November 19, 2025 • 32 mins
On this episode of Transit Unplugged, Paul Comfort sits down with Maureen Cosyn Heath, Director of Transit for the City of Mississauga and the leader of MiWay, the third-largest municipal transit agency in Ontario.
Mississauga has grown rapidly to more than 775,000 residents, and MiWay is evolving right alongside the city—operating 500 buses, supporting 1,700+ employees, and preparing for major system updates including a hydrogen bus pilot, a battery-electric fleet project, and the upcoming Hazel McCallion LRT (Light Rail Transit) line.
Maureen shares insights on:
Why ridership should be measured in value, not just taps and fares
How MiWay is shifting toward zero-emission technology
What it takes to communicate big budgets to elected officials
The importance of frontline operators and technicians
Her career path from customer service to leading one of Canada’s largest systems
“More people on my buses, more space on the road for you.” — Maureen Cosyn Heath
Recorded live in Ontario at the Vontas Canada User Summit, this conversation highlights a transit agency preparing for its next chapter—and a leader focused on fundamentals, connection, and community impact.
Credits + Disclaimer
Host & Producer: Paul Comfort
Executive Producer: Julie Gates
Producer: Chris O’Keeffe
Editor: Patrick Emile
Associate Producer: Cyndi Raskin
Consultants: Dan Misener & Jonas Woost (Bumper)
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 (“Modaxo”). This production belongs to Modaxo, and may contain information that may be 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.
(00:02):
I'm Paul Comfort, and this is TransitUnplugged North America's top public
transportation podcast, where everyweek we talk to a different CEO
or transit executive and find outwhat's happening behind the scenes
of their transit agency or company.
Today's episode centers on aNorth American city known for
sitting right on a major waterway.
(00:23):
You may have heard of it.
It's spelled M-I-S-S-I-S-S-A-U-G-A.
Yeah, that's right.
Not IPPI.
We're not talking Mississippi.
We're talking Mississauga, Ontarioand Canada, just west of Toronto.
Mississauga's a great city.
It's actually though relativelynew by North American standard.
It's only about 50 years old, butin that time it's grown into the
(00:46):
seventh largest city in Canada.
And when a city population growslike that, you have to move them.
Right?
That's why my way Mississauga'stransit system has continued to
grow right along with the city.
And our guest today isMaureen Kazen Heath.
She leads my way, Mississauga transitsystem, and she's taking on the
challenge of guiding a 500 bus system.
(01:08):
Supporting over 1700 employees anddoing all the things necessary to keep
that city moving smoothly and reliably.
My way is expanding service, preparingfor new rapid transit projects, and
making major investments to meet demand.
Now let's jump into this conversationthat our recorded live in person with her
in Ontario just before we went on stagefor a transit unplugged live CEO event.
(01:34):
And if you like what you hear today,be sure to like and subscribe.
Transit Unplugged, wherever youlisten to podcasts so you can be
sure that you get the informationyou need to grow your career and be
a fascinating transit evangelist.
Now let's talk to Maureen.
(01:56):
excited to be in Canada todaywith the, uh, with two great CEOs.
We're gonna start withMaureen Kazen Heath.
She's the director of Transit forthe city of Mississauga, which
is outside of Toronto, and theirtransit system is called My Way.
Maureen, thanks for being with U.S.
My pleasure.
This is my first podcast.
I hope I do you justice.
Awesome.
Yeah, I, I, I'm sure you will.
(02:17):
first off, some contacts we'rehere at the, uh, VTI Canada.
User Summit, the first oneever, and you're co-hosting it.
Tell me, uh, what's that all about?
We're really excited to be a co-host.
Uh, when VTIs contacted U.S. and theywere looking for a Canadian location to
have their first ever user conference,we stepped up and volunteered.
(02:39):
selfishly, it's a great way for me tobe able to send a lot of staff without
incurring a lot of travel budget.
and also working in the greaterToronto, golden Horseshoe area.
There's a good concentration, ahealthy concentration of trans
agencies within this geographical span.
Yeah.
So we knew that that would likely givethem a good draw for potential customers
(03:00):
to come and spend some time learningabout the product and seeing the new,
Modules and just the evolution of whatVontas is able to offer U.S. as an agency.
So that's how we ended up here today.
You know, I drove up yesterday.
I, I'm in Maryland and I flew up to, uh,Buffalo and drove over, which was fun.
I wanted to see a buddy of mine,that runs, uh, buses in Buffalo.
(03:21):
And they had football gameday service, which was fun.
You know, I got to go out and meettheir drivers and their, supervisors.
They had like 14 buses there at BuffaloBill Stadium, Michael Dillon Powell.
good dude.
Anyway.
I love coming over that bridgeand going to see, Niagara
Falls from the Canadian side.
You know, I've driven by that, but I'venever actually like walked up to it.
So I took like an hourand just took it all in.
(03:43):
I think it looks betterfrom the Canadian side.
You can actually see the horseshoe falls.
Honestly, Canada has abetter view of the falls.
Yeah.
Not gonna lie.
And we'll take that momentto brag as a, as a nation.
Yeah.
glad you had a chance.
To experience it.
Niagara is truly a beautiful area,not just because of the falls, but
the Niagara region has wineriesand farm to table restaurants, and.
(04:05):
All kinds of craft breweries.
It's quite a tourist destination andin my opinion, one of the prettiest
parts of the province of Ontario.
Yeah.
Driving up one of the streets, likeI felt like I was in Disneyland.
All these like, youknow, it was wild there.
What is it?
Canals?
What is that street there?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, um, it's in Niagara Falls.
Clifton Hills.
That's it.
Clifton Hills.
Clifton Hill.
If you go there, people who are listening,you should definitely check that out.
(04:28):
Anyway.
let's, set the context for Ontario.
So Canada has what, 11 provinces.
Yes.
And so provinces are like statesin America, so to speak, right?
Yes.
So you got a pretty big one here, andthe big area is Toronto, and you're
just like outside of Toronto, right?
Mississauga?
Yep.
Mississauga is about, 30 minutes by gotrain from the downtown core of Toronto.
(04:49):
Okay.
And, uh, tell me about Mississauga.
How many people?
It's a city, right?
It's a standalone city.
It's a standalone
city.
Um, the city of Mississauga has a. About775,000 residents at this point in time.
That's as big as
Baltimore City, by the way.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a big city.
It's, it's not a small city.
Yeah, that's
for sure.
and we are connected to Torontoby way of Toba Co. Brampton.
(05:13):
Toronto down to Oakville and Milton,some of the sort of bedroom communities.
So there's quite a congregation ofcommunities around the city of Toronto.
It has done a significantamount of development.
When you look at Mississauga, one of thethings you'll notice about our skyline is
the number of high residential density.
Towers that we have in our core.
(05:33):
So really easy to deliver great transitservice because we've got so many
residential units, concentrated in an areaaround our shopping district and soon to
come, you know, a new convention centerand changes to the living arts area.
Like there's downtown Mississaugaright now is really undergoing a
significant transformation, andwe're also excited that we will have
(05:57):
the future Hazel McCallion line.
Uh, which will be an LRT line.
It's coming in the near future.
Not gonna give a date quite yet'cause we're not quite ready.
but certainly the city ofMississauga is working away to
be ready for LRT operations and
who's bringing that in?
So Metro Links, which is the provincialagency, they are the asset owner and
(06:20):
my way will be the benefactor of thebuild of that piece of construction.
There's a new CEO there, right?
The guy had been there for a longtime, recently left at Metrolinx?
Yes.
Phil Ster left.
Yes sir. And there isa new CEO at Metrolinx.
Okay.
And there's a new guy at TTC too, right?
There is, uh, Mandeep.
Yes.
Laley.
Yeah, new CEO at ttc.
He used to be in, uh, New York.
(06:41):
I knew him when he wasin New York a little bit.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna try to go over therein the new year and interview him.
So you all are kind of connected.
Do you like connect up with, uh, Toronto?
Do your buses like meet up or whatever?
Yes, there is
service integration in between some TTCand uh, Brampton Transit and my way.
Okay.
We have a little bit of a service areawhere we sort of share stops in different
(07:02):
areas to help regional connectivity.
Obviously, when you look atthe geography from Niagara,
from the border that you cross.
All the way up to sort of northon the 400 Vaughn, et cetera.
There's about 17 transit agencies Wow.
In what we call the GTHA area.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
So there's regional connectivityin this area is really, really
(07:23):
important to U.S. and it's a criticalpart of the customer experience.
Speaking of customer experience, doyou have like shared fair media or do
you just tap into their credit cards?
We, or what do you do?
We,
yeah.
We use a system in Ontario called Presto.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's what the GTHA properties use.
Presto is a Metrolinx productand we have our end users.
(07:44):
Use they tap on.
Yeah.
We also recently introduced openpayments so people can use their
bank cards and their credit cards.
Yeah, I love
that.
So you know what usersdo too, let me tell you.
Yeah.
We've seen a hugemigration away from cash.
Cash was already dwindling ininterest on our buses over time.
Yeah.
But as soon as open payment cameout, it's really been a game changer.
(08:05):
Yeah.
I remember back when I was CEO ofMTA, I went to London for something,
speak at a conference or something,and there's a guy named Shashi Verma.
Who was the chief technologyofficer at, transport for London.
And uh, they had onlyhad it for six months.
Yep.
He like invented it.
were the first ones in theworld to do this tap and go.
I think they called itcontactless payment at the time.
Yep.
which is still kind ofa nomenclature for it.
(08:26):
Yep.
But he said, Paul, six months.
40% of the people riding thetube have already gone to it.
Yeah.
And we went down, my daughterwas with me, and we went down
and watched and he said, watch.
And they were just, you know, itwas brand new then taking the wallet
out or just ta and now it's phone.
Right now you can do it with your phone.
Yeah.
And, and those things are,are really convenient.
But I know we share a connectionto some U.S. transit systems.
I'm a huge of New York City andthe MTA, and you'll pry my metro
(08:50):
card out of my called dead hands.
But that's just nostalgia.
Just nostalgia.
All right, so now we've set the stage.
So now.
Serve, U.S. the platter.
Tell U.S. about your agency, the buses.
I mean, you guys are a pretty big agency.
It's pretty cool.
We are.
We are the third largest municipaltransit agency in the province of Ontario.
We are sitting at 500 buses.
We operate out of two facilities.
(09:11):
We are online to stand up at.
Third facility that's in kind ofthe early design work phase for U.S.
our fleet is mostly hybrid diesel.
We've got a hydrogen buspilot project coming our way.
Oh, love hydrogen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In about two years time, we're,standing on the precipice of ordering
those buses and then we are alsodoing a battery electric project.
(09:33):
In similar timeframe, 10 buses there.
So we're, we're movingtowards zero emissions busing.
Uh, so that's the fleet.
there are 1700 plus peoplethat work at my way.
About 1100 of them are drivers.
about 400 in the maintenance staff.
And then admin teams like your on roadcontrollers, route supervisors, operations
(09:55):
supervisor and admin staff that work on.
All the it and the planning andscheduling, you know, the usual stuff.
But it's a large system, certainly thelargest agency that I've ever worked at.
and it's a great, great system.
I've been there just four months at thispoint and settling in really nicely.
Everybody's been very welcoming to meand, uh, we've got great things ahead.
(10:18):
Really exciting projectscoming down the road.
That's good.
Well, let's talk about something first,I just wanna acknowledge, I knew the
lady who had your job before you eve.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She was great.
She went to the airport now, right?
She did, yeah.
tell me about what you're doing.
You say you got some, so rightnow you're, diesel hybrid.
Yep.
You like your whole fleet
is, yes.
Wow.
So what does that mean?
Like it's partly electric, partlydiesel, like the standard hybrid bus.
(10:41):
Yeah, it's a standard diesel hybrid bus.
Okay.
And, uh, you know, they'reworking really great.
We were able to adopt ontothat technology fairly early.
Yeah, I love that.
And, the more we bring intothe fleet, we're not at a
hundred percent conversion yet.
Okay.
But we're well on our way.
Um, so we're seeing areduction in our diesel spend.
We haven't seen any challenges atall in, um, functionality of the
(11:02):
buses compared to the old, battleax diesel buses of your Yeah.
And, you know, the team has becomevery proficient working on them.
And, and we know as we move intohydrogen buses and electrification,
a lot of, um, change in thework done by our technicians.
Oh yeah.
So a lot of the early work isreally prepping the workforce to
be ready for a new, new engine.
(11:25):
Yeah.
And a new way to maintain vehicles.
That's interesting.
I have a bunch of topics I wanna ask you.
First, let's talk about ridership.
So let me just set the stage forwhere I'm at on ridership personally.
Sure.
And so I talk to CEOs every weekaround the world and, um, in America.
the new administration, there's anew F FTA, a administrator, mark
Molen era who oversees Trans America.
We're kind of shifting, I think theimportance of ridership, in, I don't
(11:49):
even wanna say post pandemic anymore.
I'm tired of talking about the pandemic,but you know what I'm talking about.
Yep.
So pandemic was a gut punch toall of U.S. You know, we all
dropped 50% of our ridership.
A lot of agencies haven'teven gotten back to that.
So the question is, do we even wantto use that as a, as standard anymore?
Because the way we work is different.
you know, our software company, ouroffices are in Mississauga, right?
(12:10):
For, for one of our software,nobody goes in anymore.
Yeah.
so how can you compare whenthe whole context has changed?
So what's your thoughts on that?
I think most of U.S. in the industryknow that sort of that binary count
of ridership is a throwback to aday and age of your and that we
need to modernize the way we thinkabout success of a transit agency.
(12:32):
I agree.
So instead of just kind of.
Points on, on your tapcard or coins in a farebox.
We need to start shifting away andstart looking at boardings and link
trips and what our passengers arereally doing when they're on our system.
So many of U.S. have gone to faircapping loyalty based programs
or two hour transfer windows.
(12:54):
We're really not counting ridership theway they would've back three decades ago.
Anyways.
That's right.
Um, we've given away a lot ofwhat would've been counted as
a rider, so we are actuallydiminishing our own success factor.
So I think when you look at that.
And you start shifting to whatdoes a modern transit system need
(13:15):
to do and need to be measured on?
It really is the construct of what's thevalue you are providing to your community.
Boom.
I agree.
Yep.
Yeah, a
hundred percent.
Yeah.
We've done some surveys in Americaabout, 85% of people don't ride transit
generally, but they support transit.
Right.
And the reason they support itis because of three reasons.
(13:35):
We've done the surveys.
They are number one.
Access to jobs.
Yep.
They support it because theyknow it's providing access.
Number two, it helps the elderly andpeople with disabilities, they know that
these people might be homebound if theycouldn't get access to the services.
And third, for lower incomepeople who maybe can't afford
their own transportation.
So they get it and they'rewilling to subsidize it.
(13:56):
Right.
So why not emphasize those as KPIsthat are, that are important, right?
Yeah, I think those are definitely KPIs.
I know in the systems, what I've seen is areal shift to measuring access to transit.
How many people livewithin, you know, 400?
Oh yeah.
Uh, 400 meters to a bus stop, right?
How many people are within 800 metersto rapid transit or express route?
(14:18):
Yeah, how many people are within, youknow, one kilometer, two jobs within one
kilometer to a park or a community center?
Like where are things in Pemsto where your people live?
and that is certainly something, youknow, over the lifespan in my career.
When I first started intransit in the late 1990s.
I never heard those words.
Nobody cared.
(14:38):
Yeah.
that's just not how we measured.
That's right.
It was coins in the Farebox only.
Yeah.
Whereas now most of our, our, modernplanners and our modern system
designers are looking at it from acompletely different set of metrics.
and I, I would argue the right metrics,like I think we're finally getting it
right when we're looking at where canwe get you, how quickly can we get you
(15:01):
there, and what do you have access to?
Travel time-wise, I can'tcompete with the car.
That's just a fact.
that's okay.
I can get you there in areasonable amount of time.
And my pitch to the nonriders is pretty simple.
You're a car owner.
More people on my buses, morespace on the road for you.
I love it.
Yep.
That's great, Maureen.
Yep.
That's really good.
(15:21):
So how are you structured there?
You're part of the city government.
Yep.
So we're part of the municipal governmentat And so, you've got your city
manager and they report to municipalcouncil, our elected officials.
and then there's a commissionerof transportation and works.
So you know, roads, engineeringinfrastructure, LRT project, the
Rapid Transit Project Office,and then the transit, we all
(15:43):
fall under that commissioner.
And then I'm the transit director.
Okay.
And so you've got 500 buses and what else?
Tell me again what you have for youractual services that you operate.
500 buses uhhuh, 70 routes.
some of them are expressed, someof them are local core routes.
And then we have some you
doing on demand stuff like paratransit,what we call in America, you know, uh,
paratransit is delivered by theregion in Mississauga's area.
(16:06):
Okay, so Peel region, whichis Brampton and Mississauga,
it's delivered by the region.
So no para in Mississauga.
But you do have
it.
It's just provided by someone else.
It's provided by someone else, correct.
And then looking as we build out oursystem, looking at on demand for areas
where, you know, maybe a 40 footerjust isn't the best business case.
(16:27):
Right.
Alright.
So we talked about ridership and how weought to be shifting, how we look at that.
It's not now the main orthe only KPI that matters.
Yep.
Does your upline agree with you, likethe city council and all like that?
Are they buying into thisphilosophy of we need to shift
the way we present our success?
Yeah, it's always a journeywith elected officials.
Yeah.
and I think that it is on U.S.
(16:49):
as the transit agency.
I agree with you to reallyhelp shape that narrative.
Yeah.
We go in every year at budget timeand we ask for a lot of money.
you know, we go in every year we'reasking for big, big money capital.
We're looking to buy $55 millionworth of replacement buses next year.
Wow.
So you're, you're talkingbig bucks from the cap side.
(17:09):
Big bucks from the operating side.
There's 1700 FTE I'm sitting at about.
19% of the overall number ofemployees for the city of Mississauga.
So my budget numbers,they jump off the page.
Yeah.
When you, when you're lookingat all things being equal.
So your municipal council and your seniorleadership team really need to understand
(17:31):
what you're doing and where you're atand where you're trying to go, and why?
Because if they don't understandthe how and the why, they are
gonna have a really difficult time.
Supporting your business cases.
Yeah.
And your budget requests, becauseagain, we're competing for budget
dollars with fire, with emergencyservices, with parks and recs, with
(17:55):
all of the big city departments.
Yeah.
So if you want your piece of the pieand you want to be able to deliver a
top-notch service to your residents,your elected officials and the
senior leaders have to understand.
Where you're started, where you're going,and why it's important to get there.
That's good.
That's why I believe one of the keyskill sets for A CEO these days is the
(18:19):
ability to communicate effectively.
Yep.
It's like, I think it's the most importantbecause, you're kind like a politician.
You gotta win the votes, you know,you gotta sell your vision of what you
wanna do, and you gotta win the votes,and you gotta have people on your side.
Yeah, I, I agree with that.
Yeah.
I think certainly I've been blessedto have strong finance people around
(18:40):
me who can do the, technical math.
I've got an excellent ops manager andfleet manager who can get the buses on
the road service, the roads, whatever.
I've always said, my job is to standon the council floor and convince
people to give U.S. large sums of moneyin order to better the product that
we're delivering to our community.
(19:02):
Thanks for listening to theTransit Unplugged Podcast.
We are so glad you're here.
If you're enjoying this show, we knowyou'll love our other transit industry
programs on Transit Unplugged tv.
Paul Comfort explores the food cultureand transit systems around the globe.
You get to see everything.
You'll love this show, and everyweek we also offer up the Transit
Unplugged News minute whereyou can get the latest industry
(19:24):
headlines in less than 60 seconds.
You can find out more attransitunplugged.com Now back to
Paul Comfort for this edition of theaward-winning Transit Unplugged podcast.
Speaking of money, let'stalk about the farebox.
You've mentioned it a couple times.
That's the way, so, people in theindustry know a farebox recovery ratio
is a percentage of money you collectfrom the farebox as it relates to your
(19:47):
operating costs, usually, in America.
You know, I hate to keep comparingthat, but that's where I'm from.
You know, I remember when I got thejob at MTA 10 years ago in Baltimore.
There was a law on the books inour state that said we had to
have a 50% farebox recovery ratio.
Wow.
50.
And we were breaking the lawevery day when I took the job.
So that soon got changed bythe state legislature, 25%.
(20:08):
And then we still weren'thitting that on bus service.
We were hitting it on computer trains.
We ran computer trains.
Then they dropped it completely,and I think it's down to 15% now.
as a farebox recovery ratio.
What's your, what's yourstory up here on that?
Woohoo.
Um, I would love to only have to hit 15%.
I could, I could do that honestly withthe get, get back what I closed up.
Wow.
What is it, uh, in Canada particularly,I'll say in Ontario, the sort of tried
(20:33):
and true is 50% fair bucks recovery?
50%. 50% is the goal.
there are transit agencies that exceedthat and there are others that don't.
I would say, you know, postpandemic, I know you don't
wanna talk about it anymore.
Yeah, that's Sure.
Yeah.
But we're.
Still in Mississauga, we're stilla little lower than the 50%,
but we're certainly over the 45.
So we kind of sit in that pocket.
(20:54):
Oh, dude, that's amazing.
Yeah.
We sit in that pocket and I, I don'tthink that that's a bad space to be in.
And what's the
cost to ride your bus?
Uh, $4 and 50 cents is the cash fair.
But then like one way.
Yes.
You get on, you pay four 50 or you tapyour card, tap your card, most likely.
Yeah.
But then
you get a transfer and you get,you know, two hour transfer.
Yeah.
So you can do whatever youcan do on board in a two hour.
(21:14):
Oh, okay.
Window.
Yeah.
We offer monthly passes.
We offer, you know, discounts, discounts,discounts for low income students, low
incomes, seniors ride our buses for free.
So there's a suite.
Oh, seniors ride free.
They do.
That's pretty awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
65 and up ride for free.
Okay.
So there's a suite of fair optionsthat are offered, and we try to make
sure that there's a, a fair productoffering that benefits every single
(21:38):
demographic on board our buses.
So what do you think the goal ought to be?
Is it, is it like a law or if the50% thing, or just a standard?
It's, it's not a law.
Okay.
Sort of a, it's a standard, it's nota super official standard, but it's
usually the benchmark that most ofU.S. will, will hold ourselves to.
Yeah.
I think 50%, like I said, there'ssome agencies that meet it with ease.
(21:59):
Yeah.
Um, and exceed it.
And that's great for them.
I think it, again, depends on whatyour base price of your fares are.
It's hard to compare.
Yeah.
Um, and when you're looking at aplace like the ttc, which is arguably.
significantly larger than U.S.
Are they the largest in Canada?
Yeah.
I would say certainly in Ontario,
(22:21):
them and TransLink areprobably the two big ones.
Yeah.
I mean,
certainly TTCs the largest in Ontario.
Yeah.
And you could stack me anda few of my neighbors up and
we still wouldn't come close.
Okay.
so we sort of hold themalmost in their own bucket.
They're not a directcomparator to any of U.S.
Yeah.
Yep.
So that's good.
Interesting.
So that, so you think it's about right.
I mean, I think that it, itis good when you think of the
(22:42):
cost of delivering our service.
I think it's a fair trade off for thelevel of service we provide the community.
Interesting.
you mentioned you're moving into zeroemission buses, you're starting the
hydrogen and you're, you're maybe gettingsome electric and you've had hybrid.
Have you had any adoption challenges?
I remember a couple years ago, you allhad a very bad winter all across Canada,
(23:02):
and I remember I went to Edmonton,I went all across the country and
talked to CEOs and they're all like.
Dude, Paul.
Battery buses aren't cutting itfor U.S. Uh, it's too cold up here.
We're getting a hundred miles orwhatever kilometers up here out of a
full charge, and it's just not workingfor U.S. We gotta look at other things.
CNG, hydrogen, whatever.
Alberta's big.
So what are you guys doing there?
How's, how's your adoption going?
(23:23):
So we don't have them in service yet.
Okay.
So it's kind of hard tosay what it will be like.
But what I can say is the OEMs thatservice the Canadian market have
heard and learned from the earlyexperiences with some of the different
transit properties across the country.
and they know that the weather is.
An issue for U.S. and they knowthat the climate is up and down.
(23:46):
Amount of snowfall can varywidely from one year to another.
But at the end of the day, I know themanufacturers have been working really,
really hard to make a battery withlonger range, and that is more protected
against some of the wild climate changes.
Yeah, I, I think that's why you'llalways see a bit of a balance in a fleet.
I don't know that you'll ever see a largeagency go all in one fuel type only.
(24:11):
Yeah.
I think you kind of have to have a mix.
to kind of protect yourself and coveryour bases and play the odds a little bit.
So you've been here, four or five months.
what's your game plan like, what areyou hoping to accomplish over, do
you have like a vision of what youwanna do over the next few years or?
That's looked to the future.
Yeah, so I've been aroundhere for four months.
I've been in the transitindustry for 25 years.
(24:31):
Yeah.
But I've been at my way for fourmonths, and so I've really spent
the time getting to know the staff,getting to know the city, getting
to figure out what the city'svision is for transit in the future.
And what I know is with the city buildingprojects like the LRT, like a downtown
Mobility hub, like improvements toour existing conventional bus network.
(24:55):
We are uniquely poised tocontinue to deliver a better
regionally connected system.
And I look even at the basics,like let's get the on time
service delivery up to standards.
It's great to have the lofty plans, butyou gotta make sure that your base service
on the road is a good quality product.
(25:16):
So we're gonna spend some timelooking down the road at the future.
But we're also gonna spend some timefocusing on the frontline operations
and making sure we've got everything'sin ship shape before we try to
bite off fancy, big new projects.
Right.
That's, I mean, when you look atsports, that's what they do, right?
Yep.
Coach comes in and says, all right,back to the basics, fundamentals,
then we can work the fancy stuff,
(25:37):
build the team.
Yep.
Yeah, for sure.
That's great.
So you said you've beenin transit for 25 years.
Tell me about your background.
Uh, so I started my career inpublic transit at the London
Transit Commission Okay.
In 1999 as the customer service manager.
I needed a job and they were hiring.
I had no idea.
And I, when I walked through the doorsof that building on that July day in
(25:57):
1999, that I found my life's work.
Oh, wow.
No clue.
Yeah.
Went in, worked with the teamthere, really enjoyed it.
Moved over to operationsafter about a year and a half.
someone retired and they said,well, we think you could do this.
And that was a unique choice.
I was a very young woman at the time.
(26:17):
I was in my early thirties.
I had never driven a bus.
I really had no labor backgroundto speak of just the, you
know, year and a half I'd had.
Um, so they took a chance on meand I spent the next nine years
working as the ops manager there.
Learned the business, learned how towork with the union, negotiate contracts,
accident, collision, investigation,all of the good operational stuff.
(26:42):
Learned it from the ground up.
Had some great colleagues who werevery generous with their expertise.
Stepped out of public transit for 13years to become the CAO of, uh, school
busing consortium in southwestern Ontario.
So it was the city ofLondon, Elgin County.
Middlesex County, Oxford Countyran about 1100 routes every day.
(27:03):
That was 60,000 transported students.
It was, uh, special needsstudents and regular yellow
bus service with contractors.
So.
Really learned their governance, builtan organization from the ground up,
worked with the Ministry of Educationand the local elected officials.
but I always knew Iwould go back to transit.
It was just a matterfor me of when or where.
(27:26):
And I became fortunate when thedirectorship opened up at the
Hamilton Street Railway at HSR.
So I took that position on,spent four years there, loved it.
Great team in Hamilton.
but when the chance cameto take the third largest.
Agency in the province.
Yeah.
That I could not turn down.
And that's how I've landed in Mississauga.
That's great.
So that's my background and career.
(27:47):
Awesome.
And sitting right across fromyou is your successor, right?
You got
it.
Yeah.
She sure is.
So we're gonna interview hernext for the next podcast.
Yeah.
This has been great.
Anything else you wanna talkabout before we wrap it up?
Any other thoughts or contemplationsafter 25 years in the industry
and four months in your new gig?
I really think that publictransit makes a huge difference
(28:08):
in the communities that we serve.
And I have seen firsthandthat impact at every level.
And I think that's the beautifulthing about what we do all day for
a living, is really be able to be acommunity builder in the first instance.
and you know, that said, I still lovewatching the bus yard come to life
in the early hours of the morning.
(28:29):
I love hanging out in the driver's room.
And, playing dominoes or shooting thebreeze with the, with frontline staff.
And that's a part of me as a leaderthat I never want to lose, is the
connection to the people that turn thewrenches, the people that turn the wheel.
because they are the first, they'rethe alpha omega of our systems.
Full stop.
Yeah.
I can't do what I do withoutthem doing what they do.
(28:52):
So that's great.
I forgot to ask you about like,personal stuff, like, uh, yeah, yeah.
So let's do that.
Before we wrap up, tell me anythingyou wanna tell me about your
personal life, your hobbies, yourpets, all that kind of stuff.
Whatever you wanna tell me.
I will say I am the proudmother of two adult children.
We have a 23-year-old daughter who'sdoing a master's degree and a 20-year-old
son who's in his, uh, third year ofa business administration program.
(29:15):
And he's studying supply chain andlogistics, which he confidently
told me when he was 18, hadnothing to do with transit.
Um, and then he has confidently told meat 20 he was wrong and mom was in fact.
Correct.
Okay, there you go.
So that, that was kind ofa cool close shape shift.
and I think I would like to say thatmy cash fair is $4 and 25 cents.
(29:36):
Okay.
Four 50 is next.
Steers by,
uh, we're
making news today.
Yeah, that's great.
Okay.
Any
pets or anything?
Uh, recently lost our13-year-old golden retriever.
Oh, Finnegan.
That's terrible.
He was the, he was just,he was a special boy.
Uh, not the world's brightest dog, butcertainly the world's most loving dog.
(29:58):
Uh, and we have an 18-year-oldcat, 18-year-old cat.
Yeah.
And she is.
Frankly, she loves my husband the most.
Let's just leave.
She's his, she's his cat.
She loves him and she tolerates me.
Okay.
And last question.
Music.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Oh man.
I'm old enough to listen toalmost anything on the radio.
(30:19):
Yeah,
I love all kinds of music.
You can put fifties music on andI'll sing along quite confidently.
Uh, all the way up to kind of modern pop.
a huge jazz fan.
but really.
Country.
Yeah, classic country, ninetiescountry has some good stuff.
When's the last, what's thelast concert you went to?
Taylor Swift.
What is it?
Taylor Swift.
Oh, Taylor,
you went to Toronto Swift.
Oh sure.
(30:39):
Oh, that's good.
I would pay any amount of money to go.
Did you ride transit
to it?
I did actually.
Did you?
Yeah.
You betcha.
We drove to Burlington and took thego train into Toronto and went and
saw the concert and it was amazing.
That's
great.
Well, that's a great way to end it.
Thank you so much forbeing with U.S. today.
You're very welcome.
It's been great to getting toknow you and I wish you all
the success as you continue to.
Move into this area of managing one ofthe biggest transit systems in Canada.
(31:01):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for listening to this episodeof Transit Unplugged, the world's
number one transit executive podcast.
I'm Julie Gates, executiveproducer of the podcast.
Many thanks to the teamthat makes this show happen.
Host and producer, Paul Comfort,producer Chris O'Keeffe editor
(31:21):
Patrick Emile associate producer CyndiRaskin and consultants Dan Meisner
and Jonas Woos at Bumper Transit.
Transit Unplugged is beingbrought to you by Modaxo.
Passionate about movingthe world's people.
If you would enjoy behind the scenesinsights and updates from the show.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter, whichhas links to can't-miss Conversations
with the biggest names in mobility.
(31:44):
Head to transitunplugged.com and scrollto the bottom of the page to sign up.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch youon the next episode of Transit Unplugged.
I'm Paul Comfort, and this is TransitUnplugged North America's top public
transportation podcast, where everyweek we talk to a different CEO
or transit executive and find outwhat's happening behind the scenes
of their transit agency or company.
Today's episode centers on aNorth American city known for
sitting right on a major waterway.
(00:23):
You may have heard of it.
It's spelled M-I-S-S-I-S-S-A-U-G-A.
Yeah, that's right.
Not IPPI.
We're not talking Mississippi.
We're talking Mississauga, Ontarioand Canada, just west of Toronto.
Mississauga's a great city.
It's actually though relativelynew by North American standard.
It's only about 50 years old, butin that time it's grown into the
(00:46):
seventh largest city in Canada.
And when a city population growslike that, you have to move them.
Right?
That's why my way Mississauga'stransit system has continued to
grow right along with the city.
And our guest today isMaureen Kazen Heath.
She leads my way, Mississauga transitsystem, and she's taking on the
challenge of guiding a 500 bus system.
(01:08):
Supporting over 1700 employees anddoing all the things necessary to keep
that city moving smoothly and reliably.
My way is expanding service, preparingfor new rapid transit projects, and
making major investments to meet demand.
Now let's jump into this conversationthat our recorded live in person with her
in Ontario just before we went on stagefor a transit unplugged live CEO event.
(01:34):
And if you like what you hear today,be sure to like and subscribe.
Transit Unplugged, wherever youlisten to podcasts so you can be
sure that you get the informationyou need to grow your career and be
a fascinating transit evangelist.
Now let's talk to Maureen.
(01:56):
excited to be in Canada todaywith the, uh, with two great CEOs.
We're gonna start withMaureen Kazen Heath.
She's the director of Transit forthe city of Mississauga, which
is outside of Toronto, and theirtransit system is called My Way.
Maureen, thanks for being with U.S.
My pleasure.
This is my first podcast.
I hope I do you justice.
Awesome.
Yeah, I, I, I'm sure you will.
(02:17):
first off, some contacts we'rehere at the, uh, VTI Canada.
User Summit, the first oneever, and you're co-hosting it.
Tell me, uh, what's that all about?
We're really excited to be a co-host.
Uh, when VTIs contacted U.S. and theywere looking for a Canadian location to
have their first ever user conference,we stepped up and volunteered.
(02:39):
selfishly, it's a great way for me tobe able to send a lot of staff without
incurring a lot of travel budget.
and also working in the greaterToronto, golden Horseshoe area.
There's a good concentration, ahealthy concentration of trans
agencies within this geographical span.
Yeah.
So we knew that that would likely givethem a good draw for potential customers
(03:00):
to come and spend some time learningabout the product and seeing the new,
Modules and just the evolution of whatVontas is able to offer U.S. as an agency.
So that's how we ended up here today.
You know, I drove up yesterday.
I, I'm in Maryland and I flew up to, uh,Buffalo and drove over, which was fun.
I wanted to see a buddy of mine,that runs, uh, buses in Buffalo.
(03:21):
And they had football gameday service, which was fun.
You know, I got to go out and meettheir drivers and their, supervisors.
They had like 14 buses there at BuffaloBill Stadium, Michael Dillon Powell.
good dude.
Anyway.
I love coming over that bridgeand going to see, Niagara
Falls from the Canadian side.
You know, I've driven by that, but I'venever actually like walked up to it.
So I took like an hourand just took it all in.
(03:43):
I think it looks betterfrom the Canadian side.
You can actually see the horseshoe falls.
Honestly, Canada has abetter view of the falls.
Yeah.
Not gonna lie.
And we'll take that momentto brag as a, as a nation.
Yeah.
glad you had a chance.
To experience it.
Niagara is truly a beautiful area,not just because of the falls, but
the Niagara region has wineriesand farm to table restaurants, and.
(04:05):
All kinds of craft breweries.
It's quite a tourist destination andin my opinion, one of the prettiest
parts of the province of Ontario.
Yeah.
Driving up one of the streets, likeI felt like I was in Disneyland.
All these like, youknow, it was wild there.
What is it?
Canals?
What is that street there?
Do you know what I'm talking about?
Oh, um, it's in Niagara Falls.
Clifton Hills.
That's it.
Clifton Hills.
Clifton Hill.
If you go there, people who are listening,you should definitely check that out.
(04:28):
Anyway.
let's, set the context for Ontario.
So Canada has what, 11 provinces.
Yes.
And so provinces are like statesin America, so to speak, right?
Yes.
So you got a pretty big one here, andthe big area is Toronto, and you're
just like outside of Toronto, right?
Mississauga?
Yep.
Mississauga is about, 30 minutes by gotrain from the downtown core of Toronto.
(04:49):
Okay.
And, uh, tell me about Mississauga.
How many people?
It's a city, right?
It's a standalone city.
It's a standalone
city.
Um, the city of Mississauga has a. About775,000 residents at this point in time.
That's as big as
Baltimore City, by the way.
Yeah, it's, yeah, it's a big city.
It's, it's not a small city.
Yeah, that's
for sure.
and we are connected to Torontoby way of Toba Co. Brampton.
(05:13):
Toronto down to Oakville and Milton,some of the sort of bedroom communities.
So there's quite a congregation ofcommunities around the city of Toronto.
It has done a significantamount of development.
When you look at Mississauga, one of thethings you'll notice about our skyline is
the number of high residential density.
Towers that we have in our core.
(05:33):
So really easy to deliver great transitservice because we've got so many
residential units, concentrated in an areaaround our shopping district and soon to
come, you know, a new convention centerand changes to the living arts area.
Like there's downtown Mississaugaright now is really undergoing a
significant transformation, andwe're also excited that we will have
(05:57):
the future Hazel McCallion line.
Uh, which will be an LRT line.
It's coming in the near future.
Not gonna give a date quite yet'cause we're not quite ready.
but certainly the city ofMississauga is working away to
be ready for LRT operations and
who's bringing that in?
So Metro Links, which is the provincialagency, they are the asset owner and
(06:20):
my way will be the benefactor of thebuild of that piece of construction.
There's a new CEO there, right?
The guy had been there for a longtime, recently left at Metrolinx?
Yes.
Phil Ster left.
Yes sir. And there isa new CEO at Metrolinx.
Okay.
And there's a new guy at TTC too, right?
There is, uh, Mandeep.
Yes.
Laley.
Yeah, new CEO at ttc.
He used to be in, uh, New York.
(06:41):
I knew him when he wasin New York a little bit.
Okay.
Yeah.
So I'm gonna try to go over therein the new year and interview him.
So you all are kind of connected.
Do you like connect up with, uh, Toronto?
Do your buses like meet up or whatever?
Yes, there is
service integration in between some TTCand uh, Brampton Transit and my way.
Okay.
We have a little bit of a service areawhere we sort of share stops in different
(07:02):
areas to help regional connectivity.
Obviously, when you look atthe geography from Niagara,
from the border that you cross.
All the way up to sort of northon the 400 Vaughn, et cetera.
There's about 17 transit agencies Wow.
In what we call the GTHA area.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
So there's regional connectivityin this area is really, really
(07:23):
important to U.S. and it's a criticalpart of the customer experience.
Speaking of customer experience, doyou have like shared fair media or do
you just tap into their credit cards?
We, or what do you do?
We,
yeah.
We use a system in Ontario called Presto.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's what the GTHA properties use.
Presto is a Metrolinx productand we have our end users.
(07:44):
Use they tap on.
Yeah.
We also recently introduced openpayments so people can use their
bank cards and their credit cards.
Yeah, I love
that.
So you know what usersdo too, let me tell you.
Yeah.
We've seen a hugemigration away from cash.
Cash was already dwindling ininterest on our buses over time.
Yeah.
But as soon as open payment cameout, it's really been a game changer.
(08:05):
Yeah.
I remember back when I was CEO ofMTA, I went to London for something,
speak at a conference or something,and there's a guy named Shashi Verma.
Who was the chief technologyofficer at, transport for London.
And uh, they had onlyhad it for six months.
Yep.
He like invented it.
were the first ones in theworld to do this tap and go.
I think they called itcontactless payment at the time.
Yep.
which is still kind ofa nomenclature for it.
(08:26):
Yep.
But he said, Paul, six months.
40% of the people riding thetube have already gone to it.
Yeah.
And we went down, my daughterwas with me, and we went down
and watched and he said, watch.
And they were just, you know, itwas brand new then taking the wallet
out or just ta and now it's phone.
Right now you can do it with your phone.
Yeah.
And, and those things are,are really convenient.
But I know we share a connectionto some U.S. transit systems.
I'm a huge of New York City andthe MTA, and you'll pry my metro
(08:50):
card out of my called dead hands.
But that's just nostalgia.
Just nostalgia.
All right, so now we've set the stage.
So now.
Serve, U.S. the platter.
Tell U.S. about your agency, the buses.
I mean, you guys are a pretty big agency.
It's pretty cool.
We are.
We are the third largest municipaltransit agency in the province of Ontario.
We are sitting at 500 buses.
We operate out of two facilities.
(09:11):
We are online to stand up at.
Third facility that's in kind ofthe early design work phase for U.S.
our fleet is mostly hybrid diesel.
We've got a hydrogen buspilot project coming our way.
Oh, love hydrogen.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In about two years time, we're,standing on the precipice of ordering
those buses and then we are alsodoing a battery electric project.
(09:33):
In similar timeframe, 10 buses there.
So we're, we're movingtowards zero emissions busing.
Uh, so that's the fleet.
there are 1700 plus peoplethat work at my way.
About 1100 of them are drivers.
about 400 in the maintenance staff.
And then admin teams like your on roadcontrollers, route supervisors, operations
(09:55):
supervisor and admin staff that work on.
All the it and the planning andscheduling, you know, the usual stuff.
But it's a large system, certainly thelargest agency that I've ever worked at.
and it's a great, great system.
I've been there just four months at thispoint and settling in really nicely.
Everybody's been very welcoming to meand, uh, we've got great things ahead.
(10:18):
Really exciting projectscoming down the road.
That's good.
Well, let's talk about something first,I just wanna acknowledge, I knew the
lady who had your job before you eve.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She was great.
She went to the airport now, right?
She did, yeah.
tell me about what you're doing.
You say you got some, so rightnow you're, diesel hybrid.
Yep.
You like your whole fleet
is, yes.
Wow.
So what does that mean?
Like it's partly electric, partlydiesel, like the standard hybrid bus.
(10:41):
Yeah, it's a standard diesel hybrid bus.
Okay.
And, uh, you know, they'reworking really great.
We were able to adopt ontothat technology fairly early.
Yeah, I love that.
And, the more we bring intothe fleet, we're not at a
hundred percent conversion yet.
Okay.
But we're well on our way.
Um, so we're seeing areduction in our diesel spend.
We haven't seen any challenges atall in, um, functionality of the
(11:02):
buses compared to the old, battleax diesel buses of your Yeah.
And, you know, the team has becomevery proficient working on them.
And, and we know as we move intohydrogen buses and electrification,
a lot of, um, change in thework done by our technicians.
Oh yeah.
So a lot of the early work isreally prepping the workforce to
be ready for a new, new engine.
(11:25):
Yeah.
And a new way to maintain vehicles.
That's interesting.
I have a bunch of topics I wanna ask you.
First, let's talk about ridership.
So let me just set the stage forwhere I'm at on ridership personally.
Sure.
And so I talk to CEOs every weekaround the world and, um, in America.
the new administration, there's anew F FTA, a administrator, mark
Molen era who oversees Trans America.
We're kind of shifting, I think theimportance of ridership, in, I don't
(11:49):
even wanna say post pandemic anymore.
I'm tired of talking about the pandemic,but you know what I'm talking about.
Yep.
So pandemic was a gut punch toall of U.S. You know, we all
dropped 50% of our ridership.
A lot of agencies haven'teven gotten back to that.
So the question is, do we even wantto use that as a, as standard anymore?
Because the way we work is different.
you know, our software company, ouroffices are in Mississauga, right?
(12:10):
For, for one of our software,nobody goes in anymore.
Yeah.
so how can you compare whenthe whole context has changed?
So what's your thoughts on that?
I think most of U.S. in the industryknow that sort of that binary count
of ridership is a throwback to aday and age of your and that we
need to modernize the way we thinkabout success of a transit agency.
(12:32):
I agree.
So instead of just kind of.
Points on, on your tapcard or coins in a farebox.
We need to start shifting away andstart looking at boardings and link
trips and what our passengers arereally doing when they're on our system.
So many of U.S. have gone to faircapping loyalty based programs
or two hour transfer windows.
(12:54):
We're really not counting ridership theway they would've back three decades ago.
Anyways.
That's right.
Um, we've given away a lot ofwhat would've been counted as
a rider, so we are actuallydiminishing our own success factor.
So I think when you look at that.
And you start shifting to whatdoes a modern transit system need
(13:15):
to do and need to be measured on?
It really is the construct of what's thevalue you are providing to your community.
Boom.
I agree.
Yep.
Yeah, a
hundred percent.
Yeah.
We've done some surveys in Americaabout, 85% of people don't ride transit
generally, but they support transit.
Right.
And the reason they support itis because of three reasons.
(13:35):
We've done the surveys.
They are number one.
Access to jobs.
Yep.
They support it because theyknow it's providing access.
Number two, it helps the elderly andpeople with disabilities, they know that
these people might be homebound if theycouldn't get access to the services.
And third, for lower incomepeople who maybe can't afford
their own transportation.
So they get it and they'rewilling to subsidize it.
(13:56):
Right.
So why not emphasize those as KPIsthat are, that are important, right?
Yeah, I think those are definitely KPIs.
I know in the systems, what I've seen is areal shift to measuring access to transit.
How many people livewithin, you know, 400?
Oh yeah.
Uh, 400 meters to a bus stop, right?
How many people are within 800 metersto rapid transit or express route?
(14:18):
Yeah, how many people are within, youknow, one kilometer, two jobs within one
kilometer to a park or a community center?
Like where are things in Pemsto where your people live?
and that is certainly something, youknow, over the lifespan in my career.
When I first started intransit in the late 1990s.
I never heard those words.
Nobody cared.
(14:38):
Yeah.
that's just not how we measured.
That's right.
It was coins in the Farebox only.
Yeah.
Whereas now most of our, our, modernplanners and our modern system
designers are looking at it from acompletely different set of metrics.
and I, I would argue the right metrics,like I think we're finally getting it
right when we're looking at where canwe get you, how quickly can we get you
(15:01):
there, and what do you have access to?
Travel time-wise, I can'tcompete with the car.
That's just a fact.
that's okay.
I can get you there in areasonable amount of time.
And my pitch to the nonriders is pretty simple.
You're a car owner.
More people on my buses, morespace on the road for you.
I love it.
Yep.
That's great, Maureen.
Yep.
That's really good.
(15:21):
So how are you structured there?
You're part of the city government.
Yep.
So we're part of the municipal governmentat And so, you've got your city
manager and they report to municipalcouncil, our elected officials.
and then there's a commissionerof transportation and works.
So you know, roads, engineeringinfrastructure, LRT project, the
Rapid Transit Project Office,and then the transit, we all
(15:43):
fall under that commissioner.
And then I'm the transit director.
Okay.
And so you've got 500 buses and what else?
Tell me again what you have for youractual services that you operate.
500 buses uhhuh, 70 routes.
some of them are expressed, someof them are local core routes.
And then we have some you
doing on demand stuff like paratransit,what we call in America, you know, uh,
paratransit is delivered by theregion in Mississauga's area.
(16:06):
Okay, so Peel region, whichis Brampton and Mississauga,
it's delivered by the region.
So no para in Mississauga.
But you do have
it.
It's just provided by someone else.
It's provided by someone else, correct.
And then looking as we build out oursystem, looking at on demand for areas
where, you know, maybe a 40 footerjust isn't the best business case.
(16:27):
Right.
Alright.
So we talked about ridership and how weought to be shifting, how we look at that.
It's not now the main orthe only KPI that matters.
Yep.
Does your upline agree with you, likethe city council and all like that?
Are they buying into thisphilosophy of we need to shift
the way we present our success?
Yeah, it's always a journeywith elected officials.
Yeah.
and I think that it is on U.S.
(16:49):
as the transit agency.
I agree with you to reallyhelp shape that narrative.
Yeah.
We go in every year at budget timeand we ask for a lot of money.
you know, we go in every year we'reasking for big, big money capital.
We're looking to buy $55 millionworth of replacement buses next year.
Wow.
So you're, you're talkingbig bucks from the cap side.
(17:09):
Big bucks from the operating side.
There's 1700 FTE I'm sitting at about.
19% of the overall number ofemployees for the city of Mississauga.
So my budget numbers,they jump off the page.
Yeah.
When you, when you're lookingat all things being equal.
So your municipal council and your seniorleadership team really need to understand
(17:31):
what you're doing and where you're atand where you're trying to go, and why?
Because if they don't understandthe how and the why, they are
gonna have a really difficult time.
Supporting your business cases.
Yeah.
And your budget requests, becauseagain, we're competing for budget
dollars with fire, with emergencyservices, with parks and recs, with
(17:55):
all of the big city departments.
Yeah.
So if you want your piece of the pieand you want to be able to deliver a
top-notch service to your residents,your elected officials and the
senior leaders have to understand.
Where you're started, where you're going,and why it's important to get there.
That's good.
That's why I believe one of the keyskill sets for A CEO these days is the
(18:19):
ability to communicate effectively.
Yep.
It's like, I think it's the most importantbecause, you're kind like a politician.
You gotta win the votes, you know,you gotta sell your vision of what you
wanna do, and you gotta win the votes,and you gotta have people on your side.
Yeah, I, I agree with that.
Yeah.
I think certainly I've been blessedto have strong finance people around
(18:40):
me who can do the, technical math.
I've got an excellent ops manager andfleet manager who can get the buses on
the road service, the roads, whatever.
I've always said, my job is to standon the council floor and convince
people to give U.S. large sums of moneyin order to better the product that
we're delivering to our community.
(19:02):
Thanks for listening to theTransit Unplugged Podcast.
We are so glad you're here.
If you're enjoying this show, we knowyou'll love our other transit industry
programs on Transit Unplugged tv.
Paul Comfort explores the food cultureand transit systems around the globe.
You get to see everything.
You'll love this show, and everyweek we also offer up the Transit
Unplugged News minute whereyou can get the latest industry
(19:24):
headlines in less than 60 seconds.
You can find out more attransitunplugged.com Now back to
Paul Comfort for this edition of theaward-winning Transit Unplugged podcast.
Speaking of money, let'stalk about the farebox.
You've mentioned it a couple times.
That's the way, so, people in theindustry know a farebox recovery ratio
is a percentage of money you collectfrom the farebox as it relates to your
(19:47):
operating costs, usually, in America.
You know, I hate to keep comparingthat, but that's where I'm from.
You know, I remember when I got thejob at MTA 10 years ago in Baltimore.
There was a law on the books inour state that said we had to
have a 50% farebox recovery ratio.
Wow.
50.
And we were breaking the lawevery day when I took the job.
So that soon got changed bythe state legislature, 25%.
(20:08):
And then we still weren'thitting that on bus service.
We were hitting it on computer trains.
We ran computer trains.
Then they dropped it completely,and I think it's down to 15% now.
as a farebox recovery ratio.
What's your, what's yourstory up here on that?
Woohoo.
Um, I would love to only have to hit 15%.
I could, I could do that honestly withthe get, get back what I closed up.
Wow.
What is it, uh, in Canada particularly,I'll say in Ontario, the sort of tried
(20:33):
and true is 50% fair bucks recovery?
50%. 50% is the goal.
there are transit agencies that exceedthat and there are others that don't.
I would say, you know, postpandemic, I know you don't
wanna talk about it anymore.
Yeah, that's Sure.
Yeah.
But we're.
Still in Mississauga, we're stilla little lower than the 50%,
but we're certainly over the 45.
So we kind of sit in that pocket.
(20:54):
Oh, dude, that's amazing.
Yeah.
We sit in that pocket and I, I don'tthink that that's a bad space to be in.
And what's the
cost to ride your bus?
Uh, $4 and 50 cents is the cash fair.
But then like one way.
Yes.
You get on, you pay four 50 or you tapyour card, tap your card, most likely.
Yeah.
But then
you get a transfer and you get,you know, two hour transfer.
Yeah.
So you can do whatever youcan do on board in a two hour.
(21:14):
Oh, okay.
Window.
Yeah.
We offer monthly passes.
We offer, you know, discounts, discounts,discounts for low income students, low
incomes, seniors ride our buses for free.
So there's a suite.
Oh, seniors ride free.
They do.
That's pretty awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
65 and up ride for free.
Okay.
So there's a suite of fair optionsthat are offered, and we try to make
sure that there's a, a fair productoffering that benefits every single
(21:38):
demographic on board our buses.
So what do you think the goal ought to be?
Is it, is it like a law or if the50% thing, or just a standard?
It's, it's not a law.
Okay.
Sort of a, it's a standard, it's nota super official standard, but it's
usually the benchmark that most ofU.S. will, will hold ourselves to.
Yeah.
I think 50%, like I said, there'ssome agencies that meet it with ease.
(21:59):
Yeah.
Um, and exceed it.
And that's great for them.
I think it, again, depends on whatyour base price of your fares are.
It's hard to compare.
Yeah.
Um, and when you're looking at aplace like the ttc, which is arguably.
significantly larger than U.S.
Are they the largest in Canada?
Yeah.
I would say certainly in Ontario,
(22:21):
them and TransLink areprobably the two big ones.
Yeah.
I mean,
certainly TTCs the largest in Ontario.
Yeah.
And you could stack me anda few of my neighbors up and
we still wouldn't come close.
Okay.
so we sort of hold themalmost in their own bucket.
They're not a directcomparator to any of U.S.
Yeah.
Yep.
So that's good.
Interesting.
So that, so you think it's about right.
I mean, I think that it, itis good when you think of the
(22:42):
cost of delivering our service.
I think it's a fair trade off for thelevel of service we provide the community.
Interesting.
you mentioned you're moving into zeroemission buses, you're starting the
hydrogen and you're, you're maybe gettingsome electric and you've had hybrid.
Have you had any adoption challenges?
I remember a couple years ago, you allhad a very bad winter all across Canada,
(23:02):
and I remember I went to Edmonton,I went all across the country and
talked to CEOs and they're all like.
Dude, Paul.
Battery buses aren't cutting itfor U.S. Uh, it's too cold up here.
We're getting a hundred miles orwhatever kilometers up here out of a
full charge, and it's just not workingfor U.S. We gotta look at other things.
CNG, hydrogen, whatever.
Alberta's big.
So what are you guys doing there?
How's, how's your adoption going?
(23:23):
So we don't have them in service yet.
Okay.
So it's kind of hard tosay what it will be like.
But what I can say is the OEMs thatservice the Canadian market have
heard and learned from the earlyexperiences with some of the different
transit properties across the country.
and they know that the weather is.
An issue for U.S. and they knowthat the climate is up and down.
(23:46):
Amount of snowfall can varywidely from one year to another.
But at the end of the day, I know themanufacturers have been working really,
really hard to make a battery withlonger range, and that is more protected
against some of the wild climate changes.
Yeah, I, I think that's why you'llalways see a bit of a balance in a fleet.
I don't know that you'll ever see a largeagency go all in one fuel type only.
(24:11):
Yeah.
I think you kind of have to have a mix.
to kind of protect yourself and coveryour bases and play the odds a little bit.
So you've been here, four or five months.
what's your game plan like, what areyou hoping to accomplish over, do
you have like a vision of what youwanna do over the next few years or?
That's looked to the future.
Yeah, so I've been aroundhere for four months.
I've been in the transitindustry for 25 years.
(24:31):
Yeah.
But I've been at my way for fourmonths, and so I've really spent
the time getting to know the staff,getting to know the city, getting
to figure out what the city'svision is for transit in the future.
And what I know is with the city buildingprojects like the LRT, like a downtown
Mobility hub, like improvements toour existing conventional bus network.
(24:55):
We are uniquely poised tocontinue to deliver a better
regionally connected system.
And I look even at the basics,like let's get the on time
service delivery up to standards.
It's great to have the lofty plans, butyou gotta make sure that your base service
on the road is a good quality product.
(25:16):
So we're gonna spend some timelooking down the road at the future.
But we're also gonna spend some timefocusing on the frontline operations
and making sure we've got everything'sin ship shape before we try to
bite off fancy, big new projects.
Right.
That's, I mean, when you look atsports, that's what they do, right?
Yep.
Coach comes in and says, all right,back to the basics, fundamentals,
then we can work the fancy stuff,
(25:37):
build the team.
Yep.
Yeah, for sure.
That's great.
So you said you've beenin transit for 25 years.
Tell me about your background.
Uh, so I started my career inpublic transit at the London
Transit Commission Okay.
In 1999 as the customer service manager.
I needed a job and they were hiring.
I had no idea.
And I, when I walked through the doorsof that building on that July day in
(25:57):
1999, that I found my life's work.
Oh, wow.
No clue.
Yeah.
Went in, worked with the teamthere, really enjoyed it.
Moved over to operationsafter about a year and a half.
someone retired and they said,well, we think you could do this.
And that was a unique choice.
I was a very young woman at the time.
(26:17):
I was in my early thirties.
I had never driven a bus.
I really had no labor backgroundto speak of just the, you
know, year and a half I'd had.
Um, so they took a chance on meand I spent the next nine years
working as the ops manager there.
Learned the business, learned how towork with the union, negotiate contracts,
accident, collision, investigation,all of the good operational stuff.
(26:42):
Learned it from the ground up.
Had some great colleagues who werevery generous with their expertise.
Stepped out of public transit for 13years to become the CAO of, uh, school
busing consortium in southwestern Ontario.
So it was the city ofLondon, Elgin County.
Middlesex County, Oxford Countyran about 1100 routes every day.
(27:03):
That was 60,000 transported students.
It was, uh, special needsstudents and regular yellow
bus service with contractors.
So.
Really learned their governance, builtan organization from the ground up,
worked with the Ministry of Educationand the local elected officials.
but I always knew Iwould go back to transit.
It was just a matterfor me of when or where.
(27:26):
And I became fortunate when thedirectorship opened up at the
Hamilton Street Railway at HSR.
So I took that position on,spent four years there, loved it.
Great team in Hamilton.
but when the chance cameto take the third largest.
Agency in the province.
Yeah.
That I could not turn down.
And that's how I've landed in Mississauga.
That's great.
So that's my background and career.
(27:47):
Awesome.
And sitting right across fromyou is your successor, right?
You got
it.
Yeah.
She sure is.
So we're gonna interview hernext for the next podcast.
Yeah.
This has been great.
Anything else you wanna talkabout before we wrap it up?
Any other thoughts or contemplationsafter 25 years in the industry
and four months in your new gig?
I really think that publictransit makes a huge difference
(28:08):
in the communities that we serve.
And I have seen firsthandthat impact at every level.
And I think that's the beautifulthing about what we do all day for
a living, is really be able to be acommunity builder in the first instance.
and you know, that said, I still lovewatching the bus yard come to life
in the early hours of the morning.
(28:29):
I love hanging out in the driver's room.
And, playing dominoes or shooting thebreeze with the, with frontline staff.
And that's a part of me as a leaderthat I never want to lose, is the
connection to the people that turn thewrenches, the people that turn the wheel.
because they are the first, they'rethe alpha omega of our systems.
Full stop.
Yeah.
I can't do what I do withoutthem doing what they do.
(28:52):
So that's great.
I forgot to ask you about like,personal stuff, like, uh, yeah, yeah.
So let's do that.
Before we wrap up, tell me anythingyou wanna tell me about your
personal life, your hobbies, yourpets, all that kind of stuff.
Whatever you wanna tell me.
I will say I am the proudmother of two adult children.
We have a 23-year-old daughter who'sdoing a master's degree and a 20-year-old
son who's in his, uh, third year ofa business administration program.
(29:15):
And he's studying supply chain andlogistics, which he confidently
told me when he was 18, hadnothing to do with transit.
Um, and then he has confidently told meat 20 he was wrong and mom was in fact.
Correct.
Okay, there you go.
So that, that was kind ofa cool close shape shift.
and I think I would like to say thatmy cash fair is $4 and 25 cents.
(29:36):
Okay.
Four 50 is next.
Steers by,
uh, we're
making news today.
Yeah, that's great.
Okay.
Any
pets or anything?
Uh, recently lost our13-year-old golden retriever.
Oh, Finnegan.
That's terrible.
He was the, he was just,he was a special boy.
Uh, not the world's brightest dog, butcertainly the world's most loving dog.
(29:58):
Uh, and we have an 18-year-oldcat, 18-year-old cat.
Yeah.
And she is.
Frankly, she loves my husband the most.
Let's just leave.
She's his, she's his cat.
She loves him and she tolerates me.
Okay.
And last question.
Music.
What kind of music do you listen to?
Oh man.
I'm old enough to listen toalmost anything on the radio.
(30:19):
Yeah,
I love all kinds of music.
You can put fifties music on andI'll sing along quite confidently.
Uh, all the way up to kind of modern pop.
a huge jazz fan.
but really.
Country.
Yeah, classic country, ninetiescountry has some good stuff.
When's the last, what's thelast concert you went to?
Taylor Swift.
What is it?
Taylor Swift.
Oh, Taylor,
you went to Toronto Swift.
Oh sure.
(30:39):
Oh, that's good.
I would pay any amount of money to go.
Did you ride transit
to it?
I did actually.
Did you?
Yeah.
You betcha.
We drove to Burlington and took thego train into Toronto and went and
saw the concert and it was amazing.
That's
great.
Well, that's a great way to end it.
Thank you so much forbeing with U.S. today.
You're very welcome.
It's been great to getting toknow you and I wish you all
the success as you continue to.
Move into this area of managing one ofthe biggest transit systems in Canada.
(31:01):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for listening to this episodeof Transit Unplugged, the world's
number one transit executive podcast.
I'm Julie Gates, executiveproducer of the podcast.
Many thanks to the teamthat makes this show happen.
Host and producer, Paul Comfort,producer Chris O'Keeffe editor
(31:21):
Patrick Emile associate producer CyndiRaskin and consultants Dan Meisner
and Jonas Woos at Bumper Transit.
Transit Unplugged is beingbrought to you by Modaxo.
Passionate about movingthe world's people.
If you would enjoy behind the scenesinsights and updates from the show.
Sign up for our weekly newsletter, whichhas links to can't-miss Conversations
with the biggest names in mobility.
(31:44):
Head to transitunplugged.com and scrollto the bottom of the page to sign up.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch youon the next episode of Transit Unplugged.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.