Keeping Riders
August 4, 2010 by: Samuel ScheibSaleswoman Deanna Droira-Garcia very suddenly lost her ability to drive when she began having epileptic seizures. As a result she was riding Tri-rail down in Miami, Florida, and saw a car card advertising a competition for the best stories on why riders use and value transit. Before her seizures, Droira-Garcia had driven not only to work, but for work as she traveled to make sales calls. She thought losing her ability to drive would end her career, but she made it work with the help of Miami-Dade Transit and even had the highest sales in the region for one of her transit-riding months. Her story won first place in the Florida Public Transportation Association contest.
Saleswoman Deanna Droira-Garcia. Photo FPTA.
I have long been in the “We got ‘em” camp that thinks transit agencies spend too much time and effort surveying our existing riders to see what they think of our services (or as Jarrett Walker at Human Transit put it: “In fact, one common sign that a transit agency is conceptually stuck is when they think and talk only about their present riders, not new ones they intend to attract.) It does not take a survey to know a 1-hour headway is too long or that the buses should be clean and on-time and drivers should be polite. I have never been surveyed in a business (even if I have filled out my share of comment cards) because businesses know customers=good job. I tend to think if people are riding either they must do so or they find some value in transit already and our resources would be better spent in finding out why other people are not riding. It is a given that service must be high-quality for existing riders because if it is not new passengers will quickly become former passengers.
I had not seen anything to challenge this belief until recently when I attended a workshop co-hosted by Florida DOT, FPTA, and the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR). A presenter showed a graph of ridership trends when there is 100% retention of existing riders, 90% of existing riders, and 70% of existing riders. The 100% line is straight but with each lower percentage the line curves downward more quickly. Basically, it is a lot easier to grow if people are staying.
In Florida a driver’s license is suspended until the driver can demonstrate six months have passed without a seizure. Droira-Garcia did so, had her license restored, and started driving again . . . until she had another seizure. She is temporarily and intermittently transit dependent. It is a curious choice for the top prize in this contest because she is not someone who has discovered the joys of using transit and wants to keep using it. Rather she found it workable in the absence of a car but is eager to get back to driving. (She tells us “I am in the process of reinstating my license, and I am waiting for the decision from the Medical Board Review. I am still taking public transportation until reinstatement of my license,” as she has already done once before. How about a new slogan for Miami Dade Transit: There for you in a Pinch!)
Droira-Garcia is not alone. A county commissioner came to our transit agency to tour the facility. All of the front office staff were gathered so the commissioner could tell us the inspiring story of how he had been a car-less college student in Chicago, waiting for buses and trains in the cold and swearing he would become a lawyer, buy an expensive car, and never use public transportation again. That commissioner achieved his goal. Yes, he came to our office to tell the transit staff that through perseverance and hard work anyone can avoid using the services we provide. There was not a dry eye in the room.
There are signs at car lots in rougher neighborhoods around Atlanta reading, “Be Smarta, Get off MARTA,” and I have seen car cards on buses advertising car dealers with the likes of “Get off this bus for $700.” There is a churning process in transit where new passengers come in to replace those who got ‘smarta and got off MARTA, CARTA, BARTA, DARTA, et al. No rider is eternal; people get healthy, earn more money, or if all else fails, die. But if getting away from transit is an aspirational goal of our passengers we have bigger problems than just finding new riders. While we are doing surveys we might consider posing the question, “If you must use transit but tomorrow you suddenly had the option of not using transit, would you continue and if not, why?” If we had the answer to that then all those on-board surveys might seem brilliant after all.
This is a gold standard piece regarding transit in the Florida context. Transit fills a need–well, it clumsily and only barely fills the need. Bus riders’ needs are met as best as can be given the thin spread of political and economic resources here. Why wouldn’t someone use transit tomorrow if it was an open option is a good question. I know I have my assumptions, but it would be interesting to see if my assumptions are correct.
Nice article.
Nice article. It touches on a thought I have, which is that I am not sure people use their cars more because it is better, but because it is more reliable and familiar. People complain about dirty buses, but ALL of my friends have dirtier cars than the bus I ride (maybe it is just my choice of friends). I believe there are people who use transit because they have found it offers more, like friendship. We try to do everything we can to make the single person automobile trip enjoyable. But little needs to be done when you ride on a bus (or a car) with a friend. In my experience, the hour ride goes by too quick when you are having an engaging conversation with a friend.
That is great! I had never thought about that but I think most people do have dirty cars, certainly dirtier than buses. You also remind me of that line about Americans loving their cars. I think really Americans love the freedom that cars once represented. We had a couple decades of easy driving (at least where the roads were good) and country roads and Sunday drivers. We got addicted to that but then everything got congested and no matter how hard we try we can never get back to that original high. Every road widening is an injection of that good old stuff, but it never delivers quite the same high. I think of TDM stragtegies (transportation demand management, things like better signal timing and traffic calming) as being like methadone. It won’t cure the addiction but maybe takes some of the withdrawal symptoms away. In the years I lived in Europe I found cities there much freer. Getting off a train and walking, then grabbing a streetcar, walking some more. Having grown up in Tampa this was really liberating. I think Americans will eventually find that sense of freedom in something other than motorcars.