Fleet Leader Interview with Rajeev Roy of York Region Transit
Rajeev Roy of York Region Transit
York Region Transit (YRT) serves the transit needs of residents in the nine municipalities of the Regional Municipality of York, Ontario. YRT offers Mobility Plus paratransit service for riders unable to access conventional or bus rapid transit due to limited mobility or disability. Mobility Plus connects riders with dedicated transit services in the City of Toronto, and surrounding areas. Rajeev Roy, Manager of Transit Management Services at YRT gives us some insight into the way ITS technology influenced how his paratransit operation runs and has improved the experience for Mobility Plus riders.
1. What changes has your organization seen as a result of using this technology?
With this system there is the flexibility for dispatchers to add an ad-hoc call to a route since they can see where all the buses are. Passenger safety has also improved with the addition of security cameras and vehicle tracking.
2. What improvements has your staff seen with this system?
We did a survey of the staff who all agreed that service has improved. The vehicle tracking is definitely one of the most beneficial features and, from a management perspective, we also like that we can monitor driver’s speeds.
Since implementing the system, YRT staff have experienced benefits ranging from faster response times, to improved vehicle productivity. The staff have seen at least a 35% time savings improvement in scheduling same-day trips, and supplying riders with travel information has been made at least 50% faster.
3. How do your customers benefit from this system?
When customers call to ask, ‘Why isn’t my ride here?’ dispatchers can instantly give them an accurate ETA, as they can see where their ride is. Before, the dispatcher would have to conduct a series of calls to get this information to the customer.
4. Have you seen a Return on Investment? If so, how much and how quickly?
The implementation was completed in the spring of 2008, and since then there have been improvements in incident response times, safety, trip scheduling and vehicle productivity.
There has been a 24% increase in revenue trips per hour and dispatching functions have been streamlined by at least 50%. A reduction in “deadhead” kilometers traveled by YRT’s vehicles resulted in a reduction of approximately 57kg of CO2 emissions in one month of operation.
Thank you, this is very helpful.