Bus
Rail
ParatransitThe Blog of Paige O'Grady
The literature on effective employee management is clear – ‘happy’ employees show up, ‘unhappy’ employees stay home more. (And eventually quit).
Operator absenteeism remains a huge problem hounding public transit agencies. The causes are manifold and keeping their drivers engaged and connected day in and out is a critical priority for agencies.How to address disincentivizing workforce issues and help employees thrive has become the ‘hack we need’ of sorts for delivering safe, reliable transit service and keeping operators behind the wheel.
Agencies have deployed many strategies to manage absences and reduce their operational costs and service impact: Incentive plans with bonuses for employees who never miss a scheduled shift for a rolling quarter or for a year. Pay outs for unused vacation time. Better extraboard planning and predictive profiling of applicants less likely to be absent. Wellness programs promoting mental health. Mentoring for new bus operators to help them adjust to agency processes.
This is also clear - creative problem-solving is a must. Cash awards might be the go-to move, especially when out-of-pocket living expenses have shot up, but doing more is now table stakes. You’ll need to sleuth out more ways of addressing both the physical and mental challenges operators face daily. (Watch the webinar – Ideas to Address Workforce Challenges – Collaborate log in required).
Quick Sips and More Bathroom Breaks: Making Daily Work More Comfortable
A safe driving environment is top of mind for frontline transit workers. With increased violence on transit, operators often feel vulnerable. Providing devices that help them feel protected, such as operational radios, covert call buttons, in-vehicle cameras, not to mention installing those collapsible or sliding safety barriers, can reduce stress and ease anxiety for your drivers while on the job.
Simply meeting basic human needs with bathroom and meal breaks helps. These decrease on-the-job injuries to the back, elbow, shoulder, and neck from sitting for long periods of time. As the workforce ages, these breaks become even more important.
Even providing a small, basic amenity like a cup holder can improve well-being. Most of us can walk down the hall at work to get a drink of water, transit operators cannot. Access to a quick sip might seem a small thing, but it’s a big win.
In fact, just having portable food, coffee, and small conveniences around during inconvenient split shifts will likely be appreciated by operators.
Providing a shared space where they can comfortably park themselves during those three-hour-long splits signals responsiveness to daily operator exigencies. Many drivers endure long commutes to and from work and cannot spend those drawn-out lunch breaks at home. If the agency cannot yet provide a housing program nearby, having a ‘halfway house’ with a kitchenette to prepare food, where operators can stretch out and relax, where they can even stay overnight, might be the next best thing.
Addressing Mental Challenges: Reducing Stress and Building a Culture of Support
Slate.com summarized it well in an article way back in 2011 – driving a bus is stressful, if not “the most stressful job on the planet” – “Streets are crowded. Passengers are cranky. And there’s always the chance you might get punched.”
Harmful stress is attributed to the high demands of the job while having low levels of control, or autonomy, and weak social support, according to the 1998 study in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology that Slate cited. The combined pressures of driving safely, keeping to schedule, and accommodating (or at times, policing unruly) passengers can exact a mental toll on operators.
More recent studies have corroborated these findings. A 2016 French study found that drivers’ health and well-being at work have “deteriorated” even as equipment has improved and working time, reduced. “New forms of work intensification have emerged linked to budgetary constraints, urban policies, quality control, geolocation, and verbal and physical assaults.”
A 2017 US study, meanwhile, showed that “high-demanding work schedules, as a result of technological advances, were related to diminished breaks, fatigue, and unhealthy diets.”
Another 2017 study of bus drivers in Southern California featured driver testimonials of the stressful demands of maintaining a high level of alertness to avoid accidents.
So how can agencies address these mental challenges to keep operators healthier and reduce absences?
Acknowledging that operators can experience unresolved trauma from threats of assaults (or witnessing an assault) is a first step. Unresolved trauma exhibits in emotions such as helplessness, rage, overwhelming anxiety, and grief and depression. Educating managers and operators on the effects of trauma is healing, according to a Mass Transit article. Operators see themselves as survivors and can collectively build a culture of support. However, to grow, this culture must be nurtured by leadership.
On the operational side, job rotation offers flexibility that improves work-life balance and finds ways around non-negotiable needs such as childcare. Offering better work schedules, especially for less senior employees, eases stress and anxiety, and builds worker resilience.
Strategies like rotating days off (works best with rostering), limiting vacation prime weeks or days, rotating bid groups, offering more hold-down work a week or more ahead, and splitting boards into AM/PM to help people manage sleep better, give more opportunities for better work schedules and days off. Including ad hoc days in vacation bids increases the chances of employees getting awarded time off when they need to go to a scheduled appointment. All these measures alleviate the stress of having inflexible schedules for newer employees
Mentoring programs also build a culture of support, easing anxieties and enabling new or younger employees to feel supported in their job and supported by people who understand what they are going through.
These are just some of the ideas that agencies are implementing to enhance employee welfare and help manage absenteeism. On the tactical level, your technology can provide you with the tools to better manage absences - quickly create absences, implement absence quotas, track occurrences, pull up reports, and other valuable support. Combined with ways to daily uplift your employees, automating aspects of absence management helps you to continue delivering the seamless, safe, and reliable service your riders expect.
Want to learn various ways to track and manage absences in Trapeze Workforce Management? Watch the webinar to find out.
In today’s fast-paced world, efficient transportation is vital for keeping cities moving smoothly. Whether for work, school, or leisure, riders rely on public transit systems to reach their destinations on time.
Gone are the days of anxiously waiting at the bus stop, unsure when the next bus would arrive. With today’s SMS capabilities, riders can send a text message to their agency’s unique phone number, input their bus stop number, and receive an update on when the next bus will arrive.
This modern approach to communication empowers riders to plan their journeys more effectively, reducing stress and uncertainty along the way.
Imagine this
You have an interview for your dream job today; you’ve been preparing for this interview for weeks and feel very confident. You want to make a strong first impression, so you plan to arrive 30 minutes early. Traffic is unreliable in your city, and you don’t have to travel too far for the interview, so you opt for public transportation.
You’re preparing to leave for your interview, enjoying your last sips of coffee. You're a frequent rider, so you already have your transit agency's phone and bus stop number saved. After sending a quick and convenient text, you receive an immediate response informing you that the bus will arrive in 10 minutes. You're happy to know you'll make it to your interview on time.
You arrive at your bus stop just as the bus is pulling up; you feel excited and confident for your day ahead.
Better Solutions, Better Experience
This scenario had a favorable outcome not only for your rider but also for your transit agency.
In an era dominated by mobile devices and texting, offering an SMS option not only provides a simple solution to riders but also caters to the behaviors of the younger generations, who often favor sending a text over making a call. Offering a simple solution that accommodates all ultimately improves your riders’ experience.
An SMS solution will also benefit your agency by offloading your call center volumes; instead of riders calling to find out when the next bus will arrive, they can send a text and receive an automatic response.
Get Started Now
Improve your riders’ experience with Trapeze Group’s INFO-SMS solution!
INFO-SMS enables your riders to get real-time updates about their next bus’s arrival time through a simple text. It also helps your agency save time and operational costs by offloading call center volumes, allowing customer service representatives to focus on other agency priorities.
Interested in learning more about our INFO suite of products? Check out our new Traveler Experience webpage!
What are the benefits of being part of our EAM community?
We all want to belong. We are social creatures and belonging to a group fulfills the need for social connection and companionship. Belonging to a group helps shape individual identity by providing a sense of purpose, values, and norms shared within the community. Being part of a group offers a sense of security and safety. It provides validation and acceptance from peers, reinforcing one’s beliefs, behaviors, and values. Belonging to a group enables individuals to work together towards common goals, whether they are social, cultural, or professional.
Bingo! Working towards common goals is what our EAM team is all about. Being part of the EAM community provides access to a knowledge base, proactive programs, product forums, and technical support but the best part is the engagement our customers have with peers facing similar challenges or successes. Through our Collaborate Community portal or at our annual ThinkTransit Conference, peer connection can often lead to broad troubleshooting and quicker resolution of an issue a customer may be facing. We will always be available in the community or via our Customer Care team directly to offer support, but it is often the conversations between peers about best practices or navigating a specific use case that are so beneficial.
Why does it matter that Trapeze EAM is focused solely on transit?
Our research and development is solely focused on ensuring our current product and roadmap align with our customers’ needs and future goals. Unlike other vendors who share EAM R&D across industries, we have a laser focus on transit and rail best practices. Being part of our EAM community gives customers a seat at the table with our leadership and development teams. They can share product ideas. If an idea becomes part of our roadmap, all customers benefit. For example, MBTA is working collaboratively with our team on an optimization project developing best practice workflows. These improved workflows will simplify and streamline practices around key areas for rail engineering and maintenance technicians.
Before and after the redesign of a Network Restrictions workflow at MBTA:
| Before | After |
| Time to Completion: 7 min., 48 sec. | Time to Completiion: 3 min., 20 sec. |
| 3 Applications | 1 Application |
| 10 Pages | 1 Page |
| 69 Clicks | 34 Clicks |
Roadmap & Resiliency
As always, our focus is on enabling our customers to work smarter, not harder. This focus includes three core principles: frequent and regular product updates, ease of use, and enhancing data quality and data volume.
It’s important to look ahead to the future. But it is equally important to maximize your current EAM system and ensure continued ROI. While there are new features and workflows added with each release, are you taking advantage of all that EAM currently offers? Your agency may find itself in the same situation as many other long-time EAM users: As the EAM software has evolved with each upgrade, your processes and workflows haven’t evolved with it. As a result, you may not be using EAM software to its full capacity. Fortunately, you can fix this and get more out of EAM by optimizing your configuration, workflows, use of existing EAM modules, and by making sure your team follows industry best practices.
Resiliency Tips
- Do not get too far behind with upgrades. We recommend staying within two releases prior to the target release (N-2) to ensure optimal use of the system.
- A common challenge of upgrades is testing existing interfaces on the new EAM release. EAM provides two integration platforms for maximum flexibility: MaxQueue (EAM middleware with queuing and error handling); and API (application programming interface utilizing REST services). MaxQueue is managed by Trapeze and the API is a do-it-yourself option for maximum flexibility if you have access to developers.
- If you are deploying a large number of EAM mobile devices, we recommend you consider a third-party mobile device management (MDM). MDMs make it easier to push new mobile updates and configurations to multiple devices.
- Considering a move to the Cloud? With EAM Cloud, we manage all aspects of hosting including disaster recovery and network security.
- Monitor your EAM system use with periodic audits. Query EAM activity in the system to ensure consistent use and get out on the shop floor to visit your team.
- Consider an EAM health check with a member of our team who will review your current EAM use and create a report for recommended short-and long-term improvements. Don’t leave system efficiency and potential cost savings on the table!
Thank you for being part of our EAM community. If you are not a member, please reach out to us at EAM@trapezegroup.com to learn more. Life’s easier with our tEAM.
As the curtains draw on the vibrant event that was ThinkTransit 2024, we reflect on three days filled with insightful discussions, inspiring talks, and groundbreaking demonstrations. From the warm Tucson welcome on Day 1 to the celebratory awards ceremony on Day 3, each moment was a testament to the collective passion and commitment driving the future of transit.
Day 1: Setting the Stage
The excitement kicked off with a warm welcome from Sabrina Herrera, Assistant General Manager of Sun Tran, setting the tone for what was to be an incredible event. Mj Maynard’s keynote address illuminated the future of transit in Southern Nevada, resonating deeply with attendees. The interactive yard management demo by Vontas showcased cutting-edge solutions in transit management, setting the stage for innovative discussions to follow.
Day 2: Dive into Innovation
Day 2 delved deeper into innovation with engaging product showcases and Transit Unplugged Live sessions featuring top transit CEOs. Attendees explored groundbreaking solutions reshaping transit management and operations, while the Solution Center buzzed with activity. Vontas also signed up attendees for the new Vontas Customer Portal highlighted the commitment to enhancing accessibility and support.
Day 3: Closing with Excellence
The final day began with our ThinkTransit Awards of Excellence and a keynote address from special guests RATP Dev GM Tucson, Steve Spade, and RATP Dev USA VP, Client Relations, Robert Smith sharing insights into innovations at Sun Tran.
The ThinkTransit Awards of Excellence celebrated outstanding contributions to transit, recognizing the best and brightest in the industry. Congratulations to all our winners:
Innovation: Central Ohio Transit Authority
Advancement: Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Alliance: Fresno Area Express
Community Builder: Jesse Isaacson, Paratransit, Inc.
Trapeze Employee: Jason Ellis
Vontas Employee: Heidi Davis
Attendees also had the opportunity for a Tech Tour of Sun Tran facilities, further immersing themselves in the world of transit innovation.
Thank You to Our Sponsors
ThinkTransit 2024 would not have been possible without the generous support of our sponsors. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to Cradlepoint, Iris, Message Point Media, MV Transportation, Quality Mobile Installations, Scheidt & Bachmann, Sierra Wireless, TransTrack Solutions Group, TSI Video, and Zonar Systems. Your commitment to building relationships and advancing transit innovation is truly appreciated.
Looking Forward
As we bid farewell to another successful ThinkTransit event, we carry forward the energy, insights, and connections fostered over three transformative days. To all our customers, partners, and Sun Tran, thank you for your unwavering support. We eagerly anticipate reconvening next year to continue shaping the future of transit together. Stay tuned for our 2025 announcement!
Until then, stay connected, stay inspired, and keep pushing the boundaries of possibility in transit innovation!
The dynamic leader of RTC Southern Nevada will bring a little Vegas to Tucson
MJ Maynard is a dynamic leader who has been at the helm of the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada for over four years now and has put Las Vegas on the map as a transit forward city. Frequent guest on Transit Unplugged, she continues to support better transit access for all, moving towards zero emissions, and helping bring a strong transit culture to a city known for its love of cars.
It all starts with hospitality
MJ famously didn’t start off in transit. She spent 25 years in the hospitality industry and over a decade as Vice President of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. If you think about it, starting with a focus hospitality and customers is a perfect foundation for a career in transit. In her interviews on Transit Unplugged, she talks about how being in the hospitality industry shapes how she looks at the world (listen to her segments on our Transit Unplugged playlist) .
MJ left the Hard Rock to join RTC sixteen years ago and rose up to the top job four years ago taking over as CEO from Tina Quigley. MJ was looking for a challenge, and if nothing else, RTC gave her that challenge.
RTC is more than just buses
Most agencies in North America are only responsible for moving people around by bus, train, van, etc., but not RTC. At RTC they are responsible for the roads, traffic management, and buses. It’s a complex job that forces a CEO to bring more than a transit mindset to the job. You have to look at how roads help, or hinter, people getting around. How traffic signals can keep people moving or cause traffic gridlock. And all of it is managed from a state-of-the-art control room that RTC also shares with emergency management. This advanced traffic management system is one of her secrets to managing events like CES or when a football game ending overlaps with a hockey game starting.
You can learn more about the massive job RTC has in the premier episode of Transit Unplugged:
Making transit better for everyone
One of the biggest challenges facing many fast growing communities are transit deserts. In RTC’s case, they are transit deserts literally in the desert, but the solution MJ used was an innovative one. Before trying to expand fix routed service to a community that’s never had transit before, she deployed microtransit to the areas. On demand microtransit connected entire neighborhoods to the larger transit system that had never had access before. The pilots were very successful at creating new riders and gives RTC critical insight into how people use transit in these former transit deserts. This data will be crucial to deciding when the right time to set up fixed route transit to the area.
But transit is also about access, opportunity, and equality.
MJ worked with local community groups and leaders to create a mobile training center to help everyone from seniors to the disabled learn hands on how to use the transit system. Instead of trying to get people to come to RTC to learn about how they system works, the system (and bus) come right to them. In her address opening the service, MJ spoke about how much this meant to her personally and her vision for making sure everyone has access to transit and opportunities.
Leadership in the industry
MJ is, of course, a natural leader. You can hear that every time you hear her speak. She is deeply involved in the Hydrogen Fuel Bus Council, serving as board member. She’s also been on or serves on the boards of ITS America, APTA, WTS International, and more board in her own community. MJ devotes her time and energy to helping the people can causes she believes in. Causes to help make the world a better place for all of us.
Join us for MJ Maynard’s Keynote address to open day one of ThinkTransit
This year we are honored to have MJ as our keynote speaker to kick off day one of ThinkTransit. MJ will share with us her wisdom and insight from not only her nearly 16 years in public transit, but her 25 years in the hospitality industry as well. Here is a taste of what you can expect from her keynote with her Women Leaders in Transit CEO roundtable:
We hope you join us at ThinkTransit from March 24-27, 2024 in Tucson, Arizona.
In less than two weeks we’ll see you in Tucson for ThinkTransit. You’ll experience three days of incredible keynotes, expert-led sessions, hands-on training, technical tours with Sun Tran Public Transit, and more.
This year at ThinkTransit, there are over 70 sessions spread across six tracks, and we’re excited to announce the customer and industry-led sessions in Track 5: Life’s Easier with our tEAM. During these sessions, customers and industry experts will offer best practices and real-life examples of how transit agencies use Trapeze EAM.
What can you expect to learn in these sessions? Keep reading for a sneak peek!
1.What’s New with the Illustrated Parts Catalog
During this session, Andi Kirtland, Documoto Customer Success Manager, and Satpal Bamrah, Trapeze EAM Product Management Director, will share how the Illustrated Parts Catalog (IPC) gives your supervisors, technicians, and storekeepers easy access to electronic part schematics and technical documentation directly within EAM. Right from the EAM work order screen, click the IPC button and automatically connect to the correct online parts catalog for what you’re working on. You can drill into the part assembly diagrams and click on the parts you need to request from the parts room. This session takes place on Monday, March 25 at 3:45 PM.
2.How Sun Tran uses EAM to Manage Parts Inventory and Spending
You manage thousands of parts across multiple warehouses. With so much inventory activity every day, how do you keep track of it all accurately? Join Kevin Motzkin, Sun Tran’s Parts Manager, to learn how Sun Tran uses EAM's parts inventory control and purchasing functionality to manage these workflows, with integration to ERP Purchasing. This session takes place on Tuesday, March 26 at 9:00 AM.
3.How MBTA uses Network Restrictions to Manage Rail Slow Zones
EAM's Network Restrictions is used by operations and maintenance divisions to manage all rail slow zones. Learn how MBTA uses this powerful module to safely and efficiently manage all track speed and operating restrictions across all rail lines with Hugh Quinn, MBTA’s Director of Reliability and Configuration Engineering. This session will take place on Tuesday, March 26 at 11:00 AM.
4.Triennial Review Success for Maintenance with GDRTA
Do FTA Triennial Reviews make you nervous? Feel like you just completed a review and it’s time for another one? Take the uncertainty out of Maintenance Triennial Reviews with some proven ways to be confident and successful with Daron Brown, Chief Maintenance Officer, GDRTA. This session will take place on Wednesday, March 27 at 2:00 PM.
Check out the agenda for more track and hands-on sessions with our EAM team.
New to ThinkTransit this Year
In addition to the track and hands-on practice sessions, this year we are offering Office Hours. These hours take place on Tuesday, March 26 from 3:00 – 5:00 PM. No registration required! Drop in and ask questions, troubleshoot, or just chat with our EAM Technical team.
Registering For Sessions
If you’ve already registered for ThinkTransit, you can save your spot for any of these sessions by building your personal agenda. Follow these steps to secure your spot:
Click the 'Register' button at the top of the ThinkTransit website and then click 'Already Registered.'
Enter your information and confirmation number (provided in your registration email confirmation). Click OK.
Proceed through the options until you get to the 'Agenda' module; here, you will be able to add your sessions.
Select your sessions for your personalized agenda.
Proceed to the final checkout page, where there is a 'Submit' button to save your agenda.
If you haven’t registered for ThinkTransit, there’s still time to join us! Don't miss out on the chance to gain valuable insights from your peers and industry experts that you can bring back to your transit agency.
And remember, groups of 5+ can register at a discounted rate. To take advantage of group pricing, please email conference@trapezegroup.com
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Today, people rely on readily available information to support daily decision-making and planning.
Whether searching the internet to find a good restaurant or checking the weather to plan your outfit for the day, instant access to information is highly valuable.
Accurate, up-to-date information is just as important; people want to see the most recent restaurant reviews or weather updates. The same goes for public transportation.
As your agency continues to work towards ridership recovery, it is crucial to understand the importance of real-time information to your riders. Riders depend on transit services to get them to the right place at the right time. If your riders aren't informed about service delays or able to find updates about their service, they may become frustrated and lose trust. How do you keep their trust? Information is power.
Picture this
You ride the local transit service daily to get to and from work, so you know the bus schedule like the back of your hand. One day after work, you head to an appointment in an area that you're unfamiliar with – and on a different route. As you wait for the next bus to arrive, you realize it's taking longer than you had thought it would. You're unsure if this is common since it's not your usual route, so you call the agency helpline to find out when the next bus is coming.
You're greeted by an automatic answering machine informing you that you've been put in a queue and that calls will be answered in a priority sequence. After waiting a few minutes on hold, you’re still not put through and begin to feel a little frustrated.
Stacy is a customer service representative at the local transit agency. In the past 10 minutes, she's responded to 3 phone calls from riders requesting the time for the next bus, amongst other requests. With a large queue of callers still waiting and a list of other priorities she must accomplish before the day's end, Stacy is feeling very overwhelmed.
An alternative solution - Trapeze Group’s INFO-IVR
This scenario could look slightly different if your agency helpline used Trapeze Group's interactive voice response (IVR) solution.
With Trapeze's INFO-IVR solution, riders can call the agency helpline, input their stop number, and receive an immediate update on the arrival time of the next bus. INFO-IVR also helps your agency save time and operational costs by offloading call center volumes, allowing customer service representatives like Stacy to focus on other agency priorities.
Get Started Today
Want to continue learning about INFO-IVR? Download our solution sheet to discover how you can provide your riders with 24/7 access to schedule, real-time bus information, and much more!
Trapeze Group's suite of Traveler Experience solutions is here to help your agency build trust with your riders by sharing information in real time.
In the increasingly complex world of public transit, few things are more impactful than sharing best practices with like-minded peers and learning about the latest trends from industry thought leaders.
Every year, hundreds of transit industry experts across North America gather to connect, learn, and discuss the future of transit at ThinkTransit.
The full agenda for this year’s event includes keynote speakers who will share their stories about the daily challenges of transit and staying on top of an ever-evolving industry. ThinkTransit welcomes transit executives, managers, and Vontas and Trapeze product users to come together and exceed passenger expectations.
Sharing Best Practices and Product Innovation
Participants will listen in on a slate of sessions aimed at improving transit experiences at their agencies. Featured products will include Trapeze Mobility on Demand, Mobility Planning & Scheduling, Enterprise Asset Management, Workforce Management, and Risk, Incident, Safety, and Compliance. Here's a preview into some of the Trapeze focused sessions for ThinkTransit 2024.
Mobility on Demand – Discover More:
DriverMate’s Latest Innovations
App based solutions allow for faster deployments and faster delivery of innovation. We'll show you what's new for DriverMate that helps your drivers and supports your vehicle/asset management .
Mobility Planning, Scheduling, and Data-Driven Decision-Making:
What’s Next for MPS? Behind the Scenes Look at What’s New & Coming Soon!
Join the MPS team to learn about all the exciting product updates we've been working on behind the scenes. You'll learn how scheduling principles and practices are woven into each new module and feature and how decades of experience inform workflows and tools that empower schedulers and planners like never before.
Life’s Easier with our tEAM:
Your EAM System: Ensuring Resiliency Over the Years
Your agency made a significant investment in EAM. Technology upgrades can be daunting, with agencies struggling to keep their staff following best practices over time. In this session we will discuss tips and tricks for maximizing EAM system "resiliency" and ROI over the years, from both the technology and the people perspective, including: cloud, SOPs, training program, learning management systems, change management, Trapeze Health Checks, etc.
A Safe, Thriving Workforce for Today and Tomorrow:
Employee Self-Service: Keep Your Employees Connected and Engaged in Real-time
Version 21 introduces Employee Self-Service (ESS). Learn how to manage and support the ESS module, which provides agencies with various functions and features to enable employees to work more efficiently and enhance internal communications. This session will focus on the tools and options available to manage and support your Employee Self-Service (ESS) deployment.
Exclusive Executive Summit for C-Suite Transit Leaders
Transit agency leaders are invited to executive summits featuring panels with Chief Innovation Officers and Chief Operating Officers. The sessions will address the latest transit innovations, operations challenges, and solutions. For the first time, roundtable discussions allow for personal interaction to workshop authentic and relevant transit industry hot topics like increasing ridership/revenue and addressing crime and the unhoused in transit. Then, summit participants will undertake a very special dinner excursion on Monday night.
Register for ThinkTransit 2024
The 2024 sessions are filling up, so register soon to ensure you can attend the presentations that matter most to you.
Vontas & Trapeze Group
JW Marriott Starr Pass, Tucson, Arizona
March 24-27, 2024
ThinkTransit Awards of Excellence nominations are now open.
There are a lot of unsung heroes in public transit. Men and women who work behind the scenes each and every day to make sure people can get to work, school, the doctor, or just out into the community. A lot of those folks never get the credit they deserve. The bus operator who helps someone figure out where they are going or offer a kind smile to someone who needs it. The dispatcher who makes sure buses have drivers. The mechanic who makes sure every ride is safe.
A big part—maybe the most important part—of ThinkTransit every year is giving a nod to the people who’ve done that something extra. The people who are using technology to push us forward to find new ways to serve our communities better. The ThinkTransit Awards of Excellence celebrate just a small part of what’s great about transit and it’s time again to nominate someone for an award. It’s time to shine a light on everything great about the work we do.
What are the Awards of Excellence?
If you haven’t attended ThinkTransit before, here is a run down of the six awards we give out on the final day of ThinkTransit:
Advancement. The Advancement award recognizes transit agencies, organizations, and individuals who are striving to expand the boundaries of transit. Perhaps seeking to make the seemingly impossible, possible, and redefining the shape of success in the process. If you’re working on something that will advance the industry, regardless of how big or small, this category is for you.
Innovation. Are you working on an idea or have a long-term vision to change the status quo that the transit industry doesn’t know about yet? The Innovation award is for an individual, organization or agency that hopes to change the transit landscape as we know it, for the betterment of the transit industry.
Alliance. Throughout the year, Trapeze and Vontas industry experts maintain dialogues that work to lead initiatives alongside transit agencies. Every year, the Alliance Award of Excellence recognizes one agency that takes these partnerships to new heights.
Community Building. The Community Building award recognizes individuals who are actively demonstrating leadership on Collaborate, our customer community. From engaging on forums and answering transit industry questions, to submitting new ideas for improvement, these individuals help build a better and stronger Collaborate. This winner will be selected by Trapeze and Vontas.
Best Live Session. This award will recognize the best live session at the 2023 ThinkTransit conference, selected our conference attendees. Live polling will be used throughout the conference to select the winner.
ThinkTransit Employee Award. Our Trapeze and Vontas employees work hard every day to support you, our customers. This award recognizes one individual who stands out and has gone the extra mile in 2022. The award will be selected by you and presented live at ThinkTransit.
Showcasing the best of transit with the Awards of Excellence
Here's the list of winners from the 2023 ThinkTransit event:
- Innovation: Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority
- Advancement: Lou Ferri and Frank Stassi of PalmTran
- Alliance: Jim Gee, Regional Commission of Washoe County – Reno
- Community Builder: Rosa Esquivel, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
- Trapeze Employee Award: Bruce Jansen
- Vontas Employee Award: Ryan Ohrt
- Best Session: “Benefits of Timekeeping Health Check”- Gary “Mo” Morris of Delaware Transit Corporation
These winners typify what ThinkTransit is all about: working together to deliver better public transit for everyone.
Submit your nominations now and don’t forget to register!
Head over to the Awards of Excellence page and nominate someone for the:
- Advancement Award
- Innovation Award
- ThinkTransit Employee Award
You can nominate anyone in the transit industry—even yourself—and they don’t have to be a Trapeze or Vontas customer to be nominated or win either. Nominations close on February 23, 2024.
We’ll see you in Tucson in March.
There are two things people tell us over and over again why they come to ThinkTransit every year: the people and the sessions. We can't tell you who is going to be there yet, but we can share a first look at the ThinkTransit agenda for this year.
All the favorites, plus a lot more
Everything you love about ThinkTransit is back! Hands-on training sessions, customer led sessions with best practices galore, and updates from all the Trapeze and Vontas product teams. After every ThinkTransit we sit down together a look at all your feedback, the good, the bad, and the "well that could have been better" to make sure we're always giving you the most value we can.
This is just the first cut at the agenda, there are a lot of slots to fill, but you can get a feel for what you'll see in lovely (and warm) Tucson! And if you have an idea for something, please let us know. We love to know what will be most useful for you.
The full agenda will come out in February as well as keynote speakers, activities, and everything else you love about coming to ThinkTransit.
The Executive Summit Hosted by Paul Comfort continues!
Last year might have been one of the best Executive Summits ever. We even held a repeat of the first-time CEO panel at APTA in Orlando last year (you can listen to it on Transit Unplugged). Based on your feedback we've condensed the Summit into a single day on Monday followed by a special event dinner that night. Paul has planned two exciting panels with Chief Innovation Officers and Chief Operations Officers and for the first time two hands-on roundtable workshops where attendees can discuss solutions to today's biggest transit challenges.
The Executive Summit is for C-Suite transit leaders only and operates under Chatham House Rules.
The Executive Summit is only $149 per person and includes full access to the entire ThinkTransit conference, activities, and events. Year after year, Executive Summit attendees tell Paul how much they get out of a focused time with peers to work on tough issues in a safe, closed environment.
Learn more and register on the Executive Summit page.
Those early birds are leaving the nest soon
All good things come to an end, and so must our early bird pricing discounts. Discounted pricing ends on January 31st so register now to get the discount on individual and group registrations.
Group pricing will still be available until ThinkTransit registration closes in March, but if you want the extra discount on top, you need to register before January comes to a close.
We hope to see you in Tucson in March!
It's safe to say that most of us in the U.S. and Canada could use a little warmth and sun right now. So just think about this: the average high temperature in Tucson around ThinkTransit is 77F/25C with 11 hours of sun a day. Sounds like just the ticket to chase away Winter's chill. Join us and your transit colleagues for a few days of warmth while learning and connecting about the industry we love.
"The faster you are proven wrong, the less time you will spend being wrong."
– Erika Hall.
In problem-solving, it is not uncommon for overarching concerns to overshadow subtler background issues. These may include inconveniences such as how the software performs in natural enrichment, convoluted user flows, or as small as an overlooked icon. The Customer Discovery Program (CDP) enables us to create designs with a user-centric focus.
The CDP gathers customer feedback, helping us uncover pain points through observation and opportunities through the user's unbiased perspective. This ensures that issues are rectified before implementation, thereby fostering the creation of solutions that prioritize a favorable user experience.
The foundation of user experience consists of discovery and research. There are many methodologies to facilitate this, including field studies, contextual inquiry, and stakeholder interviews.
Field Studies
Incorporating field studies into the CDP bolsters the program's first-hand understanding.
Field studies contribute a layer of realism, context, and depth to the actionable insights acquired, informing what user-friendly and impactful software solutions are.
Let's dive into field studies—or, in our case, more specifically, a user experience (UX) field study. A UX field study generates rich qualitative and quantitative data by observing users in their natural environment. This approach provides insight into the user behaviors, their needs, and overall challenges when interacting with our products while they perform their daily tasks and duties.
Field studies cultivate user empathy, aligning interfaces closely with user expectations. This is pivotal for effective product design and fulfilling user needs, resulting in a positive user experience.
Contextual Inquiry
Engaging in contextual inquiry represents an excellent methodology for unveiling hidden insights.
This form of field research aims to furnish comprehensive insights by delving into the contextual backdrop wherein tasks, actions, and overarching strategies transpire.
The inquiring or observation phase is pivotal as this is an opportunity to witness these activities live. This stage enables examining their operational environment, including workflow elements and user interactions, and identifying improvised strategies to achieve goals. Such nuanced understanding can only be attained within the authentic confines of their natural environment or meticulously controlled settings.
Observations are through notetaking, capturing videos, photos, and audio recordings.
Stakeholder Interviews
Conducting stakeholder interviews proves to be highly advantageous for the CDP.
The objective of performing a stakeholder interview is to actively involve the user, map their journey and fundamental inquiries, and ascertain their overarching objectives.
Conducting in-person or remote interviews with stakeholders offers a valuable opportunity to inquire about their goals, user needs, and pain points to align with an overall shared vision.
Incorporating the feedback and perspectives of stakeholders enables the CDP to fortify its approach to user discovery for a more robust and well-rounded development process.
User Testing
The CDP exemplifies our dedication to meticulous user feedback collection, ensuring issues do not go unnoticed. The quickest way to evaluate a product or feature is user testing.
It is crucial in ensuring that we:
- Target user behaviour
- Discover opportunities
- Validate our assumptions
- Uncover pain points
- Identify issues before they are built
User testing sessions are conducted in-person or remotely. Using a prototype or actual product interactions, the participant is given a series of short scenario tasks related to the feature or workflow being tested. It is important to note that there are no wrong answers. We are not testing the participant; we are testing the app itself.
This method allows for a comprehensive examination of features and tasks, catering to qualitative and quantitative insights.
The sessions generate a large amount of feedback, encompassing a broad spectrum of user experiences, which is then organized, synthesized, and funneled into actionable insights. This feedback is valuable for identifying successes and iterating on opportunities and pain points within the product.
To complement the qualitative data, surveys are used to track usability scores, providing a quantitative metric to measure the overall user experience and satisfaction. This holistic approach to user testing ensures a thorough understanding of user interactions, enabling continuous improvement throughout the product development lifecycle.
The CDP underscores our commitment to gathering precise user feedback, where our dedicated efforts focus on identifying and addressing a comprehensive range of issues to enhance the user experience. Integrating field studies adds depth to our insights. Our methodologies, including contextual inquiry and stakeholder interviews, emphasize a comprehensive decision-making process. We align solutions with expectations and broader goals by engaging directly with users and stakeholders. The CDP is a proactive framework that resolves issues before implementation and contributes to user-friendly and impactful software solutions. Moving forward, user perspectives, stakeholder insights, and research methodologies will remain pivotal in our pursuit of excellence and user-centric innovation.
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