I’m going to start this post out by letting everybody know that Valley Transit and Running Inc could really use some more drivers for their Valley Transit II services. These are curb to curb transportation services provided for elderly and disabled individuals who are unable to use the fixe route bus system. Based on the discussion it sounds like there could be a reasonable amount of flexibility in these jobs, so if you’re looking for work, you may want to contact Valley Transit and learn more. I’m sure they could give you more information on where you have to go to apply for Valley Transit II positions.
The Transit Commission met 02/22/2022 and received a fairly lengthy update on the issues with the Valley Transit II services. During the 01/25/2022 meeting it was reported that they were struggling to provide these services in a timely manner, and commission member Rick Detienne reported that his son, who utilizes Valley Transit II services, had been left waiting out in the cold and night far beyond his pick-up window. In one case, the driver who was supposed to pick him up actually went to the wrong location.
The Valley Transit II services were provided by Running, Inc, and Running Inc representatives Paul Woodward and Justin Running were in attendance.
Valley Transit General Manager Ron McDonald reported that there had been issues in trying to resolve the problems. The Valley Transit team had been working with Running Inc and Valley Transit’s software provider on possible changes to ease the problem.
Early in January, their on-time performance had been very bad, but by February 7th it was at 84%. On the 8th it was in the low 90s, then the next week it dipped down into the low 80s before rising to the high 80s low 90s. As of the day of the meeting, they were running at about an 89% on-time performance which was a significant improvement over where they had been in January although it certainly hadn’t resolved all the issues.
Justin Running from Running, Inc then spoke. They were in the process of on-boarding and training three new drivers, and they were bringing on an additional dispatch staffer/call taker. He would prefer to be hiring people faster than that, but it was still a welcome change because it had been very hard to hire people. They were going to continue to work on hiring more people
Paul Woodward from Running Inc said that they were working tweaking the software they use and experimenting with groups within the system which seemed to be improving efficiency and on-time performance.
Chairman George Dearborn asked what “experimenting with groups” meant.
Paul answered that, traditionally, the software company had asked them to be hands off and let the system use its own algorithm to create the most efficient ride and the most efficient path to get passengers to where they need to be; however, they had had found that if they group like passengers together based on their destinations or pick-up locations that that improved efficiency and allowed them to pick up more passengers in less time. That required some manual intervention on their part, but it did seem to help the problem.
Ron added that Valley Transit and Running Inc certainly wanted to get this resolved as quickly as possible because they understood that people were being affected by the slow times. He was glad that Running had three more drivers coming on board and wanted to know how many drivers they had in this location.
Justin answered that the numbers had change quickly and dramatically. They were currently at 30 but had been down in the 20s for a while.
Ron pointed out that that the 3 new drivers was about a 10% increase in their workforce which equated to a lot of passenger trips once they were fully trained.
Justin said that the improvement in scheduling efficiency had also been tremendous.
A commission member asked, in terms of Rick’s son being left outside his workplace, was there anything immediately that they put in place such as a better call sequence to make sure that people were not left waiting out in the cold.
Ron said they had been talking with Running about putting a text system in place; however, that wasn’t going to be as effective as they had been hoping, so they were still working through that.
Justin said that part of the problem with routing software was that making manual interventions to change it ends up changing so many things that it’s difficult to make manual changes. They were making sure that they have adequate staff that has some flexibility so if someone is stuck somewhere waiting or have fallen through the cracks Running can get someone heading over their right away. Rick’s experience with his son was something that shouldn’t happen and they were aware of that and were doing everything within their power to make sure that that didn’t happen and if it did happen that it was rectified and didn’t create a domino effect for the entire day.
It was a tough situation, however, because of staffing levels. “I’m not one that likes to make excuses and I’m not one that likes to have problems that we can’t solve within our organization. If Covid taught our organization anything it’s some things you just can’t control which is—I don’t like it.” They were continuing to try to hire more people.
Rick said that his son had not had any night time work assignments for the last 6 weeks so he had not needed to rely on those late-night services. They would prefer that he work in the day time but that was not something they could control. They were hopeful that these changes would make the system more reliable when he did need to use it as well as being more reliable for all the people out there like him who needed to use it. He appreciated that they were working on it.
Ron said that someone had asked him if being able to buy more vans would help, but the trouble wasn’t vans. Running Inc had plenty of vehicles that they couldn’t find anyone to put behind the wheel.
Justin confirmed that.
Ron said that Valley Transit’s mobility manager Sarah Schneider and Travel Training Specialist Stephanie Lenz had been talking with a lot of people who have been using VTII. For some of their trips those individuals are capable of using the regular bus, so they’ve been talking to those individuals about helping them to transition onto the bus to free up space on VTII, so that they could use the bus when they could and still rely on Valley Transit II for the rides that they needed it for. Doing that would exponentially help ease the problems VTII was experiencing.
His understanding was that there were a number of people who expressed interest in transitioning and giving it a try once the weather got a little better. Obviously, that wasn’t happening immediately, but it was another avenue they were working on.
Chairman Dearborn asked if it would help to increase the wage amount.
Ron answered that last he heard Running Inc had over 600 employees across the state so his assumption was that they were competitive enough or else they wouldn’t have that many employees.
He added, “It’s also my understanding they’ve had a couple people ready to come on board and when they were told they have to wear a mask all day, walked out the door.” There were a lot of things going on and a lot of moving pieces.
Justin agreed with what Ron said and went on to explain that historically a majority of the people employed by paratransit services have been older individuals who retired early and were just looking for secondary income. “Wage hasn’t always been that big of an issue with them. It seems like, you know, when Covid hit, that entire demographic left the workforce.”
He said they did wage increases at the first of the year like they do every year, but they had multiple employees turn down those increases because if they got more money than they had to work fewer hours. But then there were others who wished the increase would have been more.
What they were seeing across multiple businesses was that there were minimum wage jobs available as well as high-level high-paying jobs available all of which were not being filled. It was a lack of workers, not a wage issue. If they increased wages by $3-$4 an hour they might get more workers but they might lose some also because the wager put them above what they could make as an individual on early retirement or it would impact the benefits that were available to their family.
Wage was always a concern, but he added that they had to also stay competitive. Wage increases might not even solve the problem and, when if those increases made their next bid turn out to be cost-prohibitive, another competitor could come in with a lower rate and Valley Transit might end up in the same situation. [With a paratransit service that was not running efficiently and on time.]
He finished up by saying that they had a shared-ride taxi service and they raised the starting wage by $3 an hour. They only got one applicant since they made that change. There was just no worker pool to draw frum. They were trying to focus on other things like being an organization that was accommodating of their employees and flexible about employee needs.
Another commission member asked if they had thought about raising the fares to $4.50 or $5 to offset potential wage increases.
Justin said that they bid per ride per trip and regardless of the fare that was the amount that they got. They turn over all their fare revenue and treat it as a credit on their bill. Raising fares would not impact Running, it would just decrease Valley Transit’s costs.
Ron added that the costs for many of these services are either established by local municipalities or by federal law. The ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) trips could only be twice what the adult cash bus fare was. That was $2 so the ADA rides could only be $4. There was no negotiating that. Other fares were established by Outagamie County or Northern Winnebago Dial-A-Ride. In order to change those, they would have to hold public hearings for each one and it would take at least 6 months before they could even have conversations about it. Beyond that, he didn’t think that more money was the silver bullet that was going to fix everything.
Justin said they were really throwing everything they could at this. “It’s really unfortunate that we have an issue that we can’t fix fast.”
He thanked the employees at Valley Transit and for the Transit Commission members for their willingness to help Running push through these issues. It was a team effort and they were lucky to have the support for all of them.
Ron added that if there was anybody listening to the meeting or who knew anyone who was looking for some part-time work, providing Valley Transit II rides was a really fulfilling job. You meet these individuals and transport them from Point A to Point B, and it was pretty cool.
Alderperson Maiyoua Thao (District 7) thanked them and appreciated their honesty in sharing about their concerns and issues they were experiencing. A lot of people were having problems hiring people. If the commission members had any new ideas, they would share them.
The discussion concluded with a confirmation that they would receive another update at the next meeting.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=907794&GUID=25C69EC1-EF3C-491C-AC39-80E1720738AD
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