City
TTC Customer Service Panel recommendations only scratch the surface of Toronto's transit problems
The TTC's Customer Service Advisory Panel released its findings on Monday morning at the Ted Rogers School of Management. The report, titled Improving The TTC Experience: Laying the Tracks for a New Era of Customer Service, contains 78 recommendations to improve service.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the first recommendation is for the creation of a Customer Service Officer.
Gary Webster, TTC Chief General Manager, and Adam Giambrone listened silently at the back of the room as panel chair Steve O'Brien spoke to the media. After the conference, Giambrone and Webster welcomed the committee's recommendations and promised to hire a Customer Service Officer immediately.
In a statement released after the conference, Mayor David Miller said: "This report finds that while the TTC is an excellent transit system, staffed by a dedicated and professional workforce, there is room for improvement.... I am pleased that the commission and management will be acting swiftly on the report's recommendations to ensure it gets even better."
The TTC will report back in September with a detailed work plan explaining how it'll go about implementing the rest of the recommendations. But even though Mayor Miller wouldn't acknowledge this, the report only scratches the surface of the TTC's problems.
Last January when the sleeping booth collector photo first appeared, anger with the TTC peaked to new levels. Bad customer service and dirty subway stations were among the reasons, but this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Riders have been dealing with an inefficient and limited transit system for decades, and they just couldn't take it anymore. Fixing customer service issues will help, but rider anger is bound to return if broader issues aren't addressed.
While I'm happy that this report was released I'm worried it might be an excuse for the TTC to limit its vision. What we really need is for the TTC, along with the entire city, to push for an expanded transit system that can take us to more destinations faster.
A friendly booth collector might be pleasant, but it's only a token gesture as long as driving remains, in many cases, a more comfortable and faster way to get around the city. It won't be easy to build a superior transit system -- history has proven that -- but we mustn't be satisfied with these "soft" service improvements, when the system is in dire need of additional vehicles and expanded underground and surface routes.
But, I suppose this is at least a step in the right direction.
Here are some highlights of the panel's proposals (full PDF here):
- The hiring of a Chief Customer Service Officer "whose sole responsibility is to ensure that everyone within the organization understands what constitutes good service."
- An image/brand improvement plan, which would include community involvement, public sessions on transit, a customer appreciation day, and a marketing campaign focused on positive public relations.
- Communication with customers should be improved with touch-screen information kiosks, improved direction and platform screens, and the addition of signs at station entrances to highlight delays across the system.
- The installation of screens at collector booths, buses, and streetcars to inform riders of delays or when vehicles reach capacity.
- Updated subway and streetcar maps, and providing real time updates on the TTC website.
- A review of customer service training for TTC employees.
- Convenient fare systems are recommended that offer customers the capability to pay fares using non-cash methods such as credit or debit cards.
- More emphasis should be placed on up keeping amenities, such as bathrooms and water fountains, and on providing healthy food choices.
- Finally, the report also chastises rude riders and says that customers must do their part by following regulations and by-laws. "Courtesy is a two-way street...Throughout CSAP's work, it became apparent that not all customers are courteous and respectful," the report says.
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Translated from the bureaucratese:
"Expensive stuff that we've never used and will likely break will make a short-lived but flashy show of addressing systemic problems we're simply too stubborn, lazy or unable to solve."
Worst of all the report doesn't talk about the implementation of a "smart" fare card - Hamilton has them, people - but the possibility that we may have them one day. Which is so insulting that I'm amazed - once again - that Adam Giambrone hasn't been burned in effigy weekly for that past five years.
Let's make it fun, people!
It's stunning that in the year 2010, TTC will have to HIRE someone to tell their employees that it's not appropriate to tell people to go screw themselves, fall asleep on the job, or threaten violence.
And forget what I said about the fare cards - another thing that'll be sourced poorly, implemented badly, and maintained with dismal results. Sometimes despair seems like the only sane reaction.
Better "hard signs" in some of the stations (such as where to exit!!!) would be helpful.
So when IS the next fare hike? I'm only guessing it's going to happen because Giam(boner) will announce it soon because he was told to clean up. He doesn't like anyone to tell him what to do, so he makes everyone suffer for being short sighted.
Updated subway and streetcar maps, and providing real time updates on the TTC website.
the rest the TTC will say they are too broke to do.
1. Make the politician oversight for the TTC be a SEPARATE elected position, not a plum job handed out by a mayor to an inexperienced friend. Think like the USA who elect Sheriff, Judges...you have to have the necessary industry qualifications first, then run with a vision.
2. Make the TTC an essential service as it is the lifeflow of most of the city's inhabitants or should be given economic and environmental considerations.
3. Vision: A FREE public transit within 25 years, with necessary support from federal and provincial governments.
4. Stop having engineers running the TTC like its somebody's railway system. We already know it doesn't work in traffic gridlock, plus - engineers have no concept of customer service. People don't need cars in convoys passing them by - they need thoughtful drivers who wait at connecting intersections when they see a crowd.
5. A public suggestion website where everyone's ideas are posted and others able to comment or enhance them freely.
Why do we need more of the same spin, hiring a customer service guru and politicians putting their stamp on a (no doubt) edited report filled with "happy thoughts"...
Citizen participation, not empty rhetoric please.
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Doesn't someone on the TTC already have this role in their job description? I'm pretty sure that all TTC employees get some kind of training (as minimal as it seems to be) that was implemented by a higher up who wrote the guidelines. Oh, right, that would mean waking that over-payed underachiever from their nap. My bad. Better to hire someone new to do the same job.
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"An image/brand improvement plan, which would include community involvement, public sessions on transit, a customer appreciation day, and a marketing campaign focused on positive public relations."
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Image improvement will only help if there is an actual image that you can keep up. You can spend tons of money on an ad campaign speaking about the virtues of TTC employees while it slowly pans over the faces of smiling TTC employees, but it won't last for long if that same employee calls you a profanity on your morning commute.
And how about instead of "public sessions on transit" we have some "internal sessions on transit" that would teach TTC employees that transit is for moving the citizens of the city, not for earning exorbitant wages for minimal work.
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"Communication with customers should be improved with touch-screen information kiosks, improved direction and platform screens, and the addition of signs at station entrances to highlight delays across the system."
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This recommendation reminds me of those people who buy a $300 car that is about 6 months away from the scrap heap and they put $500 rims and a spoiler on the back. You need the basics to work before you go putting unnecessary bells and whistles on everything.
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Updated subway and streetcar maps, and providing real time updates on the TTC website.
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That would be useful.
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A review of customer service training for TTC employees.
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Wow, an actual recommendation that reflects the general public sentiment of what the TTC needs to do.
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Convenient fare systems are recommended that offer customers the capability to pay fares using non-cash methods such as credit or debit cards.
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Wow, another good recommendation. It would have been a good thing to implement in 1990, but at least it's a start.
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More emphasis should be placed on up keeping amenities, such as bathrooms and water fountains, and on providing healthy food choices.
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I agree with the first two, but please don't waste my tax money on deciding what snacks TTC vendors should sell.
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Finally, the report also chastises rude riders and says that customers must do their part by following regulations and by-laws. "Courtesy is a two-way street...Throughout CSAP's work, it became apparent that not all customers are courteous and respectful," the report says.
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I as a rider try and fit in to my surroundings when I'm riding the TTC, so I tend to be rude to the staff it they are rude to me. If they are nice, I'm nice. But don't ask me to do any favors by trying to cheer up obnoxious TTC employees. They get paid much more than I do for much less work.
If you want to something great for every single patron, then install ergonomic seats!! Those red back-breaking seats you have now couldn't be more uncomfortable and unhealthy.
and then what, not like management really has the power to outright fire anybody for not following these guidelines. We all know the union will fight tooth & nail and usually wins over management. waste of time.
If Vancouver can run the skytrain with no train operators, fare kiosks and roaming staff rather than sleepy and impersonal behind a glass booth staff, the TTC will be light years ahead of where it's at today.
Just get those slow, lumbering, useless streetcars out of my way!
1. TTC must stop blaming the customer, and stop using bad customers as an excuse to give crap service. TTC employees use rude customers as an excuse to be rude to every single customer, which in turn make customers be rude to TTC employees because the impression from the paying public is that they are all neanderthals. It's a vicious circle. If TTC employees were helpful and friendly they would probably find far less rude customers, and i'm sure the number of assualts and confrontations would go down drastically. You don't hear about LCBO employees getting spitting on.
2. TTC must actually be empowered to discipline and remove the problem employees. They are the cancer that created and perpetuate the "screw the public, me first" culture amongst the employees.
There are far too many cars - but people blamelessly prefer to drive because our public transit system is a joke.
Streetcars need to be retired - the tracks are dangerous for cyclists, they hold up traffic on main thoroughfares with no left turn lanes and street parking, and they leave customers waiting endlessly in rough winter weather. The subway and stations are filthy and the routes largely outdated and ineffective. I doubt that TTC workers are going to get any more friendly because they are told to be. The whole system needs not just an overhaul, but an entire re-do.
The TTC evidently did not do much "big picture" thinking back in the 60s when Eglinton was as north as it got. The system has truly not grown to accommodate the city's population nor its burgeoning neighbourhoods.
One of the most expensive transit systems in North America, and one of the least effective. TTC = fail.
Absolutely hostile, downright rude, mean TTC employees are now a daily occurrence.
This is absolutely not acceptable at any level, no matter how you spin it.
We are not talking about merely poor customer service.
We are talking about being abusive, rude, hostile and aggressive -- in a way that borderlines assault.
This is not accept.
I am sorry -- I don't care how the Mayor or TTC wish to spin it.