Show notes:
Welcome to Comfort's Corner for May 26th, 2021.
This week on Comfort's Corner we have a special newsmaker segment with board members of the North American Transit Alliance (NATA) and the International Association of Public Transit (UITP) discussing the results of a new study on private contracting in public transit agencies.
UITP completed the study on behalf of NATA and conducted interviews with transit agencies from around the world. The results of this study and give a rich, diverse, and global picture of contracting in public transit. You can download a copy of the report from the UITP website.
If your agency would like a presentation about the results of the study, contact Julia Gessner at NATA.
In transit news, Paul covers:
Finally, we hear from Elea Carey in her messaging minute talking about how to leverage the media for hiring at your agency.
Next week we have Jeremy Yap of Public Transport, Policy and Planning for the Land Transport Authority in Singapore speaking with Paul in another segment on public transit around the world.
Show transcript:
Paul Comfort: This is Transit Unplugged. I'm your host Paul Comfort. Great to be with you on another edition of Comfort's Corner, where we bring you the inside story and what's happening in and around the transit industry. Today, we've got a great show for you got some big headline news stories to give you. And then after that, we'll be going into an in-depth interview with the North American Transit Alliance in UATP. It's a great interview with them.
Um, and I'll tell you more about it in just a moment. We'll be talking about a new study on contracting and that'll take up most of today's show now on to headline news. my successor as MTA Baltimore's CEO, Kevin Quinn was announced this week that the TransLink Board of Directors have appointed him Kevin Quinn to serve as the agency's next Chief Executive Officer.
When we'll begin the role on July 19th and relocate to the Metro Vancouver, British Columbia area from the Baltimore, Maryland area. I've talked to Kevin multiple times this week, and very excited for him. And I know that he will be greatly missed at MTA. The TransLink folks are in for a great new CEO and, and Tony Gugliotta the Chair of TransLink's Board of Directors said.
"We look forward to welcoming Kevin Quinn to the TransLink enterprise, which will benefit from his bold, innovative and customer centered approach to leadership." Congratulations to Kevin and to Holly Arnold, who will step in. She's been the deputy CEO for a while at MTA. She stepping up to be the interim CEO at the Maryland Transit Administration headquartered in Baltimore.
On to some interesting news due to sustained ridership declines in Ontario and Quebec, Greyhound Canada is discontinuing all operations on its remaining routes in Ontario and Quebec and permanently closed all services in Canada effective May 13th. This announcement has no impact on Greyhound lines operation in the U S which will continue to operate cross border express service on the following routes when the border reopens Toronto to New York, Toronto to Buffalo Montreal, the New York Montreal to Boston, Vancouver to Seattle. Greyhound Lines, Inc, as a separate entity from Greyhound Canada, but a sad day when the inner-city bus Greyhound, Canada ceases to continue to operate their services. On to another interesting story out of Honolulu, Hawaii.
The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation is beginning to take steps to institute better. Internal auditing measures through a report presented by a group within the HART Board of Directors. The Permitted Interaction Group or PIG, which consists of half the board was tasked with reviewing suggestions from the American Public Transportation Association about HART's internal auditing practices.
The report that PIG published, included 10 changes that should be implemented. One of the more substantial changes would implement an outsourced independent, internal audit function for HART. And they would report their findings to the committee, which is then charged with managing follow up actions resulting from the audit.
The recommendations from the PIG also suggested that the audit committee establish a fraud and corruption hotline with an independent provider. The hotline would be both for internal sources within Hart and external complaints from outside the authority.
And now onto what a big trend is happening right now. And that is micro transit. I've been telling you about it as matter of fact, if you did not listen to our last Comfort's Corner from two weeks ago, I encourage you to go back and listen to it. It in it, and the final part of the program and the future of public transportation. I gave a heartfelt description of how I thought micro transit could help us add in equity and inclusion in a lot of cities are moving toward micro transit.
One of them is in Union City, California. They're reviving a micro transit program from the 1970s that uses vans to help people get to and from its industrial business district, the BART station and parts of the Dakota neighborhood. This being the 2020s though, the Flea as they call it this time around, we'll take advantage of technology to provide on demand van service.
The pilot program is set to launch this week and operate for 22 months. A Bay Area quality air quality management district grant will cover most of the $818,000 costs. And the city transit funds will pick up the balance. City officials hope the Flea will fill some of the gaps in regular bus service and be flexible enough for commuters to take advantage of.
And now onto our newsmaker interview on this week's Comfort's Corner. It's a great interview with a UITP, which is the International Public Transit Union, the director of strategy Sylvain Haon and members of the North American Transit Alliance, including board chair, Brad Thomas, president of First Transit.
The NATA Treasurer, Matt Wood, who is COO of National Express Transit Corporation here in North America and NATA a board member, Arnaud Legrand, who is CEO of RATP Dev along with Strategic Communications Manager, Julia Gessner. I interview them. Regarding the just released UITP study on contracting and transit the value and benefits of private contracting in North America and internationally to meet passenger needs.
It's a great in-depth interview. I know you'll enjoy it on this edition of Comfort's Corner. Thanks for being with us and stay safe out here.
This is Transit Unplugged and I'm your host Paul Comfort. We are on a newsmaker interview with Comfort's Corner. We like to travel around the world and talk to leading transit industry leaders about breaking news. And we've got breaking news for you today because UITP, the International Transit Union had just completed a brand-new study called Contracting and Transit The Value and Benefits of Private Contracting in North America and Internationally to Meet Passenger Needs.
And we have with us on the newsmaker hotline. Sylvain Haon who is Senior Director of Strategy at UITP calling us today from where Sylvain, where are you at today in the world Brussels Belgium. We also have on the on the newsmaker interview hotline, Brad Thomas, who was President of First Transit and the Chairman of the North American Transit Alliance.
Brad, welcome.
Brad Thomas: Good morning.
Paul Comfort: And we also have Clement Michel, who is the was the CEO of Keolis North America. And it just been promoted to an amazing new job at corporate headquarters. He's now in Boston, but headed to Paris, Clement. Welcome. And tell us the name of your new title you're gonna have.
Clement Michel: Oh, I don't remember. But the HR transformation so safety sustainable development and HR. Yes.
Paul Comfort: So Clementis one of the founders there's of the North American Transit Alliance, along with Brad and other CEOs. And he is on the Board and is Vice Chair, the I guess the outgoing Vice Chair, but the current Vice Chair of our organization.
We also have my good friend, Matthew Wood, who is a Chief Operating Officer of National Express and the Treasurer and a Board member of North American Transit Alliance. Matt, thanks for being with us.
Matthew Wood: Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone.
Paul Comfort: Good morning. And then we also have Julia Gassner. Julia is with First Transit and she's also basically the Vice Chair of the working group North American Transit Alliance, and has really been involved in integral in this study that was just completed.
That was commissioned by NATA, but conducted by an independent third-party which is UITP. Thanks for being with us today, Julia.
Julia Gessner: Thanks for having me.
Paul Comfort: So, let me set it up. Uh this group, actually, Brad, let me ask you first right off Brad. Why don't you tell us some about the North American Transit Alliance what your role is and why you commissioned this study?
Brad Thomas: Sure. Well, first, first things first the North American Transit Alliance has made up of the six largest. public transit contracting companies in North America. So that is First Transit, Keolis MV transportation, National Express, Transdev, and RATP Dev. And we formed the North American Transit Alliance in 2020, really to advocate for policies that promote public transportation.
We knew that together we could bring more value supporting the industry as a group than we could. As individual organizations. And I think really the, the pandemic really served as you know, serves as catalyst. It got this group together more quickly than we may have otherwise, but it really, it demonstrated the need for our organization because we were able to advocate on behalf of the private contracting industry to get the support that we needed to continue to operate.
During COVID. And that was, that was obviously extremely important for these organizations and the, and all the folks who worked with us.
Paul Comfort: So the, the organization to me kind of reminds me of like an airline association, right? So you've got, you know, Southwest and United and American, but they formed together to work on Capitol Hill for things that affect them and also to promote their industry, it would, would that be a good analogy?
Brad Thomas: Absolutely.
Absolutely. I mean, you know, we believe sincerely in the value of private contracting. We believe this, we're passionate about it, and we believe the value that we in the value that we can bring to the market. We've got the experience, the expertise, the bandwidth, the resources, the ability to get best practices from all over the globe and deliver them to local transit authority.
So we, we really do you know, we, we believe in what we can bring to the market. But prior to this, we really didn't have a group that really represented us. and you know, we, we felt that that was important. Um, and we felt that there were a lot of issues that we needed to have a voice in. Um, and that has given us the vehicle to be able to do that.
Paul Comfort: And so why did NATA choose to commission, you know, this study with UITP?
Brad Thomas: Well, again, I mean, we knew the value. that private contracting brings to the market. We knew that, but we needed to, we really needed to challenge ourselves and to bring in what we felt. It important that we bring in a third party to kind of confirm what we believe.
Um, and we've contacted UITP. We talked to them about the best way to do that and what we kind of would be set. What we settled on was. Looking at private contracting around the globe, going all over the world to see the different models that are used throughout the rest of the world and to talk to the customer, talk to the agencies and, and to get their perspective on private contracting or private contractors bring to their market.
And ultimately the study, I mean, I think it's an amazing study. And I think it was you know, tremendous that the findings in it are tremendous. The ideas in it are just, you know, really amazing. We got we got folks from all over the world to talk about their experience and ultimately now in North America, we can look at those expand.
There were people from North America, too, in the, in, in the study. So. People and people can look at the study and see what we're doing here in North America, what's happening in the rest of the world. And now we can kind of look at it and say, you know, where what other things could we be doing? What other models could be using?
What other, what other ideas should we be bringing to North America from the rest of the world? And, and, you know, what might work in my community better than maybe, you know, how I'm operating today, where, you know, how could we improve? It's always best to get, you know, best practice when you can, when you can get best practice and you can see what others are doing and what's been successful in other places.
And you can then, and the ability to bring that to your local community. Um, you know, that's the best of you know, that's the best of the, of the, of the industry. Um, and you can, you can bring it into your, you know, your local community. So I think that's ultimately what this study proved Atlas.
There's amazing things happening in North America, and there are amazing things happening in the rest of the world. Now, people get to see all of those in one place and kind of look at them and see what's, you know, get some new ideas.
Paul Comfort: That's wonderful. Excellent. Well, thank you, Brad. That's a great kind of intro to it.
now I want to turn to Sylvain from UITP. Sylvain thank you for being with us today. You've been kind of overseeing this study from the beginning. And why don't you tell us a little bit about UITP, just like Brad did about NATA and explain to listeners who may not be familiar. I know that you're basically like the APTA for the rest of the world outside of outside of the United States.
So tell us about your organization. You guys are phenomenal and a huge organization and really the leading transportation, public transportation organization in the world.
Sylvain Haon: Um, thank you. Thank you for those nice words. That's a better introduction that we'll do. I actually UITP a couple of things which are important for UITP. We are a global organization, as you rightly say. So we have members from more than a hundred countries. We have, I think the latest count is 1700 members from across the world. We are multi-stakeholders so our members come from. Um, the industry, they can manufacturers IT systems providers, et cetera.
Um, there are public transport operators. so running the services. And, and the authorities as well, whether it's a transit authority a city authority, a regional, federal, it depends on, it depends from country to country in a couple of cases of another country, transport authority as members and we represent public transport.
But, you know, in a very broad sense on one more as, you know, the, the, the. And the difference between mass transit and other forms of sharing equitable, but the transport is blurred. So w we, we believe we really, really represent the situ at-large in putting new mobility to the actors, um et cetera.
And our mission is really to work with our members to advance public transport. In a sense of developing knowledge had been done to learn from each other, working together to develop solutions. Make the case core urban and public transports towards decision makers of various kinds. So being the voice of the sector and repeating days after days that there won't be sustainable cities in the future, if there is not a good transit system.
Um, and we bring all those people also together in various ways and forms so that they can exchange and network with each other.
Paul Comfort: Excellent. And we want to do a shout out to our good friend, the UITP Secretary General Muhammad Mezghani, who was really the world's leading transit, you know official, I guess, representing all these folks.
So he's been a good friend to me personally, and to I've been on this podcast before and just wanted to make sure we acknowledged him. So I also want to acknowledge Arnaud Legrande who has joined us now on the podcast Arnaud is the CEO of RATP Dev USA. Arnaud thank you for joining us today.
Arnaud Legrand: Yeah, it's good morning. Sorry to be late, but that's, that's operations
Paul Comfort: better, late than never. Right. And, and he's also a founding member and a board member of the North American Transit Alliance. So great to have everybody on the show. So we were talking about Arnaud, and for our listeners is this study that's been commissioned by NATA and had this third-party organization independent, globally known for their work in public transportation to conduct this study that really provides a review of private contracting services in and outside of North America. The study includes case studies based on interviews with leaders at transit agencies and the varying contract models are looked at, and it shows the study shows that they were influenced by the context, the culture and the history of each location and the case studies point to the benefit of private contracting and best practices.
In partnership relations. And I think it's important Sylvain that you actually interviewed, like Brad has said before, you weren't like talking to the contractors themselves, per se. You were talking to the transit agencies who contract out, you're saying to them, Hey, tell us about contracting. Tell us about the model you use.
Are there benefits? Are there downsides to this? Let's get a full picture. So tell us overall, your, your, you know, kind of the overall summary of the study and any key points that you found coming out of it.
Sylvain Haon: It's exactly this it's there are various ways various governance models for, for, um transit.
I'm going to try to use the right terminology and there are various governance models each of them as its merits and they have a very good performance, but there is one thing we thought to our discussion with NATA. We it was the right time to highlight is. If she goes from contracting, how do you make it successful?
How do you,
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