The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) has selected the Metropolitan Transit System as the most Outstanding Transit System of the year for all agencies in North America carrying more than 30 million passengers annually. This is one of the most prestigious awards in the transportation industry.
Presenting the award to MTS on July 30 was APTA President Bill Millar.
“This award means that MTS is the best of the best,” Millar said. “Not only that, but they are the best of the largest systems in North America.”
APTA judges systems based on more than a dozen quantitative measures over the last three years and MTS posted positive gains in most, including:
Ridership: Up 12.3 percent
Preventable accidents: Down 14 percent in MTS Bus
Driver-related complaints: Down 26.8 percent
Costs per revenue hour: Down 7 percent
Passengers per revenue hour: Up 200 percent on some routes where MTS reallocated resources from low-productive to high-productive areas
On-time performance: Up 6 percent
Fare revenue: Up 12 percent
Subsidy per passenger: Down 14.1 percent
Fleet replacement: MTS has replaced 224 of its vehicles over the last three years, 88 of which are with environmentally-friendly engines, which are either compressed natural gas or gasoline-electric hybrids.
These positive results have been achieved in a very difficult operating environment. Revenues have been diminished by the elimination of State Transit Assistance funding and by reduced consumer spending. About half of MTS revenues depend on sales taxes.
“This award is the result of a lot of hard work on behalf of our employees, by the people who work for our private sector partners and for the community at large who support public transportation,” said Paul Jablonski, chief executive officer of MTS. “Our goal is always to maintain the highest level of service even when our funding is getting slashed. I think our performance numbers show that we have become a very efficient and well-run agency.”
Other factors also helped MTS earn the award. Over the last three years it has consolidated internal operations, redesigned its bus network of services, renegotiated union contracts, and consolidated several of its bus service contracts. These efforts have saved the agency millions of dollars and allowed MTS to keep service levels high despite reduced revenues.
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