July 23, 2025 • 32 mins
Only 4% of Americans ride transit—but 84% of people in communities with transit say they value it.
In this episode, Paul Comfort digs into the details with Mark Aesch (CEO, TransPro Consulting) and Alvin McBorrough (CEO, OGx Consulting). Together they unpack two big levers for agency performance: measuring what actually matters and using AI to deliver it more efficiently.
Featuring:
Mark Aesch – CEO, TransPro Consulting
Why ridership is a misleading primary metric; shifting from volume to value; what the 84% really care about (jobs access, service for older adults/people with disabilities, low‑income mobility); and how current federal incentives (unlinked passenger trips, revenue miles) work against customer satisfaction. Mark also previews how FTA reform could move agencies from “happy buses” to “happy customers.”
Alvin McBorrough – CEO, OGx Consulting
Practical AI use cases transit agencies can deploy now: real‑time passenger tools (ETAs, chatbots), predictive maintenance, route optimization, computer vision for safety, demand forecasting, and digital twins for planning. Turning “data rich, information poor” operations into smarter decisions—and doing more with less.
Resources & Links:
https://www.transproconsulting.com/
https://www.middlegeorgiarc.org/transportation/
Subscribe & Stay Connected:
Like what you heard? Subscribe to Transit Unplugged on your favorite podcast platform, or sign up for the newsletter at TransitUnplugged.com for weekly updates from the field.
Podcast Credits:
Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo
- Creator, Host, + Producer: Paul Comfort
- Executive Producer: Julie Gates
- Producer + Newsletter Editor: Chris O’Keeffe
- Associate Producer: Cyndi Raskin
- Podcast Intern: Desmond Gates
Special thanks to:
Brand Design: Tina Olagundoye
Social Media: Tatyana Mechkarova
Got a question or comment? Email us at: info@transitunplugged.com
Subscribe to the newsletter:
transitunplugged.com/subscribe-to-the-transit-unplugged-newsletter
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Modaxo Inc., its affiliates or subsidiaries, or any entities they represent. This production belongs to Modaxo and may contain information subject to trademark, copyright, or other intellectual property rights and restrictions. This production provides general information and should not be relied on as legal advice or opinion. Modaxo specifically disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and will not be liable for any losses, claims, or damages arising from the use of this presentation, from any material contained in it, or from any action or decision taken in response to it.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, did you know that only 4% ofAmericans ride public transportation?
But surveys show that 84% ofcommunities where it is support it.
I'm Paul Comfort, and on this episodeof Transit Unplugged, we dive into
that number to try to explain why.
To help U.S. find thatanswer, we talk to Mark Aesch.
Mark is CEO of TransPro Consulting,and in this episode he makes a powerful
(00:23):
case that public transit should notbe evaluated only on ridership, but
also about its value to the community.
He explains how that shifting ourfocus from volume or ridership to value
better reflects what people actuallywant from their transit systems.
And we're joined by Alvin McBorrough.
He's CEO of OGx consulting, and heexplores how transit agencies can harness
(00:46):
the power of artificial intelligenceor AI to make better decisions and
better serve their communities.
It's a powerful conversationyou don't wanna miss on today's
episode of Transit Unpluggedwith Mark Ash and Alvin McBorough
Enjoy.
(01:06):
Great to be with two of my friends, whoare some of the best public transportation
consultants in America, in my opinion.
And that is Mark Ash, who is thehead of Trans Pro Consulting.
Mark, welcome to the show.
Great to be on.
Thanks for, uh, making time.
and my good friend Alvin Mc Burrow.
Who is CEO of OGx Consulting.
Alvin welcome.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
(01:27):
As you know, normally we talk to transitexecutives and uh, once in a while we
bring in people who I think can reallyhelp the industry from the private sector.
And that's what this show is all about.
mark and I, recentlydid a co-presentation.
I. At the invitation of, Scottwho heads up CTAA, Scott Borin,
in San Diego at CTAA Expo.
mark and I have beenfriends for over a decade.
(01:49):
I even had talked with him when Iwas CEO of the MTA in Baltimore.
But hearing Mark talk about this.
Topic of modernizing value for publictransportation and making sure we're
emphasizing the right things for success.
It's all a game of expectations.
And what is it?
That just spoke to me so much.
I said, mark, we gotta get thismessage out to a broader crowd.
So I'm really happy to have you do that.
(02:10):
And Alvin and I have been talking off andon for the last year or so about the role
of ai, artificial intelligence, and publictransportation and how, you know, we feel
like a lot of transit agencies could doa lot more, with less if they utilized.
AI even better.
so I said that's another, messagethat I don't get a chance to talk
to CEOs about because Mark, reallyCEOs of transit agencies and you
(02:34):
were one, in Rochester, New York.
You know, they're tied tothe existing paradigm, right?
So talk to U.S. someabout, your background.
Mark.
Let's start off with you and thenjust give U.S. an intro to this topic.
Yeah, happy to.
So, I, uh, went to college Paula hundred years ago, uh, to study
being in the TV news business,and did that for about 18 months.
(02:55):
and quickly learned that the onlything people in the TV news business
do is talk about what someone else did.
And I'm like, I wanna be theone that's doing the doing.
Like I wanna be the onethat they're talking about.
That they're producingdifferent sets of results.
And I. Believe that the transitagency that I was the CEO of for eight
years, we did things very differently.
we pushed ourselves to askvery different questions.
(03:18):
We thought about the differences ofwords, like what's the difference
between customer service, which is aninput and customer satisfaction did I
actually deliver the service in the rightway to lead to a satisfied customer?
People are quick to use the words, oh, weneed to measure our employee satisfaction.
Well do we mean employee satisfactionor do we mean employee engagement?
(03:39):
Do we want the hearts and minds engaged,you know, to produce maximum value?
So to your point, all of that, ledto a lot of national news coverage.
I wound up writing a book, with apublishing wing of Walt Disney, and
it was a logical jumping off point.
I loved the work that we were doing,but it became all right SmartyAnts,
like you could do that with one agency.
(03:59):
Can you scale it?
could you begin to work with a numberof like-minded, passionate executives
to bring measurable performanceto their agencies and proud?
We're celebrating our 15th, year of doingthat to work with public sector executives
that care deeply about their results.
That's excellent.
Thank you so much, mark.
I look forward to unpacking thateven more in the next few moments.
(04:20):
Alvin, let's move over to you.
You're based out of Denver, right?
Give U.S. a little bit of yourbackground and what you all do.
I.
So I'm, particularly onthe opposite side of Mark.
Started off not necessarily in tv, butpretty much working as a technologist.
So prior to starting OGx consulting,uh, used to be with Cisco Systems,
(04:41):
primarily on the services side, where wewill come into organizations primarily
come in with the understanding that,look, there were challenges that most.
Clients were faced with mostly C-levelexecutives looking to scale their entire
network or their entire solution platform.
So, as being part of Cisco services,uh, were tasked with going in,
(05:02):
trying to understand what the painpoint was, creating some economic
value for these stakeholders,and trying to help them skill and
deliver that pla particular platform.
So from the onset, one of thebig things that I would like to
say that we were part of earlier.
This was the early onset of whatwe call at the time, infrastructure
as a service, which has now becomewhat we call cloud computing.
(05:24):
That's what everybody's referring to now.
at the onset, Cisco was at the,um, virgining stage of setting that
whole industry up, and we were someof the pioneers at that early stage
to be able to get this moving.
So somewhere along the line, Idecided that that was just the right
time to be able to make the pivot.
And focus on buildingsomething for myself.
(05:44):
And this was when I was finishing upmy MBA at the University of Chicago.
So that's when I decided to make the pivotand just go directly into consulting.
And hence we've come into this space,that we love so much, especially the
public transit, where we see a ton ofopportunities for U.S. to be able to,
leverage some of the words of Mark.
Help our clients elevate theirperformance and also move them to the
(06:06):
next level of how they can leverage,technology, leverage strategy,
leverage management philosophy,and how we can help them propel,
themselves to the front of the line.
And they're doing a whole lot more withless at this particular point in time.
Something that we often talk about Paul.
Thank you so much.
The next round of questionswill be, you know, tell U.S.
more about how AI is beingused or could be used.
(06:27):
We'll talk about thatin just a few moments.
Lemme swing back to Mark.
you and I, as I said, met when I was atMTA in Baltimore, which was, uh, about
10 years ago, eight to 10 years ago.
And, One of the first things I toldthe staff when I had a, a big staff
meeting, MTA Baltimore is the 11thlargest transit system in America.
We had 5,000 employees and contractorsand a lot of senior management.
(06:47):
So I gathered all the senior managementtogether because I came in as a
change agent, not a cheerleader.
And uh, I told them, you know,I'm not here to make friends.
I'm here to make a difference.
And, I don't care about ridership.
One of the first things I said to the teamas a whole, I said, ridership is actually
the one thing that we can't control.
What we can focus on are otherinputs such as safety, efficiency,
(07:08):
reliability, we called it backthen customer service, world class,
customer service, Disney style.
Uh, I know you've got iteven refined, even further.
Tell me what you think about that andwhat are we getting wrong in the industry?
Well, there's a reason, Paul, that youand I are friends 10 years later because
we were, one of the few that were singingout of the, uh, the hymnal, 10 years ago
that ridership, was a flawed concept.
(07:30):
the fundamental point of it is, thatif ridership is the singular definition
of success, we're not very good at it.
I mean, ridership has been ina steady decline for 75 years.
And the reality is if youcorrelate ridership against one
metric, it's very, very clear.
If you go back decades, there's asingular metric that ties to public
(07:53):
transportation ridership, and that is.
The price of a gallon of gas, somethingthat we have no involvement in.
And so we're tying the success ofour industry to a metric that has
no involvement with U.S. whatsoever.
And so, you know, the point that Imake is that if we're going to tie
our success to two questions, numberone, what is our ridership level?
(08:14):
And second, what is our revenue level?
How much public money can weget, you know, put into our
hands to deliver service?
We don't control our own destiny.
And so I have been, quite loudlyleading a conversation of how do
we move the definition of successfrom one of volume to one of value.
And I will never understand and I'llcontinue to lead the conversation that.
(08:39):
If serving more bad coffee is thedefinition of success, that's not
a diner that I wanna work, right?
I mean, how, how do we serve amazingcoffee like they do in San Antonio?
Highest customersatisfaction in the country?
How do we serve amazing coffee?
So people wanna invest in U.S.to open more coffee shops.
Toledo, Ohio is a great example.
(09:00):
They embraced, a model of measuring value.
The voters passed overwhelminglyproviding them with more resources
to open more coffee shops.
And so I think we have exampleafter example of agencies that have
moved from the volume mindset to themeasurable value mindset, not episodic
storytelling, measurable value.
(09:23):
Uh, critically, and I'll put a, I'llput a bow on all this Paul, to, to wrap.
We have some national resultsthat we've been tracking for two
years now across the country.
4% of people in most communities usethe public transportation system, but
across the country in most communities,84% find value in their public
(09:43):
transportation system 20 times more.
And so that 84%, right, they don't care ifwe move 4.1 or 4.2, like they don't care.
They want U.S. to bring measurable value.
And how do we talk to that 84%
. Alvin, that's a perfect segue intowhat we're gonna talk about next,
which is how do we bring value?
(10:04):
How can we use technology?
I mean, I work for a technology company.
That's our message every day.
If you use technology effectively,you can help improve the lives
of the people you're serving.
How are we using ai, , you know, we're alljust fooling around the edges with chat.
GPT, how can transit systems useit to do what Mark is saying,
which is provide prove value?
Oh, so absolutely there are a tonof opportunities that when you look
(10:27):
at artificial intelligence or whatwe would call AI, for instance,
is having transformational impacton public transportation sector.
especially from around when you look atoperational and safety improvements all
the way to rider experience and long-termplanning, there are a ton of opportunities
that we see across the board.
(10:47):
for instance, having been on theperiphery of playing in this space.
For a couple of years now.
We started off with it not beingcalled ai, but you know, at one point
in time it was predictive analyticsdata, all of those other things.
But coming up to where we areright now, leveraging artificial
intelligence and also machinelearning, the way I usually like to
look at it is in the bucket of four.
Perspective.
(11:08):
The first one is around the passengerexperience, The next one will be
around operational, efficiency.
The third one is going to be around safetyand security, and the final one is just
gonna be around planning and policy.
So within this construct, it'seasy for U.S. to take passenger
experience, for instance.
So asking the question about howa public transportation agency
can take advantage of that.
(11:29):
for instance, if we look at realtime, estimate time to arrival and
alerts and all of these other things.
Now there are some examples in, inthe place, which I will certainly go
into later on, uh, to be able to talkabout the examples on how these other
agencies are leveraging this now.
People are now leveraging that to beable to be something that can help
them predict, if there is supposedto be a delayed, if there is supposed
(11:50):
to be on time arrival, how arethey getting to that next level?
When you look at chatbot forinstance, that's another big area
again, where we've seen, a lot ofagencies begin to leverage that.
This one again, is basically helping thepassengers help to plan them around the
trips, answering the frequently askedquestions, and also reporting on issues.
If there is something that is thereand I need to know, there is an alert,
(12:12):
how can we easily get this one out?
So on the passenger side,those are opportunities.
On the operational side, as we've knownfor a long time, predictive maintenance
has been one of these key things thathas really hampered a lot of public
transportation agencies, but mostof them are now moving to this space
where they're now beginning to predict.
Primarily now calling that ai, leveragingsome AI algorithms that can easily
(12:34):
predict if there is a machine orcritical component within the system
that's supposed to fail, when is themost likely time that will break?
What kind of impact we can haveon that, how your organization can
easily get ready to be able to help.
Prevent some of thesethings from happening.
can also look at route optimizationas another area again, where, when
you look at traffic and you look atridership, how do we combine that data?
(12:56):
How can we help better optimize route?
Let's assume that a road is closed.
What is the best step againfor U.S. to optimize our route?
How can we alert our clients orour stakeholders, passengers,
for instance, of early onset?
Then when you look at it from thesecurity perspective, again, there
is a great example again that I wouldlike to share and I think this is a
client of ours that is doing somethinglike this with especially computer
(13:19):
visioning, especially around surveillance.
So that's another area again, how youcan easily leverage computer visioning.
To be able to surveil and how youcan easily alert your stakeholders
of any, if there's anything ofconcern that is in this space.
then from there you can justalso talk about planning.
now artificial intelligence is giving U.S.
the opportunity to.
And the capability for U.S. tobe able to plan well in advance,
(13:40):
especially if we start looking atdemand forecasting, for instance.
I know Mark mentioned about the fact thatwe want to be able to forecast how many
passengers we'll see along these lines.
What are some of the things that we canlook at it when it comes to ridership
growth incidents that we can identify,and how we can easily help, propel our
transit agencies to help prepare for them.
That's another great area.
(14:01):
Again, we'll be seeing a lot.
The final one that I would like to doon as part of planning would just be
around the digital twin, for instance,and this one again, is about leveraging
simulation for U.S. to help plan andproject on future policies if there
are supposed to be opportunities there.
If the impact here, let's assumethat the impact from the FTA, we
realize that there will be a littlebit more less funding this year,
(14:24):
so what is that impact going to be?
How can we leverage the digital twin to beable to plan and prepare for that as well?
So there are a ton of things that AI canpossibly do, and I believe that this is
the right time that public transit agencyshould seriously consider artificial
intelligence as one of those tools orone of those, emerging technologies
as we'll call it, that will be able tohelp propel them to the front of the
(14:45):
line if they want to continue to be susustainable and focusing on the right
things that they need to be doing as well.
. What do you think of that Mark?
The role of ai?
it's fascinating to think about,you know, Paul, you and I are old
enough that I think I've been throughthree generations of listening to
the industry, indicate that we haveto quote unquote tell our story.
(15:05):
And you know, to the point that Iwas making just a minute ago, that
over here you've got 4% right?
In most communities thatuse over here, you've got.
84% that find value in thepublic transportation system.
And the reality is we don'tneed to tell our story.
We need to tell their story.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
That the 84% who live over here,what would a politician do with that?
(15:27):
Right?
A politician would pull the communityand they would talk not to the
4%, they would talk to the 84%.
Mm-hmm.
And I think to the point that Alvin'smaking, right, so that the 84% are
very clear on why they see value.
They're very clear on why it's 84%.
Number one, public transportationconnects people to jobs.
Yeah.
(15:48):
We should talk aboutconnecting people to jobs.
Number two, we, provide service forpeople that are elderly and disabled.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe rather than complaining aboutthe a DA as an unfunded mandate, yeah.
Maybe we embrace that as an opportunity.
Meet you, brother, becausethere's 84% over here.
Right.
We talk to them.
And the third reason that 84% isover here is that they believe that
(16:10):
we provide low income people withconnectivity to jobs and education.
And so.
I think the opportunity is not to talkabout quote unquote choice riders, but
to actually talk about that third elementof value, which is how we connect people
of lower income households to jobs.
Let's be proud of that, not ashamed ofit, and have, choice Rider conversations.
(16:31):
So I think the pointvin's making about ai.
Is how do we talk to the 84% andthe three reasons they find value
rather than this endless pursuitof how do we get 4% to be 4.1%?
That's not how the 84% thinks aboutthe value of public transportation.
They don't care if it's 4.1 or 4.2.
(16:51):
They care about jobs, helping peoplethat are old and disabled and connecting
people of lower incomes to work.
Let's use AI to have theirconversation, not tell our story.
What do you think Alvin?
Yeah, just to beck on whatMark is saying is that, if you
recall, we had the Pato principle.
You know, uh, right.
20% of the outcomes that where we're,it's, to drive 80% of what we're looking
(17:15):
for comes from, you know, 20% of theactivities or 20% of the stakeholders
that we need to be able to focus on.
So again, leveraging, thisparticular platform that's we, we
we've come to embrace pretty well.
I know most people see it through thelens of, the first thing is chat, GPT
or one of these other things of thosenature that I'm using tropics, I'm using
Google and all of these other elements.
(17:37):
But I think it's, if we look at itholistically, I think one of the
industries that is U.S. sectorsthat we can focus on at this point,
that is well prepared for U.S.
to be able to move into.
the next level, is the publictransit space because it gives
U.S. that opportunity now for nowconsidering all of the challenges
that we're confronted with, right.
Some of them, yes.
(17:58):
It's been systemic, it's been historical.
Others has just been, you know, therecent activities, with regards to
changes in, Directions, that you can see.
So one of the areas here is thathow can we, and this is something
that we've been advising a lot of,folks to take advantage of, you
know, is that how can you focus on.
Leveraging, the request for youto do more with less, right?
(18:19):
So that's one area.
So if I've been asked to do somethinglike that, and you can go down the
road and start considering the factthat, okay, if we want to be able to
route our passenger experience, forinstance, what are some of the things
that we gotta start thinking about?
How can we make certainthat we can easily drive?
Our pasture experience toget U.S. to the next level.
(18:39):
So along that line, that's somethingagain that you start looking at the
data that we currently have in-house.
can we make sense of it?
How can we assemble the data?
How can we go out there and makesure that we can take a logical
approach on how we can, help implementAI across the entire industry.
Right Mark.
Um, one of the best books I've read, Ithink in the last 10 years is the book
(19:01):
Freakonomics, which really talks aboutfollow the money, follow the incentives.
One of the things, the lessonsI learned out of it as a younger
man was, you know, realtors andwhose interest do they really have?
You know, the realtor who'srepresenting the seller is not
there to represent you as the buyer.
Uh, and so you and I are in alignmenton the important things that we need
(19:24):
to value the three priorities ofpeople, the 84%, and that we need
to be speaking to that as a transitagency leader just like a politician
would, to win support votes, et cetera.
How do we incentivize those results?
Yeah, it's, it's a great question.
I thought the book was phenomenalas well, and I, I, the realtor
example sticks with me.
Paul, I'm surprised to know you.
(19:45):
I are aligned.
So to me, I think there'sthree elements of reform.
You and I talked aboutthis first one, right?
So we've gotta modernizethe definition of value.
This, ridership and revenue mindset isnot gonna set the industry up, you know,
for sustainable success in the future.
I think the second one, which isthe question you're asking here.
Is, how do we as an industry inspirethe Federal Transit Administration
(20:07):
to move from a compliancemindset to a performance mindset?
So let me give an exampleof what I think that means.
You will have the FTA, you know,ask you 27 times a year if you've
got happy buses, They'll askyou about state of good repair.
They'll ask you about meandistance between failures.
But you know what?
They won't ask you.
(20:28):
Do your happy buses actuallycreate happy customers, right?
Like there's this overfocus on, didyou fill out all the forms properly?
Did you use the number two pencil?
Are you creating happy buses versusare you creating happy customers?
And I'm very optimistic, that CongressmanMolinaro is really going to lead a reform,
(20:49):
not incremental, lead a reform of the FTA.
To begin to think aboutoutcomes versus input.
So what do I mean by that?
So this concept of, you know, how longdo you keep a bus and mean distance
between failures and state of good repair?
How do we move from whether mybus is on time or not, to whether
or not I've got happy customers?
Let get a specific example.
(21:10):
Years ago at New York City Transit,all they could talk about in
meetings was on time performance.
What's our on time performance?
How are we performing?
What's our on time performance?
You know, where the customerrated on time, performance,
and level of their happiness.
Seven, it was the seventhmost important thing.
So even if they became amazing atit and got to a hundred percent, the
impact on the outcome of customersatisfaction was gonna be incremental.
(21:34):
So.
I'll pick a realtime example in Trim Map.
two weeks ago, trim was recognizedfor having the most improved
customer satisfaction in the country.
Their customer sat in Portland,went up 15% in one year.
The best part of it, it wentup on purpose, like they
actually worked on the right.
(21:54):
Inputs in the right order todrive the outcome they desired
of higher customer satisfaction.
And so that recognition comes from reallybeing able to think about those things.
Let me make two points, Paul, which Ithink are critically important in this
in regards to the incentives that you'retalking about from this reform minded FTA.
The first is.
(22:14):
Agencies receive federal aid in regardsto quote unquote unlinked passenger trips.
So what does that mean?
Unlinked passenger trips.
That means if I can make you transfer, Iget to count you twice, and if you have to
transfer coming home, I've now moved thesame person four times, so my incentive.
(22:36):
As an agency to get more money isto cause you to be unsatisfied.
I'm gonna make youtransfer multiple times.
If we took a plane, you could gostraight from Baltimore to Tampa.
You're like, I'm in.
If you gotta stop in Atlanta, you'relike, like what am I doing that for?
We are incentivized to get morefederal money to make people transfer.
We actually did the analysis on this.
(22:58):
You guys will find thisamazing, a family of three.
That uses public transportationto go to and from work, run their
errands, junior goes to highschool, goes to practice afterwards.
The FTA would tell youthat family of three.
Is 58,000 customers duringthe course of the year.
It's a family of three, right?
(23:18):
Mm-hmm.
So how do we begin to create sothat the metrics are, tied to that?
The second one there's a disconnectbetween the FTA funding and
the way we provide, service isthis concept of revenue miles.
So agencies get federal aidbased upon revenue, miles,
drive more miles, get more aid.
What that leads to is a. Fundamentaldisconnect between supply and demand.
(23:41):
So over the last 10 years,industry-wide demand is down 28%.
Mm-hmm.
Supply is down 1% because agenciesare incentivized to run revenue
miles as opposed to think aboutefficiency and value to the community.
So I'm very hopeful that CongressmanMolinaro is gonna lead a discussion
(24:04):
of how do we move from these?
Input metrics that are incentivizingagencies to think about happy buses
as opposed to incentivize themto think about happy customers
and value to their community.
. For those of you who don't know,uh, Congressman Mark Molinaro
is the FTA, the Federal TransitAdministration, administrator nominee,
and he's passed the Senate BankingCommittee on a bipartisan vote.
(24:26):
And as of the time of this recordingin early July, he still was set up
for a vote, but my understanding isMark, he's a special employee now, kind
of working in there somewhat anyway.
Yeah, I have exactly that same counseland I, I'm optimistic based on,
watching the congressman's work whenhe was a county executive Oh, right.
Dutchess County, New York.
Right.
Very performance focused,very outcomes focused.
(24:49):
And, and I think as an industry to beable to have, someone at the head of
the FTA to really think about thesequestions from a non-traditional
mindset and really think about howdo we bring maximum value to the 4%.
And maximum value tothe 84% that find value.
I think the industry is gonna find afriend in, uh, the former congressman.
(25:12):
Thank you, Alvin.
As we wrap things up, give U.S. uh,a little more, on just what Mark was
talking about is how, how we can use AI.
To help U.S. tell that story, how wecan take artificial intelligence, pull
together the reams of data that arecoming into a transit agency all the time,
and maximize the messaging, to the 84%.
(25:33):
How can we use AI totell our story better?
So, Paul, it is interesting that, we justhad this conversation and Mark raised
the whole thing around performance.
So one of the key areas here is primarily.
From the standpoint that, you know, AIis data driven, so whatever inputs we
have will become that particular piecethat we can expect to get out of there.
(25:56):
So, based on that, I think that as wecontinue to go down this path and as we
continue to think about it, AI would justbe that in enabler that we can definitely
leverage to, for U.S. now to become.
A little bit more data reach.
I mean, in our environment we're prettymuch data reach, but, literally see,
uh, we have, uh, the ability not tobe able to execute on the data that we
(26:16):
currently have at this particular point.
So with U.S. in, adopting and embracingthe whole tech, concept or technology,
uh, that we're embarking upon, uh,with ai, I would say that it gives
U.S. that ability for U.S. now.
To position our agencies in a wholebetter light because now we have the
data for to, for U.S. to be able to upour actions, especially if that's the
(26:39):
new direction that we're hoping to getto where we become more performance,
we get pretty much incent for theperformance that we're able to deliver.
I think it's critical forU.S. to be able to embrace it.
So once again, going over some of thekey areas that we've seen opportunities
emerge around, like operational, you know,excellence or operational improvement and
efficiency, leveraging AI in that space.
(27:01):
One of the key areas will begin to lookat, will be predictive maintenance.
So again, we know that we have, mostpublic transit entities, we've been
asked to be able to address the issuewith MAP 21, the FAST Act, and how we
can easily help optimize our assets.
So if we're leveragingAI, that can help U.S.
In the process of predicting when amachine is supposed to fill, when
(27:23):
a pot is supposed to go down,how soon can we replace that?
I think that there will be enoughincentive for U.S. to be able to leverage
that data to help position U.S. and wecan prepare for that particular one.
Another area, again, that wegotta also look at will be
around passenger improvement.
So Is there a way that we canenhance the passenger experience
when they're riding our buses orour multiple modes of transit?
(27:46):
And if the answer is yes, how can we fromthe onset, is there a logical way that
we can provide them with the relevantspace for them to be able to interact?
With our agencies, even throughchatbot for instance, if they can
easily ask these frequently askedquestions, when would my bus be here?
How soon do I have to wait?
When is the next?
Connecting all of these things.
If it's on time, we believe thatthat will be able to enhance the E
(28:09):
experience again for our passengers.
And that becomes another opportunityagain for them to say that they want
to be able to participate and get moreon the public transportation route.
For them to be able to do that.
then safety again is another big area.
And if that's another issue, again,if we're leveraging things like
the computer vision, for instance,leveraging the data from there for U.S.
(28:30):
to be able to prepare not only justfor the, uh, passenger experience,
but from a safety perspective, that wecan easily leverage some things along
artificial intelligence that can helpprevent incidents from happening to.
Our passengers, thatwe can minimize those.
I think it becomes another great areaagain, and also just from a planning
perspective . That's another place thatI will say that even from a policy and
(28:52):
planning perspective, that's another area.
, If we start focusing on, it helpsU.S. to be able to, with the relevant
data that we currently have, wecan now focus on the future demand.
We can forecast our current needs andhow we can better prepare for long and
short-term planning With respect tothat, because we have the relevant data.
That is helping go to guide U.S. tothe next level for how these, decision
(29:14):
makers within, public transit will beable to make the relevant, decisions
at that particular point in time.
You know, Paul, just a quickcomment on that if I can.
I would argue to the point thatAlvin's making that as an industry,
you know, we are data rich.
And information poor.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I think the question is howdo we take all of that data and
use it to arrive at the top line?
(29:34):
So let me use a an example to illustratethat, you don't measure whether Tom Brady,
you know, threw a number of touchdownpasses or was able to run the ball really
fast, or how much weight he can lift,or did he eat the right nutrition, did
he score enough points to win on Sunday?
Like that's the measurement of success.
Yeah, and we can move as Alvin'ssuggesting from this data rich
(29:55):
environment to actually thinkingabout information and results.
The fact that we require a transitagency in Montana and Manhattan to
measure the same things is silly.
And how do we make surewe measure what matters?
To bring value to thecommunities that we represent.
(30:16):
Sacramento is going to think aboutoutcomes different than Syracuse is.
So if they're going to think aboutoutcomes in a different way, guess what?
They're going to measure things in adifferent way to produce those outcomes.
Are you a running offense?
Do you pass the ball?
Do you run a, uh, you know the option?
And so we have to allow agenciesto have individuality in what they
(30:38):
measure to produce outcomes and beginto tie federal aid to be in good.
And what you committedto being good at, right?
Like everyone's gonna think aboutvalue in a different fashion.
. Well, thank you both.
Mark Ash, Al mc, thank you forsharing some of your insights
with U.S. that are actionable.
I think for transitagencies, the idea that.
Ridership cannot and should not be, theprimary indicator of our success because
(31:02):
it's not necessarily what's valued by themajority of the people in a community.
That's what I'm hearingfrom you, mark and Alvin.
What I'm hearing from you is wecan use artificial intelligence.
More than we are now in transitagencies to produce better outcomes
for the communities that we serve.
I think those messagestie together so well.
Thank you both for the work you do.
If you wanna hear more from Markor Alvin, we'll put their contact
(31:25):
information, their websites on ourshow notes, and you can reach out to
them directly if you'd like, any inputfrom them on your specific agency.
Thank you both again for being here forthe work you're doing for our industry.
Thank you, Paul.
Paul,
great to see you, Alvin.
Thank you, mark.
Have a good day.
Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged.
I'm executive producer Julie Gates,and this episode was created by host
(31:47):
and producer Paul Comfort, producerChris O'Keefe, associate producer Cindy
Raskin and podcast intern Des Gates.
Transit Unplugged is being broughtto you by Modaxo, passionate
about moving the world's people.
If you wanna dive deeper behind thetransit headlines and get boots on the
ground intel on important updates likethe Trump Administration's transit
(32:07):
priorities, or how to get fundingcheck out Transit Unplugged Insider,
our new YouTube show where Paul andI take you inside today's hot topics.
Paul knows what's going on inWashington DC and has the inside scoop.
He's taking a lot of meetings witha lot of people and we wanna make
sure you know what's going on.
You can watch and subscribe to TransitUnplugged Insider on the Transit
(32:28):
Unplugged Podcast page on YouTube.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch youon the next episode of Transit Unplugged.
Hey, did you know that only 4% ofAmericans ride public transportation?
But surveys show that 84% ofcommunities where it is support it.
I'm Paul Comfort, and on this episodeof Transit Unplugged, we dive into
that number to try to explain why.
To help U.S. find thatanswer, we talk to Mark Aesch.
Mark is CEO of TransPro Consulting,and in this episode he makes a powerful
(00:23):
case that public transit should notbe evaluated only on ridership, but
also about its value to the community.
He explains how that shifting ourfocus from volume or ridership to value
better reflects what people actuallywant from their transit systems.
And we're joined by Alvin McBorrough.
He's CEO of OGx consulting, and heexplores how transit agencies can harness
(00:46):
the power of artificial intelligenceor AI to make better decisions and
better serve their communities.
It's a powerful conversationyou don't wanna miss on today's
episode of Transit Unpluggedwith Mark Ash and Alvin McBorough
Enjoy.
(01:06):
Great to be with two of my friends, whoare some of the best public transportation
consultants in America, in my opinion.
And that is Mark Ash, who is thehead of Trans Pro Consulting.
Mark, welcome to the show.
Great to be on.
Thanks for, uh, making time.
and my good friend Alvin Mc Burrow.
Who is CEO of OGx Consulting.
Alvin welcome.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
(01:27):
As you know, normally we talk to transitexecutives and uh, once in a while we
bring in people who I think can reallyhelp the industry from the private sector.
And that's what this show is all about.
mark and I, recentlydid a co-presentation.
I. At the invitation of, Scottwho heads up CTAA, Scott Borin,
in San Diego at CTAA Expo.
mark and I have beenfriends for over a decade.
(01:49):
I even had talked with him when Iwas CEO of the MTA in Baltimore.
But hearing Mark talk about this.
Topic of modernizing value for publictransportation and making sure we're
emphasizing the right things for success.
It's all a game of expectations.
And what is it?
That just spoke to me so much.
I said, mark, we gotta get thismessage out to a broader crowd.
So I'm really happy to have you do that.
(02:10):
And Alvin and I have been talking off andon for the last year or so about the role
of ai, artificial intelligence, and publictransportation and how, you know, we feel
like a lot of transit agencies could doa lot more, with less if they utilized.
AI even better.
so I said that's another, messagethat I don't get a chance to talk
to CEOs about because Mark, reallyCEOs of transit agencies and you
(02:34):
were one, in Rochester, New York.
You know, they're tied tothe existing paradigm, right?
So talk to U.S. someabout, your background.
Mark.
Let's start off with you and thenjust give U.S. an intro to this topic.
Yeah, happy to.
So, I, uh, went to college Paula hundred years ago, uh, to study
being in the TV news business,and did that for about 18 months.
(02:55):
and quickly learned that the onlything people in the TV news business
do is talk about what someone else did.
And I'm like, I wanna be theone that's doing the doing.
Like I wanna be the onethat they're talking about.
That they're producingdifferent sets of results.
And I. Believe that the transitagency that I was the CEO of for eight
years, we did things very differently.
we pushed ourselves to askvery different questions.
(03:18):
We thought about the differences ofwords, like what's the difference
between customer service, which is aninput and customer satisfaction did I
actually deliver the service in the rightway to lead to a satisfied customer?
People are quick to use the words, oh, weneed to measure our employee satisfaction.
Well do we mean employee satisfactionor do we mean employee engagement?
(03:39):
Do we want the hearts and minds engaged,you know, to produce maximum value?
So to your point, all of that, ledto a lot of national news coverage.
I wound up writing a book, with apublishing wing of Walt Disney, and
it was a logical jumping off point.
I loved the work that we were doing,but it became all right SmartyAnts,
like you could do that with one agency.
(03:59):
Can you scale it?
could you begin to work with a numberof like-minded, passionate executives
to bring measurable performanceto their agencies and proud?
We're celebrating our 15th, year of doingthat to work with public sector executives
that care deeply about their results.
That's excellent.
Thank you so much, mark.
I look forward to unpacking thateven more in the next few moments.
(04:20):
Alvin, let's move over to you.
You're based out of Denver, right?
Give U.S. a little bit of yourbackground and what you all do.
I.
So I'm, particularly onthe opposite side of Mark.
Started off not necessarily in tv, butpretty much working as a technologist.
So prior to starting OGx consulting,uh, used to be with Cisco Systems,
(04:41):
primarily on the services side, where wewill come into organizations primarily
come in with the understanding that,look, there were challenges that most.
Clients were faced with mostly C-levelexecutives looking to scale their entire
network or their entire solution platform.
So, as being part of Cisco services,uh, were tasked with going in,
(05:02):
trying to understand what the painpoint was, creating some economic
value for these stakeholders,and trying to help them skill and
deliver that pla particular platform.
So from the onset, one of thebig things that I would like to
say that we were part of earlier.
This was the early onset of whatwe call at the time, infrastructure
as a service, which has now becomewhat we call cloud computing.
(05:24):
That's what everybody's referring to now.
at the onset, Cisco was at the,um, virgining stage of setting that
whole industry up, and we were someof the pioneers at that early stage
to be able to get this moving.
So somewhere along the line, Idecided that that was just the right
time to be able to make the pivot.
And focus on buildingsomething for myself.
(05:44):
And this was when I was finishing upmy MBA at the University of Chicago.
So that's when I decided to make the pivotand just go directly into consulting.
And hence we've come into this space,that we love so much, especially the
public transit, where we see a ton ofopportunities for U.S. to be able to,
leverage some of the words of Mark.
Help our clients elevate theirperformance and also move them to the
(06:06):
next level of how they can leverage,technology, leverage strategy,
leverage management philosophy,and how we can help them propel,
themselves to the front of the line.
And they're doing a whole lot more withless at this particular point in time.
Something that we often talk about Paul.
Thank you so much.
The next round of questionswill be, you know, tell U.S.
more about how AI is beingused or could be used.
(06:27):
We'll talk about thatin just a few moments.
Lemme swing back to Mark.
you and I, as I said, met when I was atMTA in Baltimore, which was, uh, about
10 years ago, eight to 10 years ago.
And, One of the first things I toldthe staff when I had a, a big staff
meeting, MTA Baltimore is the 11thlargest transit system in America.
We had 5,000 employees and contractorsand a lot of senior management.
(06:47):
So I gathered all the senior managementtogether because I came in as a
change agent, not a cheerleader.
And uh, I told them, you know,I'm not here to make friends.
I'm here to make a difference.
And, I don't care about ridership.
One of the first things I said to the teamas a whole, I said, ridership is actually
the one thing that we can't control.
What we can focus on are otherinputs such as safety, efficiency,
(07:08):
reliability, we called it backthen customer service, world class,
customer service, Disney style.
Uh, I know you've got iteven refined, even further.
Tell me what you think about that andwhat are we getting wrong in the industry?
Well, there's a reason, Paul, that youand I are friends 10 years later because
we were, one of the few that were singingout of the, uh, the hymnal, 10 years ago
that ridership, was a flawed concept.
(07:30):
the fundamental point of it is, thatif ridership is the singular definition
of success, we're not very good at it.
I mean, ridership has been ina steady decline for 75 years.
And the reality is if youcorrelate ridership against one
metric, it's very, very clear.
If you go back decades, there's asingular metric that ties to public
(07:53):
transportation ridership, and that is.
The price of a gallon of gas, somethingthat we have no involvement in.
And so we're tying the success ofour industry to a metric that has
no involvement with U.S. whatsoever.
And so, you know, the point that Imake is that if we're going to tie
our success to two questions, numberone, what is our ridership level?
(08:14):
And second, what is our revenue level?
How much public money can weget, you know, put into our
hands to deliver service?
We don't control our own destiny.
And so I have been, quite loudlyleading a conversation of how do
we move the definition of successfrom one of volume to one of value.
And I will never understand and I'llcontinue to lead the conversation that.
(08:39):
If serving more bad coffee is thedefinition of success, that's not
a diner that I wanna work, right?
I mean, how, how do we serve amazingcoffee like they do in San Antonio?
Highest customersatisfaction in the country?
How do we serve amazing coffee?
So people wanna invest in U.S.to open more coffee shops.
Toledo, Ohio is a great example.
(09:00):
They embraced, a model of measuring value.
The voters passed overwhelminglyproviding them with more resources
to open more coffee shops.
And so I think we have exampleafter example of agencies that have
moved from the volume mindset to themeasurable value mindset, not episodic
storytelling, measurable value.
(09:23):
Uh, critically, and I'll put a, I'llput a bow on all this Paul, to, to wrap.
We have some national resultsthat we've been tracking for two
years now across the country.
4% of people in most communities usethe public transportation system, but
across the country in most communities,84% find value in their public
(09:43):
transportation system 20 times more.
And so that 84%, right, they don't care ifwe move 4.1 or 4.2, like they don't care.
They want U.S. to bring measurable value.
And how do we talk to that 84%
. Alvin, that's a perfect segue intowhat we're gonna talk about next,
which is how do we bring value?
(10:04):
How can we use technology?
I mean, I work for a technology company.
That's our message every day.
If you use technology effectively,you can help improve the lives
of the people you're serving.
How are we using ai, , you know, we're alljust fooling around the edges with chat.
GPT, how can transit systems useit to do what Mark is saying,
which is provide prove value?
Oh, so absolutely there are a tonof opportunities that when you look
(10:27):
at artificial intelligence or whatwe would call AI, for instance,
is having transformational impacton public transportation sector.
especially from around when you look atoperational and safety improvements all
the way to rider experience and long-termplanning, there are a ton of opportunities
that we see across the board.
(10:47):
for instance, having been on theperiphery of playing in this space.
For a couple of years now.
We started off with it not beingcalled ai, but you know, at one point
in time it was predictive analyticsdata, all of those other things.
But coming up to where we areright now, leveraging artificial
intelligence and also machinelearning, the way I usually like to
look at it is in the bucket of four.
Perspective.
(11:08):
The first one is around the passengerexperience, The next one will be
around operational, efficiency.
The third one is going to be around safetyand security, and the final one is just
gonna be around planning and policy.
So within this construct, it'seasy for U.S. to take passenger
experience, for instance.
So asking the question about howa public transportation agency
can take advantage of that.
(11:29):
for instance, if we look at realtime, estimate time to arrival and
alerts and all of these other things.
Now there are some examples in, inthe place, which I will certainly go
into later on, uh, to be able to talkabout the examples on how these other
agencies are leveraging this now.
People are now leveraging that to beable to be something that can help
them predict, if there is supposedto be a delayed, if there is supposed
(11:50):
to be on time arrival, how arethey getting to that next level?
When you look at chatbot forinstance, that's another big area
again, where we've seen, a lot ofagencies begin to leverage that.
This one again, is basically helping thepassengers help to plan them around the
trips, answering the frequently askedquestions, and also reporting on issues.
If there is something that is thereand I need to know, there is an alert,
(12:12):
how can we easily get this one out?
So on the passenger side,those are opportunities.
On the operational side, as we've knownfor a long time, predictive maintenance
has been one of these key things thathas really hampered a lot of public
transportation agencies, but mostof them are now moving to this space
where they're now beginning to predict.
Primarily now calling that ai, leveragingsome AI algorithms that can easily
(12:34):
predict if there is a machine orcritical component within the system
that's supposed to fail, when is themost likely time that will break?
What kind of impact we can haveon that, how your organization can
easily get ready to be able to help.
Prevent some of thesethings from happening.
can also look at route optimizationas another area again, where, when
you look at traffic and you look atridership, how do we combine that data?
(12:56):
How can we help better optimize route?
Let's assume that a road is closed.
What is the best step againfor U.S. to optimize our route?
How can we alert our clients orour stakeholders, passengers,
for instance, of early onset?
Then when you look at it from thesecurity perspective, again, there
is a great example again that I wouldlike to share and I think this is a
client of ours that is doing somethinglike this with especially computer
(13:19):
visioning, especially around surveillance.
So that's another area again, how youcan easily leverage computer visioning.
To be able to surveil and how youcan easily alert your stakeholders
of any, if there's anything ofconcern that is in this space.
then from there you can justalso talk about planning.
now artificial intelligence is giving U.S.
the opportunity to.
And the capability for U.S. tobe able to plan well in advance,
(13:40):
especially if we start looking atdemand forecasting, for instance.
I know Mark mentioned about the fact thatwe want to be able to forecast how many
passengers we'll see along these lines.
What are some of the things that we canlook at it when it comes to ridership
growth incidents that we can identify,and how we can easily help, propel our
transit agencies to help prepare for them.
That's another great area.
(14:01):
Again, we'll be seeing a lot.
The final one that I would like to doon as part of planning would just be
around the digital twin, for instance,and this one again, is about leveraging
simulation for U.S. to help plan andproject on future policies if there
are supposed to be opportunities there.
If the impact here, let's assumethat the impact from the FTA, we
realize that there will be a littlebit more less funding this year,
(14:24):
so what is that impact going to be?
How can we leverage the digital twin to beable to plan and prepare for that as well?
So there are a ton of things that AI canpossibly do, and I believe that this is
the right time that public transit agencyshould seriously consider artificial
intelligence as one of those tools orone of those, emerging technologies
as we'll call it, that will be able tohelp propel them to the front of the
(14:45):
line if they want to continue to be susustainable and focusing on the right
things that they need to be doing as well.
. What do you think of that Mark?
The role of ai?
it's fascinating to think about,you know, Paul, you and I are old
enough that I think I've been throughthree generations of listening to
the industry, indicate that we haveto quote unquote tell our story.
(15:05):
And you know, to the point that Iwas making just a minute ago, that
over here you've got 4% right?
In most communities thatuse over here, you've got.
84% that find value in thepublic transportation system.
And the reality is we don'tneed to tell our story.
We need to tell their story.
Right?
Mm-hmm.
That the 84% who live over here,what would a politician do with that?
(15:27):
Right?
A politician would pull the communityand they would talk not to the
4%, they would talk to the 84%.
Mm-hmm.
And I think to the point that Alvin'smaking, right, so that the 84% are
very clear on why they see value.
They're very clear on why it's 84%.
Number one, public transportationconnects people to jobs.
Yeah.
(15:48):
We should talk aboutconnecting people to jobs.
Number two, we, provide service forpeople that are elderly and disabled.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe rather than complaining aboutthe a DA as an unfunded mandate, yeah.
Maybe we embrace that as an opportunity.
Meet you, brother, becausethere's 84% over here.
Right.
We talk to them.
And the third reason that 84% isover here is that they believe that
(16:10):
we provide low income people withconnectivity to jobs and education.
And so.
I think the opportunity is not to talkabout quote unquote choice riders, but
to actually talk about that third elementof value, which is how we connect people
of lower income households to jobs.
Let's be proud of that, not ashamed ofit, and have, choice Rider conversations.
(16:31):
So I think the pointvin's making about ai.
Is how do we talk to the 84% andthe three reasons they find value
rather than this endless pursuitof how do we get 4% to be 4.1%?
That's not how the 84% thinks aboutthe value of public transportation.
They don't care if it's 4.1 or 4.2.
(16:51):
They care about jobs, helping peoplethat are old and disabled and connecting
people of lower incomes to work.
Let's use AI to have theirconversation, not tell our story.
What do you think Alvin?
Yeah, just to beck on whatMark is saying is that, if you
recall, we had the Pato principle.
You know, uh, right.
20% of the outcomes that where we're,it's, to drive 80% of what we're looking
(17:15):
for comes from, you know, 20% of theactivities or 20% of the stakeholders
that we need to be able to focus on.
So again, leveraging, thisparticular platform that's we, we
we've come to embrace pretty well.
I know most people see it through thelens of, the first thing is chat, GPT
or one of these other things of thosenature that I'm using tropics, I'm using
Google and all of these other elements.
(17:37):
But I think it's, if we look at itholistically, I think one of the
industries that is U.S. sectorsthat we can focus on at this point,
that is well prepared for U.S.
to be able to move into.
the next level, is the publictransit space because it gives
U.S. that opportunity now for nowconsidering all of the challenges
that we're confronted with, right.
Some of them, yes.
(17:58):
It's been systemic, it's been historical.
Others has just been, you know, therecent activities, with regards to
changes in, Directions, that you can see.
So one of the areas here is thathow can we, and this is something
that we've been advising a lot of,folks to take advantage of, you
know, is that how can you focus on.
Leveraging, the request for youto do more with less, right?
(18:19):
So that's one area.
So if I've been asked to do somethinglike that, and you can go down the
road and start considering the factthat, okay, if we want to be able to
route our passenger experience, forinstance, what are some of the things
that we gotta start thinking about?
How can we make certainthat we can easily drive?
Our pasture experience toget U.S. to the next level.
(18:39):
So along that line, that's somethingagain that you start looking at the
data that we currently have in-house.
can we make sense of it?
How can we assemble the data?
How can we go out there and makesure that we can take a logical
approach on how we can, help implementAI across the entire industry.
Right Mark.
Um, one of the best books I've read, Ithink in the last 10 years is the book
(19:01):
Freakonomics, which really talks aboutfollow the money, follow the incentives.
One of the things, the lessonsI learned out of it as a younger
man was, you know, realtors andwhose interest do they really have?
You know, the realtor who'srepresenting the seller is not
there to represent you as the buyer.
Uh, and so you and I are in alignmenton the important things that we need
(19:24):
to value the three priorities ofpeople, the 84%, and that we need
to be speaking to that as a transitagency leader just like a politician
would, to win support votes, et cetera.
How do we incentivize those results?
Yeah, it's, it's a great question.
I thought the book was phenomenalas well, and I, I, the realtor
example sticks with me.
Paul, I'm surprised to know you.
(19:45):
I are aligned.
So to me, I think there'sthree elements of reform.
You and I talked aboutthis first one, right?
So we've gotta modernizethe definition of value.
This, ridership and revenue mindset isnot gonna set the industry up, you know,
for sustainable success in the future.
I think the second one, which isthe question you're asking here.
Is, how do we as an industry inspirethe Federal Transit Administration
(20:07):
to move from a compliancemindset to a performance mindset?
So let me give an exampleof what I think that means.
You will have the FTA, you know,ask you 27 times a year if you've
got happy buses, They'll askyou about state of good repair.
They'll ask you about meandistance between failures.
But you know what?
They won't ask you.
(20:28):
Do your happy buses actuallycreate happy customers, right?
Like there's this overfocus on, didyou fill out all the forms properly?
Did you use the number two pencil?
Are you creating happy buses versusare you creating happy customers?
And I'm very optimistic, that CongressmanMolinaro is really going to lead a reform,
(20:49):
not incremental, lead a reform of the FTA.
To begin to think aboutoutcomes versus input.
So what do I mean by that?
So this concept of, you know, how longdo you keep a bus and mean distance
between failures and state of good repair?
How do we move from whether mybus is on time or not, to whether
or not I've got happy customers?
Let get a specific example.
(21:10):
Years ago at New York City Transit,all they could talk about in
meetings was on time performance.
What's our on time performance?
How are we performing?
What's our on time performance?
You know, where the customerrated on time, performance,
and level of their happiness.
Seven, it was the seventhmost important thing.
So even if they became amazing atit and got to a hundred percent, the
impact on the outcome of customersatisfaction was gonna be incremental.
(21:34):
So.
I'll pick a realtime example in Trim Map.
two weeks ago, trim was recognizedfor having the most improved
customer satisfaction in the country.
Their customer sat in Portland,went up 15% in one year.
The best part of it, it wentup on purpose, like they
actually worked on the right.
(21:54):
Inputs in the right order todrive the outcome they desired
of higher customer satisfaction.
And so that recognition comes from reallybeing able to think about those things.
Let me make two points, Paul, which Ithink are critically important in this
in regards to the incentives that you'retalking about from this reform minded FTA.
The first is.
(22:14):
Agencies receive federal aid in regardsto quote unquote unlinked passenger trips.
So what does that mean?
Unlinked passenger trips.
That means if I can make you transfer, Iget to count you twice, and if you have to
transfer coming home, I've now moved thesame person four times, so my incentive.
(22:36):
As an agency to get more money isto cause you to be unsatisfied.
I'm gonna make youtransfer multiple times.
If we took a plane, you could gostraight from Baltimore to Tampa.
You're like, I'm in.
If you gotta stop in Atlanta, you'relike, like what am I doing that for?
We are incentivized to get morefederal money to make people transfer.
We actually did the analysis on this.
(22:58):
You guys will find thisamazing, a family of three.
That uses public transportationto go to and from work, run their
errands, junior goes to highschool, goes to practice afterwards.
The FTA would tell youthat family of three.
Is 58,000 customers duringthe course of the year.
It's a family of three, right?
(23:18):
Mm-hmm.
So how do we begin to create sothat the metrics are, tied to that?
The second one there's a disconnectbetween the FTA funding and
the way we provide, service isthis concept of revenue miles.
So agencies get federal aidbased upon revenue, miles,
drive more miles, get more aid.
What that leads to is a. Fundamentaldisconnect between supply and demand.
(23:41):
So over the last 10 years,industry-wide demand is down 28%.
Mm-hmm.
Supply is down 1% because agenciesare incentivized to run revenue
miles as opposed to think aboutefficiency and value to the community.
So I'm very hopeful that CongressmanMolinaro is gonna lead a discussion
(24:04):
of how do we move from these?
Input metrics that are incentivizingagencies to think about happy buses
as opposed to incentivize themto think about happy customers
and value to their community.
. For those of you who don't know,uh, Congressman Mark Molinaro
is the FTA, the Federal TransitAdministration, administrator nominee,
and he's passed the Senate BankingCommittee on a bipartisan vote.
(24:26):
And as of the time of this recordingin early July, he still was set up
for a vote, but my understanding isMark, he's a special employee now, kind
of working in there somewhat anyway.
Yeah, I have exactly that same counseland I, I'm optimistic based on,
watching the congressman's work whenhe was a county executive Oh, right.
Dutchess County, New York.
Right.
Very performance focused,very outcomes focused.
(24:49):
And, and I think as an industry to beable to have, someone at the head of
the FTA to really think about thesequestions from a non-traditional
mindset and really think about howdo we bring maximum value to the 4%.
And maximum value tothe 84% that find value.
I think the industry is gonna find afriend in, uh, the former congressman.
(25:12):
Thank you, Alvin.
As we wrap things up, give U.S. uh,a little more, on just what Mark was
talking about is how, how we can use AI.
To help U.S. tell that story, how wecan take artificial intelligence, pull
together the reams of data that arecoming into a transit agency all the time,
and maximize the messaging, to the 84%.
(25:33):
How can we use AI totell our story better?
So, Paul, it is interesting that, we justhad this conversation and Mark raised
the whole thing around performance.
So one of the key areas here is primarily.
From the standpoint that, you know, AIis data driven, so whatever inputs we
have will become that particular piecethat we can expect to get out of there.
(25:56):
So, based on that, I think that as wecontinue to go down this path and as we
continue to think about it, AI would justbe that in enabler that we can definitely
leverage to, for U.S. now to become.
A little bit more data reach.
I mean, in our environment we're prettymuch data reach, but, literally see,
uh, we have, uh, the ability not tobe able to execute on the data that we
(26:16):
currently have at this particular point.
So with U.S. in, adopting and embracingthe whole tech, concept or technology,
uh, that we're embarking upon, uh,with ai, I would say that it gives
U.S. that ability for U.S. now.
To position our agencies in a wholebetter light because now we have the
data for to, for U.S. to be able to upour actions, especially if that's the
(26:39):
new direction that we're hoping to getto where we become more performance,
we get pretty much incent for theperformance that we're able to deliver.
I think it's critical forU.S. to be able to embrace it.
So once again, going over some of thekey areas that we've seen opportunities
emerge around, like operational, you know,excellence or operational improvement and
efficiency, leveraging AI in that space.
(27:01):
One of the key areas will begin to lookat, will be predictive maintenance.
So again, we know that we have, mostpublic transit entities, we've been
asked to be able to address the issuewith MAP 21, the FAST Act, and how we
can easily help optimize our assets.
So if we're leveragingAI, that can help U.S.
In the process of predicting when amachine is supposed to fill, when
(27:23):
a pot is supposed to go down,how soon can we replace that?
I think that there will be enoughincentive for U.S. to be able to leverage
that data to help position U.S. and wecan prepare for that particular one.
Another area, again, that wegotta also look at will be
around passenger improvement.
So Is there a way that we canenhance the passenger experience
when they're riding our buses orour multiple modes of transit?
(27:46):
And if the answer is yes, how can we fromthe onset, is there a logical way that
we can provide them with the relevantspace for them to be able to interact?
With our agencies, even throughchatbot for instance, if they can
easily ask these frequently askedquestions, when would my bus be here?
How soon do I have to wait?
When is the next?
Connecting all of these things.
If it's on time, we believe thatthat will be able to enhance the E
(28:09):
experience again for our passengers.
And that becomes another opportunityagain for them to say that they want
to be able to participate and get moreon the public transportation route.
For them to be able to do that.
then safety again is another big area.
And if that's another issue, again,if we're leveraging things like
the computer vision, for instance,leveraging the data from there for U.S.
(28:30):
to be able to prepare not only justfor the, uh, passenger experience,
but from a safety perspective, that wecan easily leverage some things along
artificial intelligence that can helpprevent incidents from happening to.
Our passengers, thatwe can minimize those.
I think it becomes another great areaagain, and also just from a planning
perspective . That's another place thatI will say that even from a policy and
(28:52):
planning perspective, that's another area.
, If we start focusing on, it helpsU.S. to be able to, with the relevant
data that we currently have, wecan now focus on the future demand.
We can forecast our current needs andhow we can better prepare for long and
short-term planning With respect tothat, because we have the relevant data.
That is helping go to guide U.S. tothe next level for how these, decision
(29:14):
makers within, public transit will beable to make the relevant, decisions
at that particular point in time.
You know, Paul, just a quickcomment on that if I can.
I would argue to the point thatAlvin's making that as an industry,
you know, we are data rich.
And information poor.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
And I think the question is howdo we take all of that data and
use it to arrive at the top line?
(29:34):
So let me use a an example to illustratethat, you don't measure whether Tom Brady,
you know, threw a number of touchdownpasses or was able to run the ball really
fast, or how much weight he can lift,or did he eat the right nutrition, did
he score enough points to win on Sunday?
Like that's the measurement of success.
Yeah, and we can move as Alvin'ssuggesting from this data rich
(29:55):
environment to actually thinkingabout information and results.
The fact that we require a transitagency in Montana and Manhattan to
measure the same things is silly.
And how do we make surewe measure what matters?
To bring value to thecommunities that we represent.
(30:16):
Sacramento is going to think aboutoutcomes different than Syracuse is.
So if they're going to think aboutoutcomes in a different way, guess what?
They're going to measure things in adifferent way to produce those outcomes.
Are you a running offense?
Do you pass the ball?
Do you run a, uh, you know the option?
And so we have to allow agenciesto have individuality in what they
(30:38):
measure to produce outcomes and beginto tie federal aid to be in good.
And what you committedto being good at, right?
Like everyone's gonna think aboutvalue in a different fashion.
. Well, thank you both.
Mark Ash, Al mc, thank you forsharing some of your insights
with U.S. that are actionable.
I think for transitagencies, the idea that.
Ridership cannot and should not be, theprimary indicator of our success because
(31:02):
it's not necessarily what's valued by themajority of the people in a community.
That's what I'm hearingfrom you, mark and Alvin.
What I'm hearing from you is wecan use artificial intelligence.
More than we are now in transitagencies to produce better outcomes
for the communities that we serve.
I think those messagestie together so well.
Thank you both for the work you do.
If you wanna hear more from Markor Alvin, we'll put their contact
(31:25):
information, their websites on ourshow notes, and you can reach out to
them directly if you'd like, any inputfrom them on your specific agency.
Thank you both again for being here forthe work you're doing for our industry.
Thank you, Paul.
Paul,
great to see you, Alvin.
Thank you, mark.
Have a good day.
Thanks for listening to Transit Unplugged.
I'm executive producer Julie Gates,and this episode was created by host
(31:47):
and producer Paul Comfort, producerChris O'Keefe, associate producer Cindy
Raskin and podcast intern Des Gates.
Transit Unplugged is being broughtto you by Modaxo, passionate
about moving the world's people.
If you wanna dive deeper behind thetransit headlines and get boots on the
ground intel on important updates likethe Trump Administration's transit
(32:07):
priorities, or how to get fundingcheck out Transit Unplugged Insider,
our new YouTube show where Paul andI take you inside today's hot topics.
Paul knows what's going on inWashington DC and has the inside scoop.
He's taking a lot of meetings witha lot of people and we wanna make
sure you know what's going on.
You can watch and subscribe to TransitUnplugged Insider on the Transit
(32:28):
Unplugged Podcast page on YouTube.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch youon the next episode of Transit Unplugged.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.