Two years into a global pandemic, public transportation agencies continue to face myriad challenges — chief among them, how to restore ridership at a time when customers might be leery of close quarters with others or when work schedules no longer mean five days in the office.
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In the Washington region, Metro faces an additional challenge: Safety problems with its newest rail cars, the 7000 series, have reduced service levels and further eroded trust in the system. Rail ridership is about 20 percent of pre-pandemic levels, and officials don’t expect the suspended cars to return before April.
Steep ridership losses will force changes to Metro service after pandemic, transit leaders say
Rob Britton is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, specializing in marketing and crisis management. He also spent 22 years at American Airlines, where two weeks after the 9/11 attacks he was appointed managing director of advertising and marketing. Britton, a longtime Metro rider, spoke with The Washington Post about how Metro and other transit systems can lure riders back as more workers begin returning to offices.
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This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity.
Q: You worked in airlines for many years, but tell me about your interest in public transportation.
Growing up in Minneapolis, where my mother and I rode the bus and the streetcar, I have been a public transit rider. I’m deeply committed to public transit, both as a personal matter and as a matter of urban policy. I want to see [Metro] succeed and see other public transit agencies succeed. It’s a hard series of challenges that they have right now, because they’re facing issues on a number of different fronts. I want them to survive.
Q: What can public transportation agencies do to win back riders?
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A: I, frankly, think that there is no magic breakthrough. There is no clever marketing idea, no clever ad campaign. There is no quick fix to this at all. I really believe the return is going to be organic. We really still don’t know and, I think, frankly, won’t know for a long time what the new normal is going to look like in terms of offices, in terms of people coming back to work and, therefore, needing to ride the Metro or other public transit systems. I think it’s really going to be organic. It’s just a chicken-and-egg story, because ridership is down so much.
Metro working to bring suspended rail cars back into service
Q: If the answer isn’t a slick ad campaign, what is it?
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A: They need to do everything they can to convince the public that they run on time and reliably. If I can put my old airline hat on, it’s a little bit like when airlines reduce their schedules. They need to do their best to operate to that. And I think that’s really where Metro needs to be.
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As a rider, when there is a delay and it’s not explained, it makes me cranky, and it must make other people cranky. We’re all relying on Metro to get us where we’re going. It’s just the nuts-and-bolts focusing on running the operation: We’re going to do what we need to do and do it reliably. We’re going to build that confidence with the hope that, in the “Field of Dreams” analogy, if you build it, they will come. If you start to deliver that service reliably, then people do pay attention and that gets augmented by word of mouth and social media, saying, “You know, they’re doing a better job.”
Read more: Q&As with transportation newsmakers
Q: That seems to be a good strategy for public transit agencies, but does Metro have an extra challenge because of the safety issues it’s dealing with?
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A: Ridership was up, the reliability was up. They were doing all the right things, and then the pandemic slams them, and then they’ve got the issues with the 7000 trains, and they’ve got a mess on their hands. It’s just hard. I think they’re doing the best they can right now under some very, very difficult circumstances.
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Q: Metro’s general manager, Paul J. Wiedefeld, announced plans to retire this year, so Metro will soon have new leadership. Do you have thoughts on what kind of leader Metro needs?
A: One of the best things they could do would be to hire a transportation person who does not come from public transportation. I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do, but, you know, one of the challenges here is that you want a fresh set of eyes. You don’t want to just shuffle the deck chairs within public transit. I really hope that they recruit more broadly. For example, the former CEO of Delta, Richard Anderson, ran Amtrak.
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Q: As a customer, what do you want from Metro?
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A: I want them to keep to schedule. I want escalators to work. Paul [Wiedefeld]’s done a great job on that — escalator reliability is much better. I want all the basic station infrastructure: real-time information and you know, fix the 7000-series cars.
Q: With Metro facing a worker shortage, do you have thoughts how transit agencies can recruit qualified workers?
A: I think the place that I would start is to look at who has figured this out because somewhere in the world, someone has figured this out. I think especially here in Washington, we talk about best practices, right? Yet very few people actually try to figure out what best practice is. So my counsel to the recruitment people, to the HR people, is to go find out who’s figured this out.