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MORE FROM THE 2018 BUS & PARATRANSIT CONFERENCE

It's All About the Ride: Panelists Discuss Strategies for Sustaining and Building Ridership

Bus agency leaders and a community and economic development executive discussed strategies for increasing and sustaining ridership through a variety of methods during the May 9 Closing General Session.

Carol Wise, executive vice president/chief operations officer, Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), who moderated the session, noted the agency’s recent slight decline in ridership. She said DART is undertaking a variety of initiatives to address the issue, including service improvements and expansions, redesign of routes, increasing the size of its fleet, adding amenities and bringing in community partners to look at how to improve service in certain communities.

Brad J. Miller, member, APTA Executive Committee, and chief executive officer, Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority (PSTA), St. Petersburg, FL, noted that his agency serves a lot of beach-goers but has seen a ridership decline over the last couple of years. He said a recent APTA report on ridership trends, Understanding Recent Ridership Changes—Trends and Adaptations, has been helpful and PSTA is following the “early strategies APTA identified as ways to help our ridership.”

Number one, he said, is the need to “have our transit networks operate faster to save our riders time, especially as new technologies come on board and more and more people have options that maybe are quicker to their destinations.”

Operating buses in dedicated lanes is also key, Miller said, and that is why PSTA is launching what “we hope to be the first Bus Rapid Transit line in the Tampa Bay area.”

Miller said his agency cut fares in half in December and January, adding, “It was a huge success. We saw ridership increase.”

Hunter Harvath, assistant general manager of Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST), Monterey, CA, said MST is a small urban agency that saw double-digit ridership growth when it introduced free service on weekends in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Salinas, where farm workers and families reside.

When MST surveyed its customers, the agency discovered that more than 50 percent of its riders use public transit to go shopping on weekends, which, he said, in turn creates economic development through sales taxes.

The survey also revealed that 20 percent of riders had never taken the bus before and more than 90 percent do not have a car or are unable to drive. “So, it is an extremely transit-dependent market,” said Harvath.

Respondents told MST they would be inclined to ride less if the free ride program was ended. Harvath concluded that the population MST serves is sensitive to fares, so being able to eliminate fares has provided benefits for the community as well as a feeling of goodwill.

Lorraine M. Snorden, deputy executive director, strategic services, for Pace Suburban Bus, Arlington Heights, IL, a large commuter bus agency near Chicago, said its ridership was 35 million in 2008 but dropped to 28 million in 2017. “We very much are trying to think outside of the box,” she said, “and we recognize that what’s going to drive us in the future is technology and data.”

Snorden also spoke about Pace’s Vision 2020 Plan and the Arterial Rapid Transit (ART) Initiative, which identifies a variety of layered types of service that collectively provide balanced regional and local mobility. She stressed the importance of partnerships and said Pace works closely with roadway organizations and local transportation and planning agencies.

Mark Sharpe, executive director of Tampa !p, said public transit plays a critical role in boosting economic development in the Tampa region. He noted that getting riders to their destinations quickly and easily is essential.

Taking transit, Sharpe said, “has to be so simple that anyone can figure it out. If you get on the bus and it’s confusing, then people will get back into their cars. It can’t be intimidating.”

J. Barry Barker, executive director of the Transit Authority of River City in Louisville, KY, closed the session by showing a video inviting everyone to the next year’s Bus & Paratransit Conference in his city, May 19-22, 2019.

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