There's more to learn.
Subscribe to our blog mailing list so you can continue reading.
Type your search

How to Know if You’re an Innovative Transit Agency (And Does That Even Matter?)

Sep 22, 2016
Reading Time:
Transit Trends

When we think about innovation, we think about revolutionary changes. Influential choices that change the way we think, act and commute. We think about the impossible, and imagine them being possible.

What we don’t do is imagine all the little steps it takes to achieve that end result – we imagine creating smart cities with driverless vehicles and drone-policing security on our trains, but we don’t think about the traffic signal lights that need to be coordinated to allow buses to run on schedule.

That’s not typically seen as innovation but it should be - and understanding the small steps that must come first is what makes you an innovative transit agency.

That was my biggest takeaway from APTA’s 2016 Annual Meeting. Innovation was in the air at APTA – considering the host, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), have an office of extraordinary innovation – it’s no surprise that many of the sessions dived into what innovation in transit means.

The transit professionals I spoke to told me that innovation was on their minds – from driverless vehicles to crowdsourcing models of funding to more first mile/last mile transit options. Indeed, on the Sunday night exhibition, we had a graphic designer listen to the conversations and draw out exactly what innovation in transit meant, live at our booth.  

 

Innovation: Keeping up with the Competition

For Chrys Wilkinson, Director of Customer Service at Maryland Transit, innovation is about moving forward. “It’s about keeping up with the competition,” she said. “It’s about looking at what’s going on internationally, especially with European transit systems, and trying to emulate that.”

For others, innovation in transit doesn’t necessarily mean something tangible but rather it’s a goal to strive towards – an attitude or mindset.

“Innovation seems to be THE word of the year – but it’s been going on in the background for decades,” said Tesse Rasmussen, Vice President, HDR. “I think it’s the pace of innovation and adoption of new ideas that has increased. Innovation will occur whether or not transit is ready for it – so it behoves us as an industry to prepare to adopt it, and to facilitate the development of new ideas.”

The idea of innovation as a mindset, and not just exclusively referring to technology, was the focus of the panel “Integrating Innovation in Your Organization,” with Dr. Joshua Schank, Chief, Office of Extraordinary Innovation, Metro; Dr. Terence Fontaine, Chief Innovation Officer, Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County; and Erik Johanson, Director of Innovation, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).

The panel stressed that innovation needed to be a culture change – one that was often disruptive. That’s where Schank and the panel wanted to hang their hats. When asked by an audience member what they wanted their legacies to be, Schank stressed it was about changing the culture at Metro and fostering one of innovation throughout the agency.

“The only way we’ll be successful,” he said, “is if we make innovation permanent.”

That’s what David Rodriguez, Deputy Director of Maintenance at LYNX, reiterated when I spoke to him later that day.

“Innovation for transit means very simply to change our perspective. To accept the change associated with new technologies and ride the wave of innovation,” he said. “The world is changing at a very fast pace, and in order to stay relevant we must evolve with the times and adopt new ideas and processes to be more efficient.”

Rodriguez brought back the theoretical idea of innovation to something very practical: making our transit operations more efficient.

Can we do that? Can we make something as grandiose as innovation something applicable to our everyday lives and jobs – and must we, if we wish to advance the future of public transit?

 

What Innovation Isn’t

I learned that yes, we can make innovation an everyday task. For Schank, Fontaine, and Johanson, it already is. For the rest of us, we need to apply their attitudes to every facet of the organization. How?

Schank gave a few examples during the panel presentation. Talking about the recently opened Expo line to Santa Monica, for example, which is running slower than expected because of traffic signals, innovation means working with the city to change traffic signals, an undertaking that requires tremendous amounts of time and energy.

Innovation in this case is perseverance.

For Houston, innovation is a new phenomenon – their office of innovation is just four months old – but they’re planning to use it to ensure smooth transit operations during next year’s Super Bowl.

For SEPTA, Johanson said his office acts as a consultant for other departments. “It’s not innovation for innovation’s sake,” he said, but rather working with every department based on what that department needs and providing resources to make it happen.

 

Why We Innovate

We shouldn’t lose sight of why we’re having this discussion in the transit space. It goes back to why Rodriguez, and so many others, love working in transit.

“Being a transit professional offers me the satisfaction to know I make an impact on people’s lives on a daily basis. I like to think that some of the leaders of the future might take a ride to their first job interview using one of our buses,” he said.

Keeping this perspective in mind – that transit innovation can literally change the way we live and travel, from the grocer to the next President, reminds us why we’re here.

And that’s the beauty of innovation – that it never has to end.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon: 

"Because, you know, resilience - if you think of it in terms of the Gold Rush, then you'd be pretty depressed right now because the last nugget of gold would be gone. But the good thing is, with innovation, there isn't a last nugget. Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.”


 
Vicky Abihsira is the Director, Integrated Marketing at Trapeze Group where she owns the product marketing strategy and integrated marketing strategy including all our marketing channels such as web, blog, podcast, email, social, and PR. Originally from Toronto, she now lives in Miami with her husband and two kids.
 
The latest in transit, delivered straight to your inbox.
Thanks
You are now subscribed to the Trapeze blog
Connect With Us View Solutions
Request a Live Demo
 
Let's get you on the mailing list
 
Select Your Region