The Transit Commission met 04/26/2022 and received an update on the Valley Transit II service for elderly and disabled people provided by Running, Inc. This service had struggled earlier in the year with long wait times and delays caused by a lack of drivers. During the March meeting, it was reported that they had been able to hire 3 new drivers and were working on improving efficiencies with their scheduling/route-planning software.
During the meeting on 04/26/2022, Justin Running of Running Inc had more good news to report to the commission. Since the March meeting, they had been able to hire five additional drivers who had all be trained, on-boarded, and retained, which was significant, because sometimes people start that line of work and find out it was more than they bargained for and quit.
He said they would love if they could find six part-time folks to come on. [If you or someone you know is interested, you can contact Valley Transit about it.]
Their on-time performance in April was up to 96%. [It was in the low 80s in early February and lower than that in January.] Later on, Valley Transit General Manager Ron McDonald noted that the on-time performance was much improved overall, and the number of minutes drivers were late was shrinking. Early on in the year, there were trips that were an hour late, but now they might just be 7 minutes late. They were still late, but the windows of the lateness were shrinking.
The one issue they were currently struggling with that having dispatch staff dedicated to Valley Transit answering the phones Monday through Friday from 7AM-10PM. They did have some temporary staff, and the calls were getting answered and routed to the appropriate drivers, and there were live people available to call if a ride was missed. They were, however, still actively trying to hiring a dedicated dispatch person, and that lack of one did impact the weekend service somewhat.
None of the commission members had any questions.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=935848&GUID=EB1005FA-557B-4B42-A432-58BDE489D35F
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