Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Exceeding Service Goals with ITS Technology
Challenges
The MBTA has long realized the benefits of ITS technology. Beginning with their first system in 1999, MBTA's THE RIDE paratransit program has continually reassessed their technology needs as their service grew. In 2003, the MBTA selected a transit ITS solution from Mentor Engineering and StrataGen Systems which improved scheduling, routing, dispatching and reporting for the MBTA and their contracted companies: Greater Lynn Senior Services, Joint Venture TTI/YCN and Veterans Transportation Services. As the contract expiration date approached in 2009, the MBTA again began to re-evaluate their technology needs.
Solution
Currently, the MBTA's system includes Mentor Ranger in-vehicle computers and Stratagen ADEPT software in the office. Ranger provides the MBTA with turn-by-turn navigation, voice and data communications, and automatic vehicle location capabilities. The MBTA also uses Mentor XMobile Manager®XMM) for easy over-the-air programming and troubleshooting of Ranger.
The decision to stay with Mentor was an easy one. Jacqualyn Dunlop, Director of Transportation at Greater Lynn Senior Services (GLSS), says, "The Mentor solution was selected again because it works. We were definitely happy with how things had gone with the last contract and we have a good rapport with the company."
Paul echoes these sentiments when speaking about the MBTA's decision to upgrade their mobile computers to Ranger: "Through our previous relationship with Mentor they had proven to be a solid and stable provider of mobile computers and we believed their products were the ones to stay with moving forward. The advantages we saw with Ranger were better messaging and the turn-by-turn navigational capabilities, which were both requirements we built into the service contract."
Results
The MBTA's foremost focus is improving the service they provide for their riders. ITS technology has helped them meet and exceed this goal, even as their ridership has grown exponentially. Using automatic vehicle location (AVL) to track RIDE vehicles in real-time has significantly improved the service the MBTA provides. Says Paul, "Being able to tell the customer where the vehicle is instead of guessing has been a huge improvement. Instead of getting the old, 'Your ride is five minutes away or right around the corner,' now we can say, 'Your vehicle's on Smith Street, with an ETA of three minutes.'"
With Mentor's solution, making on-the-fly schedule changes is simple and allows the contracted companies to be more efficient. As Jacqualyn says, "It's easy to adjust the schedule with same day trip changes and get the information to the driver faster. If the dispatchers can't reach the drivers on the radio to update them, they know the information is on their Ranger screen."
Paul sees how the technology helps the contracting companies optimize their scheduling. "We can handle hundreds of same-day modifications and changes easily because we have a better feel of where the fleet is and where our slack time is," he says. "This helps the contractors keep their man power down as they know where the holes in the schedule are and can dispatch on the fly versus being locked into pre-assigned manifests all day."
Paul has been able to track many of the changes the MBTA has experienced, such as on-time performance increases, with the accurate data the system generates for reporting. He says, "The information we get back from the AVL technology absolutely gives me a solid feeling about our on-time performance data. Previous to this system the reporting was being done manually and the MBTA had to take at face value that what was being reported was accurate. Now it's all uniform, accurate reporting."
Regarding on-time performance, the system has helped the MBTA exceed their previous benchmarks. THE RIDE service now reports on-time performance in excess of 99% within their 30 minute on-time guarantee, up almost .5% from 2008-2009. As on-time performance has increased, the opposite has occurred with customer complaints. A 32% decrease in complaints in the past year is a concrete reflection of the improved service the MBTA has provided to their riders.
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Having an ITS solution has been an integral part to handling this growth. We have no idea how we ever operated before we had this system. 
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