The Fox Cities Transit Commission met 05/24/2022 and received a brief 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.
The service had seen marked improvement over the last few months, and Valley Transit General Manager Ron McDonald told the commission that Valley Transit II was continuing to see improvements although it still had a ways to go. During the update in April it was reported that they had hired some new drivers but were struggling with dispatchers.
Justin Running of Running Inc, said that at the last meeting he had reported they had hired several additional drivers and, since that meeting, they had hired an additional 2 drivers. From a ridership standpoint he thought VTII was in a much better place that they were a few months ago. They still had some days where they got a little behind if, for example, a driver had to call in sick, but overall, they were in a better spot.
Right now, the main issue they were dealing with was staffing the dispatch office. They were continuing to try to hire and had to make some adjustments for the times when they didn’t have a dedicated individual to staff the office. For a few hours in the evening, they were having calls either go to a voicemail box that was checked by a person who was on site or the calls were answered by whatever employee happened to be available who would take a message and relay it to the correct person. That set-up was not idea, and they were continuing to try to fill that position but had not had any movement on that yet. They were advertising everywhere they could.
General Manager McDonald said that Justin had previously talked about potentially having a remote dispatcher working from home and asked if that was still an option.
Justin answered that it was. They were trying to do that and were casting as wide of a net as they could. The problem with the Valley Transit II dispatching was that it required some in-person training. So, if somebody lived a couple of hours away, they would need to come in and spend some days in the office to really learn the system. At the time of the meeting, there had been a little bit of interest shown for the position but no permanent takers.
A commission member asked if things were running as they would like what would be the ideal timeframe during the day when someone was filling the position and taking calls.
Just responded that, historically, they had always had someone on dispatch 24/7. Currently, the places in the schedule where there were gaps was changing, so he wasn’t certain off the top of his head where the hole was that they needed to fill, but he thought it was from 7PM to 10PM, during which they still needed to make sure they had a dedicated trained staff member listening to voicemails and taking calls, contacting drivers if a rider had been left somewhere, and making sure that requests were put into the system.
The commission member commented that the current situation was a little awkward as a consumer. He himself had made a couple calls on behalf of his son sometime during the evening ours when Valley Transit II would normally have strong coverage. One of the times he got someone’s personal voicemail and had no idea that he had connected with Valley Transit II. In that case, the staff member had called back and asked if he had called for VTII, but the commission member could see a lot of issues with how things currently were and could picture a lot of individuals becoming quite anxious if they couldn’t touch base and get an immediate response. He strongly encouraged Running, Inc to be as inventive, creative, and persistent as possible in addressing this issue.
Justin agreed and said that they were well aware of the problem and the potential issues and frustrations it was creating for users. They were continuing to push as hard as they could to get it resolved.
[I suppose this is just one tiny instance of the rippling and long-term effects of shutting down our economy and throwing basic norms into complete upheaval for 2 years. The elderly and disabled now get to enjoy a vastly diminished transportation service.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=959035&GUID=33754A62-3A6A-47CB-AC2D-9F0CE04BD9D7
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