actually
Matt Meier:a pretty big increase in the amount of stuff that people have been buying.
Matt Meier:So, it's, it's actually going pretty well.
Paul Comfort:Does your state, does your sales tax apply to Amazon sales?
Paul Comfort:That's why you're making more money, right?
Paul Comfort:Yeah, that's good.
Paul Comfort:Good stuff, man.
Paul Comfort:Thank you.
Paul Comfort:What do you all think of that?
Paul Comfort:Good ideas, interesting ideas, new revenue sources, contracts with new
Paul Comfort:agencies or new services, you know.
Paul Comfort:It's, you have an asset, as creative as you can be, to have people
Paul Comfort:utilize that asset, I think is, is, a question coming out here.
Paul Comfort:Can we be more creative in how we're utilizing our services?
Paul Comfort:Or, is there a way that we can, add more service?
Paul Comfort:To provide, to get more riders, right?
Paul Comfort:If you build it, they will come.
Paul Comfort:All right.
Paul Comfort:Let's talk technology for a few minutes.
Paul Comfort:let's project ahead.
Paul Comfort:I mean, Simon talks some about the new technologies that are impacting the world.
Paul Comfort:We have so much new AI machine learning, but even, you know, in autonomous vehicles
Paul Comfort:and all the other things, but as you look ahead, just one to two years, tell
Paul Comfort:me one or two technologies you think that will most impact your service.
Paul Comfort:We'll start with you, Randy.
Randy Anderson:We're looking to see if we can leverage AI, you know, it's a
Randy Anderson:buzzword right now, but, especially on the kind of reporting side of things is,
Randy Anderson:can we actually have our ops manager or finance, go into a reporting engine and
Randy Anderson:say, hey, give me the ridership, compared for this year over last year of those.
Randy Anderson:We're looking at some more trends.
Randy Anderson:So, Oh, I see that.
Randy Anderson:That's not my go to.
Randy Anderson:I think, um, um, we're also, The other piece is just with the on board
Randy Anderson:technology and leveraging that and getting the information out to the riders.
Randy Anderson:We've come a long way with the MyRide app and getting information out there.
Randy Anderson:But just looking at new ways to keep the riders informed about
Randy Anderson:what's going on within the agency.
Paul Comfort:That's powerful.
Paul Comfort:Pam?
Pam Shepherd:I guess we're going to start completely over.
Pam Shepherd:I mean it's When you've had one software for 20 years and then you're
Pam Shepherd:going to start with something new.
Pam Shepherd:And, I think the problem was with me is there was a lot of things
Pam Shepherd:out there that I wanted to do.
Pam Shepherd:I, I didn't have an app, I didn't have it out there for, the passengers
Pam Shepherd:or facilities to actually go onto an app and be able to, you know,
Pam Shepherd:book trips and anything like that.
Pam Shepherd:So, I think that that's going to go away.
Pam Shepherd:Get us into more technology and getting people more involved.
Pam Shepherd:it's just, and then also with, in my Medicaid brokerage making it more, to
Pam Shepherd:all my subcontractors and being able to get the data and everything back to me
Pam Shepherd:and, you know, Quick and timely fashion where now we're actually waiting on the
Pam Shepherd:subcontractor to fill out the manual data, put it back into the system and
Pam Shepherd:give it back to us, then where we would actually have the ability for them to
Pam Shepherd:do it automated just like we do on our own vehicles and that everything be, I'm
Pam Shepherd:looking more in a timely fashion and, and like, doing a lot of things that we're,
Pam Shepherd:we were having to do manually because of, you know, the, the, the Not having
Pam Shepherd:the capabilities and actually having a better interaction with the customer.
Paul Comfort:Great, good thank you.
Randy Anderson:Actually, in the same boat.
Randy Anderson:We are running pass and going to be switching to Nowvis as well as
Randy Anderson:we are purchasing rides on demand.
Randy Anderson:I think for us one of the big things with especially Nowvis is just the ease of use.
Randy Anderson:Novus, you just kind of sit down and you, you use it.
Randy Anderson:you know, we're looking to really, accelerate our, efficiencies with that, as
Randy Anderson:well as, you know, with rides on demand, we're going to be adding same day service.
Randy Anderson:So that's going to be a huge, huge thing for our community.
Randy Anderson:So, yeah.
Paul Comfort:That's great.
Paul Comfort:That's exciting.
Paul Comfort:All right.
Randy Anderson:well, I mean, we're in the process of, implementation of
Randy Anderson:Novus and Streets at the moment, and then soon Rides On Demand, but, I,
Randy Anderson:I, I think the technology, I mean, it, it's ironic that, you know, Zoom
Randy Anderson:and, Teams ended up being, you know, such a integral part, during COVID and
Randy Anderson:everything, and we had that technology 10, 15 years before, no one used it.
Randy Anderson:and so, You know, I think that's the interesting thing is that we, you
Randy Anderson:know, there is technology that we just haven't really used as much anymore.
Randy Anderson:But I mean, that I would, that's probably the biggest thing since
Randy Anderson:COVID that's it saved me time.
Randy Anderson:I don't have to travel to Oklahoma City all the time for,
Randy Anderson:you know, a 30 minute meeting.
Randy Anderson:so time has probably been the biggest thing with, with that simple technology.
Paul Comfort:That's good.
Paul Comfort:just a quick question for you.
Paul Comfort:Do Do you all have everybody coming back into the office?
Paul Comfort:Everybody, everybody's coming, all your staff, everybody, yeah, yeah.
Paul Comfort:Pretty much everybody's done that now.
Paul Comfort:Took a while, but for operations, that's good.
Paul Comfort:Alright, so, we got 15 minutes left.
Paul Comfort:We'll probably finish a few minutes early.
Paul Comfort:But I wanted, I have one more question for you all, which is
Paul Comfort:going to be tell me about, one great thing happening in your agency.
Paul Comfort:So I think one thing that's been going well in our agency for the past year or
Paul Comfort:two is we've become really more involved with our area planning commission,
Paul Comfort:as well as the area development.
Paul Comfort:Previously, bus pull offs, you know, right of ways and things like that.
Paul Comfort:That weren't even thought of, and there's been a number of
Paul Comfort:new developments in the area.
Paul Comfort:We've just announced there's going to be a new 4 billion semiconductor
Paul Comfort:plant coming into town, with 800 employees just for the plant alone.
Paul Comfort:so we're seeing extreme growth, in our city.
Paul Comfort:So having that, getting that relationship built with our APCs and the development
Paul Comfort:and being able to, you know, Get more transit friendly, you know, roads,
Paul Comfort:shelters and that get in place.
Paul Comfort:I think it's going to set us up well for the future and continuing
Paul Comfort:to see our growth in the ridership.
Paul Comfort:Thank you.
Paul Comfort:Pam?
Pam Shepherd:This is a little bit kind of off, but I guess the biggest thing
Pam Shepherd:is that I lost my operations manager.
Pam Shepherd:So I decided that I would go through and look at all the
Pam Shepherd:job duties that she was doing.
Pam Shepherd:And so I kind of went around my office and I said, what do you
Pam Shepherd:like about your job the best?
Pam Shepherd:What do you like least?
Pam Shepherd:And I started taking those jobs and I started kind of moving around.
Pam Shepherd:And then I had to get a buy in from everybody and getting like
Pam Shepherd:my call center manager to agree to let me have a couple people to do
Pam Shepherd:a couple of things that she lost.
Pam Shepherd:But I'll give her a new call.
Pam Shepherd:So then I was having to get the drivers to do a buy in where there were some things
Pam Shepherd:that the previous person was doing that wasn't automated and I got that done.
Pam Shepherd:So it just, I feel really good because I got a buy in from all my staff to
Pam Shepherd:do this and it made things easier.
Pam Shepherd:I feel like it works so much smoother.
Paul Comfort:So what is it that you did?
Paul Comfort:I'm not quite sure I get it.
Pam Shepherd:Okay, so it was, it was silly stuff.
Pam Shepherd:Like, and I guess I didn't even realize that it wasn't happening.
Pam Shepherd:I guess because that was a part that I'd missed.
Pam Shepherd:It's, my drivers were still doing pre maintenance check sheets on a
Pam Shepherd:piece of paper and handing them in.
Pam Shepherd:And I mean, I have Fleet Maintenance Pro.
Pam Shepherd:But I'm thinking, well, why in the world is this not automated?
Pam Shepherd:Yeah, on a tablet.
Pam Shepherd:I put the app onto the tablet, now the drivers hit the buttons, okay.
Pam Shepherd:And then, the other thing was, there was an app I put onto the tablets,
Pam Shepherd:was from our payroll company, ADP.
Pam Shepherd:And so, she was going in every day and putting in their breaks manually.
Pam Shepherd:I'm like, why don't they do it themselves?
Pam Shepherd:You know, they clock in and out.
Pam Shepherd:Oh, so there was a lot of stuff your ops manager was doing that was manual, and as
Pam Shepherd:you analyzed her job responsibilities, you realized you could automate a lot of that.
Pam Shepherd:Right, so I automated that, and then like I moved some duties around,
Pam Shepherd:And I feel like things are smoother.
Paul Comfort:And so now you don't need an ops manager?
Pam Shepherd:I'm not hiring one right now.
Paul Comfort:Wow, that's interesting.
Paul Comfort:Very interesting, thank you.
Paul Comfort:Alright, Matt?
Matt Meier:I think the biggest thing for us is just the growth and innovation.
Matt Meier:you know, we've really been trying to push the bar and see what we can do that
Matt Meier:is different just to, you know, Make things work better for our community.
Paul Comfort:One specific, come on, give me something.
Matt Meier:that same day, service.
Matt Meier:That's a, that's a pretty big, big one.
Matt Meier:Going same day is big, man.
Matt Meier:Yes.
Matt Meier:That's going to, it's going to revolutionize what you do there.
Matt Meier:Yeah.
Matt Meier:I think there's going to be actually a shift from, you know, our traditional
Matt Meier:people, you know, our traditional dialeride over to that same day
Matt Meier:service where we might even start kind of lowering our, you know, dial
Matt Meier:a ride and increasing our same day.
Matt Meier:Just because of how people live their lives these days.
Matt Meier:Thanks, brother.
Matt Meier:All right, Ryan, bring us home.
Ryan Landers:I would say, the people.
Ryan Landers:I've, I've recently hired some new, you know, new HR person, new staff.
Ryan Landers:we hired a mo a mobility manager recently.
Ryan Landers:And, just the recent hires.
Ryan Landers:I'm running out of space.
Ryan Landers:I don't have enough space because I'm hiring too many people, but, but
Ryan Landers:I think it's the overall excitement.
Ryan Landers:We have so many projects going on, obviously we're, as I mentioned,
Ryan Landers:we're switching over, you know, with Novus, Streets, the on demand,
Ryan Landers:but the, you know, the new facility that we're actually doing, we've
Ryan Landers:actually, re energized, the city.
Ryan Landers:Politicians are getting more involved in transit, You know, they're calling
Ryan Landers:me up all the time, which is great.
Ryan Landers:It's kind of annoying at times, but, you know, it is what it is.
Ryan Landers:but yeah, I'd say the people, honestly.
Paul Comfort:I love that.
Paul Comfort:That's a great way to end it.
Paul Comfort:What did you all think?
Paul Comfort:Was that good?
Paul Comfort:Why don't we give our panelists a round of applause.
Paul Comfort:Matt Meier, Randy Anderson, Pam Shepherd, Ryan Landers, thank you for
Paul Comfort:sharing with us some of your experience.
Paul Comfort:We're happy to be partners with you in helping you take your
Paul Comfort:transit systems to the next level.
Tris Hussey:This is Tris Hussey, editor of Transit Unplugged.
Tris Hussey:Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the show with our guests.
Tris Hussey:Pam Shepherd, Ryan Landers, Randy Anderson and Matt Maier coming up next
Tris Hussey:week, we have a rather unusual show.
Tris Hussey:We have Faye Di Massimo joining us from beautiful Savannah, Georgia.
Tris Hussey:When Paul recorded his original interview with Faye she was leading
Tris Hussey:the Chatham Area Transit agency.
Tris Hussey:But since then she's gotten a new job working with the City of Savannah,
Tris Hussey:overseeing all things that connect.
Tris Hussey:And move people around the county.
Tris Hussey:This is really fascinating.
Tris Hussey:Look at how people advance through transit in their careers.
Tris Hussey:You like listening to Transit Unplugged, right?
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Tris Hussey:Bring your friend into our transit enthusiast network so they can stay in
Tris Hussey:the loop with everything that's going on with transit around the world And advice
Tris Hussey:on how to make the most of their careers.
Tris Hussey:Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.
Tris Hussey:At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people.
Tris Hussey:And that Transit Unplugged we're passionate about telling those stories.
Tris Hussey:So until next week.
Tris Hussey:ride safe and ride happy.