The Fox Cities Transit Commission met 06/21/2022 during which they approved the May payments and received several reports.
During the approval of payments, they briefly discussed the filling of shifts at Valley Transit. Alderperson Maiyoua Thao (District 7) asked if Valley Transit was still providing any incentives for their drivers as they had been in the past. General Manager Ron McDonald answered that they wee continuing to hold drawing for the drivers who sign up for overtime. They had been holding those drawings once a week then stopped for a little while when they were having fewer problems filling the shifts, but now that they were, again, experiencing difficulties, they reestablished the drawings.
The update on the Valley Transit II services for elderly and disabled riders focused almost exclusively on staffing.
Justin Running of Running, Inc, the contractor that provides the Valley Transit II services, said that since the May meeting, they had hired more drivers and had three new drivers that would be starting the following week. They had also hired an individual to work in their dispatch office and cover the 7PM-10PM time that had previously been an uncovered gap. That person had just started training and they were hopeful by the end of the week that they would feel confident enough to handle it on their own.
They still lacked a dispatcher on Sunday’s and were still dealing with that gap by having other staff members answer the phones and dealing with emergencies. But at least the week night gaps were filled, so they just had to work on filling the weekend gap.
Overall, Justin thought the number of drivers was pretty good and the management staff felt fairly comfortable. They were going to continue trying to hire more people, but they were in a much better spot than they had been.
General Manager McDonald asked if there was an optimal staffing level for drivers and how far away they were from that level.
Justin thought they were probably 5-6 drivers away from optimal levels, but that was a ballpark number based on previous conversations with staff, not on any information from that day. At this point, they could provide the quality of service that was expected from them, but that came at the burden to employees who were working more than they probably wanted to (even though they were willing to do that). If they had another few employees, he thought everyone would have the workload levels that they wanted.
General Manager McDonald commented that that was a similar to the position Valley Transit was in.
Justin agreed and said that they were getting the work done but it was at the cost of dedicated employees. He was thankful for all the employees that they had and the work they were doing.
The commission also received the finance report and the ridership numbers for May.
Their year-to-date fixed route fare revenue was higher than at this point last year but still continued to be under-budget due to Covid and the lower ridership. Their ancillary services also continued to have a lower ridership which resulted in lower revenue. Advertising revenue, however, was strong, and “other revenues” were over-budget. (Other revenues consisted of things like rent for space at the transit center, commissions they receive on vending machines, sale of assets like scrap metal, and insurance reimbursements.) “Overall, we’re currently under budget in revenues and we’ll probably remain that way throughout the year.”
Expenses were underbudget at the end of May. They were over-budget in a couple of individual categories but that was offset by the categories in which they were under-budget. “Despite our shortfalls in revenue, we continue to be more under budget in expenses than we are in revenues.”
They were under-budget for their Purchase Transportation. She noted that the Outagamie County Rural Program was over-budget and would probably continue that way for the year because their Employment Transportation people moved to the Rural Program. If the budgets for both of those programs were combined, they were very much under-budget.
She finished up the income report by mentioning that their auditors would be presenting the 2021 audit to the Transit Commission in July.
She moved onto the May 2022 ridership. Total fixed route ridership for may was up 28% from May of 2021. She noted that ridership from the Appleton Area School District and Fox Valley Technical College remained strong, and the Lawrence University program was increasing each month. The ridership on every route had increased compared to last year.
The May Demand Response for Ridership report showed a decrease of approximately seventeen percent in ridership when compared to 2021. This equated to approximately 1,600 fewer rides. The monthly ridership by route service chart showed several of the ancillary services along with the ADA services saw decreases as compared to May of 2021. [She didn’t give any indication as to why that might be. Also, I’ve posted a screenshot of the report, but it’s messed up with a bunch of unreadable symbols instead of readable numbers and words so it’s not as useful as it could be.]
Commission Chairman George Dearborn mentioned that “the village” just approved Bird scooters, [I’m guessing he was referring to the Village of Fox Crossing, not the Village of Little Chute, but that’s just a guess] and the scooters had but utilized a lot in Appleton, Menasha, and Neenah. He asked if General Manager McDonald had seen any evidence of scooter ridership feeding onto the buses.
General Manager McDonald answered that they were not tracking it, but they had had discussions with municipalities about placing preferred parking locations for the scooters near buses so that the scooters could be used for first mile/last mile rides. Although Valley Transit wasn’t tracking it, he was aware that there were scooters specifically located near bus stops for that purpose.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=959037&GUID=C5C28013-2457-4E41-BAD4-F4BE9687DEA2
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