Dwight Ferrell
Deputy General Manager and Chief Operating Officer
Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA)
Atlanta, GA

How many people do you employ at your agency?
MARTA has 4,523 employees, not including contract employees.

How long have you worked in the public transportation industry?
More than 32 years.

How long have you been an APTA member?
I have been active in APTA since 1997, so 15 years.

What drew you to a career in public transportation?
I was 23 years old and I needed a job. I started my career as a bus operator, which was a very good job. Then I was fortunate enough to work my way up from there.

I began at DART—it was still the Dallas Transit System then—in 1980, drove a bus for 10 years, and received several promotions. I’m the only person in the history of that organization who was promoted directly from being a bus operator to a management position, assistant manager, without serving in a supervisory position in between.

I worked for DART for 19 years, then I came to MARTA as senior vice president for operations. I worked at SEPTA as chief bus operations officer; at RTA New Orleans as general manager; as executive vice president and chief operating officer at Capital Metro in Austin, TX; then came back to MARTA in 2008 in my current position.

What have you found to be the most valuable APTA benefit or resource—that helps you do your job?
The network. APTA membership means I’m able to have access to colleagues and peers across the country. I can draw on that experience as MARTA seeks new and innovative ways to do what we do. I also enjoy serving as a resource for other public transit agencies.

Please explain why or how this has helped.
Years ago, while I worked in Dallas, we had a portion of our service that had been privatized, Houston Metro had done the same thing, so its employees could present us with lessons learned on the contracting process, the things that did and didn’t work for them.

When I was in New Orleans, I was able to call MARTA and get suggestions from that network of people.

Now, especially, as we all struggle with becoming more efficient, better shepherds of taxpayer dollars—I’ve spoken with people at the Maryland Transit Administration in Baltimore about their performance management process. I’ve asked employees of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority about the TranStat process, and how they use performance data to help them shape their decisions. That’s all part of the network.

What do you like most about your job?
The diversity and complexity of it. It’s not boring and it’s constantly different.

In my position, I am responsible for all bus and rail operations, but also for the transit police department, program and project management, and safety. It’s the number-two position here at MARTA.

For example, on a single day I could start out talking about the police, then bus maintenance, then elevators and escalators, and end the day talking about legislative initiatives at either the local or federal level. It’s very diverse and I like that part.

Most importantly, I like that MARTA makes a difference in the quality of life of the people it serves. We provide access to church, school, work, shopping, and all the things we do help facilitate this.

I work directly with the heads of bus operations, rail operations, police, safety, program and project management, architecture, and design.

MARTA’s architecture group also is responsible for sustainability efforts; we’ve had a lot of success with our green initiatives. We have adopted a standard that all new facilities will be LEED-certified—our new paratransit facility will be certified LEED Silver.

We received federal TIGGER money to install a solar panel array at our largest bus facility. It’s the largest installation of its type in the southeastern U.S. We use it to offset our power costs. Especially during the summer, with the longer days, we are able to sell power back to the grid.

MARTA is a signatory to the APTA Sustainability Commitment. We’ve tried to reduce the amount of paper we use: we’ve automated our board process, which formerly was very paper-intensive, so it’s paperless now. Our recycling effort since 2009 has kept more than 431 tons of paper out of landfills. We installed hand dryers in all our facilities and eliminated all paper towels; our single-stream recycling process brings together paper, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and glass.

We recently completed an FTA environmental training and assistance program, so we are going to receive ISO 14001 certification for our largest rail facility.

What is unique about your agency that readers would be surprised to learn?
MARTA operates the eighth largest police department in the entire state of Georgia. We have well over 300 police officers. The force includes uniformed officers in our stations, a bus patrol, approximately 18 bomb dogs, and a bomb squad. In fact, we have provided bomb disposal support for police departments in some of the smaller cities around the area that don’t have the resources we have.

Make sure you see Dwight Ferrell’s video, now that you've read this!