Special Budget Committee Meeting
Part 1
I attended this morning’s Special Budget Committee Meeting. What struck me most was the questions that didn’t get asked, as opposed to the ones that were. I believe that a rider’s perspective is desperately needed in all the Board’s sessions with interaction with WMATA staff.
The first part of the meeting was dedicated to … you guessed it … the MV Transportation transitional effort to support MetroAcess as prime contractor.
Jim Graham, got a little bit closer to asking the question, that I proposed in my last post on the topic.
What where you doing during the three months of transition from September 2005 through January 2006? However, I didn’t hear a response that would help Metro to learn from it’s mistakes, and MV Transportation’s mistakes, and Logisticare’s mistakes.
Where you riding the MetroAcess Vans? Where you shadowing the Logisticare dispatchers, and call center? Where you collecting your own data about ridership, policies, procedures, and special needs? What where you doing during the three months of transition from September 2005 through January 2006?If I as a member of the RAC was a non-voting member of the Board of Directors, I could have asked that question. I truly had an urge to jump out of my seat and ask the question myself.Where you riding the MetroAcess Vans? Where you shadowing the Logisticare dispatchers, and call center? Where you collecting your own data about ridership, policies, procedures, and special needs?What where you doing during the three months of transition from September 2005 through January 2006?If I as a member of the RAC was a non-voting member of the Board of Directors, I could have asked that question. I truly had an urge to jump out of my seat and ask the question myself.Where you riding the MetroAcess Vans? Where you shadowing the Logisticare dispatchers, and call center? Where you collecting your own data about ridership, policies, procedures, and special needs?
Do we know that on the next contract the Metro awards that we aren’t going to have transition problems through lack of proper planning?
As a Federal Contractor, I’ve been on both sides of contract transitions and it is very easy to blame the other guy. What is not easy is forming a coalition to smoothly transition operations from one vendor to another. This is where the organization, WMATA, needs to play a critical role in the transition process. No one wants to fail. It is not in the best interest of the departing contractor, the new contractor, the organization, or the customers being served.
No matter the circumstances, it’s going to be difficult. The question is: How do you get everyone to understand the goals, objectives, and obstacles that must be overcome?
I spoke briefly with Christian Kent, and he would definitely like to sit down with a group of RAC members and talk through this issue. Not just form this contract's perspective ... but from the perspective of WMATA moving forward.
posted by I. Michael Snyder @ 1:07 PM
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Unfortunately, Mr Kent has declined to speak with any of those who -do- spend most of their time during the day with no choice but to do those things you asked about.
http://www.dcparatransit.info was first created several years ago when there was a need to highlight the problems with Logisticare provisioning the service. We had hoped that we could gracefully retire the site, but unfortunately it seems there's still a need, so we have relaunched it this week.
WMATA is not interested in feedback on -this- particular service, as far as we can tell. Mr Kent had been warned of the data migration problems back in November of 2005, but WMATA simply ignored the warnings, for example. Now they're looking at the results - a chaotic system.
The Disabled Advisory group isn't a good representation, either. When we started posting the information we had collated, including the whole Caweo debacle in 2003, we discovered that MetroAccess, at least back then, has -two- ridership lists - The "watch" list, and everyone else. Logisticare, at least, made damned sure anyone on the "watch" list got very good service, following their rides every step of the way.
The end result was that the members of that group all got wonderful rides, never had complaints, and so told WMATA the service was working wonderfully. The service to the rest of the riders wasn't quite so wonderful.
We don't know if MV has the same policy in place, they've only been providing rides for 2 weeks, but who knows? They're already trying to change the metrics over the late pick-ups issue the same way Logisticare did, as far as we can tell right now (http://www.dcparatransit.info/news/archive/2006/february/02/did_you_know/index.htm).
Before you get the idea that we're just another set of disgruntled riders, we aren't. We have made it a policy to both highlight the good as well as the bad, and we have also acted as advocates for the drivers, and for MetroAccess itself with our guides on how to behave towards drivers.
We -are- however stuck having to use a service that is in a -worse- state than when Logisticare was running it (no mean feat in and of itself), and WMATA's attitude is not very helpful, whether it be disregarding warnings of forthcoming problems, or accusing riders of lying.
We don't want anything special, we just want the equivalent to service everyone else gets, because we -also- are -paying- customers.
You're right, people should have been asking those questions, but no-one wants to. They aren't too happy with what they know the answers will be.
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