When things go wrong, how do you tell your riders?
When routes change, how do you tell your riders?
When you need more political support for increased investment, how do you tell your riders?
And how do you reach potential riders, political stakeholders and drivers (who reap the benefits of all the congestion-alleviating rides)?
That’s why every agency needs an integrated communications plan. This Washington Post article on the focus of WMATA on developing a communications plan vividly demonstrates the importance of a plan.
Transit agencies are in the information distribution business as much as the people-hauling business.
Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. has promised to fix communications, adding his name to a list of agency chiefs who have vowed, unsuccessfully, to cure one of the agency’s largest and deepest ailments. At a board meeting last week, managers outlined a new take on the long-standing problem. Success, they said, will not be achieved by simply making station announcements comprehensible; it will require a complete culture change, from top managers to all 8,200 bus and rail operations employees.
[snip]
The communication problems trace to nearly every aspect of how Metro operates. Some are technical and require more money and new procedures; others could be fixed with little more than handing out dry-erase boards. The most basic could be fixed with dedication to old-fashioned customer service.
The root of most miscommunication happens internally. Metro officials say they need to do a better and quicker job of getting information to train operators, station managers and other front-line workers, who should pass it on to riders. Officials are considering buying hand-held radios that would allow station managers to receive updates directly from the agency’s operations control center and wireless microphones that would allow them to broadcast over a station’s public-address system.
Improving communications to riders, potential riders and political stakeholders is the cheapest and smartest way to increase ridership and revenue, build more political support and improve rider-owner satisfaction. WMATA has a big job to do and it’s good to see attention paid to better communication.
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