Hello all as we approach five o'clock, I just wanted to do a brief welcome and then let you know that we are going to start about 505 when they allow time to for everyone to get on. So again, we're going to start about 505 which has been kind of customary For this one to get on and Say, Hello, You.
A recording in progress. Sorry
about the Pause. I wanted to make sure we were recording. Well, good evening, everyone. My name is ayabami Bell Torrance, and I am the Outreach Manager for DDOT. Just want to thank you all for joining us tonight for our monthly community input meeting, a special welcome for anyone that has joined us for the first time. Of course, we value this opportunity to hear your comments and questions and look forward to sharing our updates. But first, I would like to turn it to our Interim Executive Director for opening remarks. Mr. Staley, thank
you. Miss Torrance, not much in the way of opening remarks. Just would reiterate what you just said. Welcome to everybody. Appreciate your time and attention tonight, we look forward to providing you with some updates on some critical matters, and welcome your input. So with that, I will turn it back to miss Torrence. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Well, that means it's time now for our meeting. Rules, which are quite simple, no personal attacks or foul language will be tolerated that's verbally or in our chat. Once that is open, we do ask that you please respect the time limit of two minutes during our public comments, you will be muted for going over, and if time allows, of course, you will have another opportunity to speak. Also know by participating in the Zoom meeting, you are granting permission for your name, image and likeness, as well as audio and video recordings to be used by DDOT. So before asking a question or commenting, please be sure to unmute your audio, state your name and organization and following your comments, mute your audio
by participating in the Zoom meeting, you are granting permission for your name, image and likeness, as I mentioned earlier, as audio and video records be used by DDOT, but also to request to comment, you can simply raise your hand if You are using the dial in only phone option, enter star nine that will serve as the raise hand feature to request to speak or ask a question. Of course, you'll be able to submit questions or comments to DDOT staff in the chat. Once that is open,
we're going to start first with DDOT when it comes to the on improve Detroit app. So if you didn't know, we have been had this feature for about a year, but this is a great opportunity to remind you of it. So DDOT wants to remind and encourage you that if you would like to report shelters that need our attention as including issues like cleaning broken glass missing or broken benches, please report it on the city's improve Detroit app. Now if you don't already have the app, you can download it from the Apple Store or Google Play. Now we're going to show briefly, a brief tutorial that will show it is also available on the improve Detroit website. You
it's four easy steps to report any issue to the city using the improve Detroit app, download the app from the App Store or Google Play. Start by clicking on the orange button. Including a photo is very helpful. Choose one from your phone, or snap one on the spot, submit a request as a guest, or if you want updates, register or sign in to an existing account. Help Improve Detroit. Download the app today.
Kristen, the sound play, but I don't think the video advanced that time
I was listening for the sound.
Okay,
the sound did work. The sound
did work. This is one of those. It worked earlier, so now it's messing with us. Okay, very
easy steps to report any issue to the city using the improve Detroit app, download the app from the App Store or Google Play. Start by clicking on the orange button. Including a photo is very helpful. Choose one from your phone or snap one on the spot. Submit a request as a guest or if you want updates, register or sign in to an existing account. Help Improve Detroit. Download the app today.
Okay, give me one moment to get Situated. Please. You.
Okay, we back up. We are back up. Awesome. Okay, sorry that brief. We just wanted to give everyone an opportunity to see that video. But again, if you did have issues or would like to see it again, it is on the improve Detroit app. But also, if you need to see the bus shelter issues, once again, you will confirm that location, specifically for DDOT, you'll scroll to the city of Detroit section, and then you will select bus shelter issues, and it will look a little bit differently if you're using an iPhone or Android. And speaking of bus shelters, the replacement shelter program is beginning the installation process for the first 60 shelters. Now, this will take several months, but we are happy to report that progress is underway, and the following shelter locations have been completed. That's Dexter and Finkle, West Grand Boulevard and Rosa Parks West Grand Boulevard and 14th westbound and West Grand Boulevard in second. And you're taking a look at what they'll look like, it's one of the shelters. And also there are plans, of course, for 100 more shelters that's a mix of new and replacements to be installed within the next two years. Now, locations for new and replacement shelters are selected and prioritized based on DDOT title six program plan which incorporates service standards for bus stop amenities. You asked, we answered. We like to point out that a passenger informed us of a missing westbound bus stop sign that was at Clark and Fourth Street, and we were able to report tonight that that sign has been replaced. So it's a reminder that we are receiving your feedback and we're working on it. So we would like to thank you for your patience as we continue to work and address issues and concerns that are reported to us. Moving now to the proposed service changes, enhancements for january 2025, so five, starting with the four woodwork to improve daytime frequency to every 12 minutes on weekdays and downtown routing changes to layover on Times Square at Rosa Parks transit center. Here's just a little brief look at the map of what that would look like. And of course, this information will be online, and we will have more information later as well. So moving more into that for the Michigan two, Michigan five, Van Dyke, Lafayette and 31 Mac effort is to improve daytime peak frequency to 20 minutes on weekdays, to improve midday base to every 15 minutes on weekdays. That's for the three Grand River, 77 mile and 10 Greenfield, the one Verner and five vandat Lafayette, the 45 minute daytime frequency on Sundays. And we're going to improve Saturday daytime service to every 20 minutes for the three Grand River sis gratchet and seven Seven Mile, the 17, eight mile. For those enhancements to improve midday Base Service to every 20 minutes on the weekdays the 18th Finkel, improved daytime frequency to every 40 minutes on weekdays and eight worn 30 minute daytime frequency on Saturdays and 45 minute daytime frequencies on Sundays. For the 29 Lynnwood, the improvement would be 50 minute daytime seven days a week. And for the 23 Hamilton, John R improvement would be 45 minute peak weekday service. Now for Saturday and Sunday span improvements, most will run from seven eight to 9pm and you'll see there's several routes, but I'll go over them, 12, Conant 13, Connor, 15, Chicago, Davison, 18, Finkel, 23 Hamilton, 27 joy, 29 Lynwood, 30 live Inouye, 38 Plymouth, 39 Puritan, 41 Schaefer, the 42 mid city loop, 43 Schoolcraft, 52 shame, 54 Wyoming, 67 Cadillac harbor and 68 Chalmers. Again, that's Saturday and Sunday span improvements, and most will run from seven in the morning to nine at night. Also improve weekday peak performance frequency from 20 to 15 minutes. And this is a look back of what the change that we've already done in June. So reminder, in case you missed it and or weren't aware, for the three Grand River, Seven Mile and 10 Greenfield, we improved the weekday peak frequency from 20 to 15 minutes. And then the eight warrant and 60 evergreen, we improved the weekday peak frequency from 30 to 20 minutes. So hopefully you have noticed those changes. And of course, in June, we also the timetables for the route serving the Jason Hargrove transit center were adjusted for more accurate and reliable service. And those are the four woodwork, 17, eight mile, 54 Wyoming, 12, Conant and 30 Livernois now improve weekday frequency, also from 60 to 45 minutes on 11 routes. And I won't go over those, but those are on the website, and which is the full list of June service changes, including more details on the proposed January service changes also are available. So I know that was a lot of information, but don't worry, we will be having a public hearing, and we'll be able to go over that more in detail, but I just wanted to, we wanted to introduce it tonight, so that you can be prepared. And speaking of that, that will be take place on october 17, that will be in place of our normal community input meeting. So before that time or afterwards, you will be able to submit comments, and you can do that through email DDOT comments@detroitmi.gov you can also mail those comments in Detroit Department of Transportation attention, January 2025, hearing, 100 Mack Avenue, Detroit, 48201, again. This information is already on our website, and more flyers and information will be circulating soon as well. So let's turn now to our DDOT Teo status. So DDOT Currently has 468 active operators and 30 inactive operators. You moving to DDOT paratransit. DDOT now update. The pre proposal conference was held on Monday, August 19, 10 vendors attended. Questions were submitted by prospective bidders by the due date of Friday that was August 23 and answers were provided to the OCP on Tuesday the 27th now, technical and pricing proposals are due by Monday that September 23 start date for DDOT now is Monday, January 6, and that's pending Detroit City Council approval. We're also want to give an update on the interactive voice response that IVR, that is a pilot project for ADA service that day before notifications to be sent out and same day alerts of 15 to 20 minutes before the vehicle arrival. Now the target date is also j is January of next year, and pending Detroit City Council approval moving to DDOT in the community while, of course, we didn't have our community meeting last month, but we were still out there. So here's just a few shots of some of the events that we attended at Wayne State University and also the East Side Community Network transportation fair. That leads us to our upcoming meeting, as I mentioned before, the DDOT public hearing on those January service changes will take place Thursday, October 17, at five, the local advisory council meeting. That next meeting will be Tuesday. November 19, that's at 10am and then our next regular community input meeting will be Thursday. November 21 same time as usual, at five. That is all the updates I have from this presentation. Of course you can please stay tuned on our website, detroitmi.gov, forward slash DDOT, and we encourage you to follow us on social media for the latest that's Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. At ride DDOT, I'm going to as we prepare to turn it over to public comments. Just give us some brief moment as we transition.
Miss Torrance. One quick update. I know it was late while we were doing preparations for the slides for tonight, but we did graduate 38 new TEOs today. So that puts up the active number to 506, so good job by Safety and Training Department. And we've got approximately 103 students currently in various stages of training.
Thanks so much for that. It's great news to report, the chat is now open Kristen, and I'm going to pull up the timer.
Okay, okay,
Mr. Cunningham, you can
be our
can lead us off. You.
Hello,
yes, go ahead. Can
I get two minutes back? I'm sorry. Is there any dignitaries in this meeting? How many people are in the meeting? We need to do hybrid meetings. People have been requesting that from me. Did they have hybrid meetings again? Maybe from Rosa Parks transit center. There's a miss Billingsley. She should be online, and she's talking about some paratransit issues, which paratransit is doing really well. But I like to know the on time performance, the on time performance for DDOT is still hovering around 70. And that is great news, that you have 38 TEOs graduating today. That is great, great news.
So I was curious about the thought of but when I laminate the flyers about the input meeting and other meetings, I was wondering if you guys have started taking those to the libraries and putting them near the area where the schedules are being posted. And also, you know, at the transit centers, I see all the things that they have done. They have the onboard signage. Hargrove and Rosa Parks has signage about the LAC meeting, and also about the input meetings. I see you. I see y'all doing it. But again, about the posting up near the schedules there in the libraries. I've done a few myself, and they've posted it up. So basically, a dignitaries. How many people are in the meeting? Yeah, that's it.
Got 34 attendees and 17 panelists. So that's various administrators, staffers, etc. I don't see that anybody has identified themselves as as a dignitary,
and if I could in the last
couple is there any way you could tell me if there you guys are still having the meetings put on cable TV? Is that still the case? And what is the on time ratio? And imma, let it go there, the on time ratio.
I'll let you guys talk about cable, then I'll do on time performance real quick.
We did not stop the cable, so it should be, as far as our knowledge, we can check into it, but it's not something that we stopped. So it was something that was should continue.
And let me talk about on time performance, if I could just a little bit. So the last couple of weeks, we produce weekly metrics that are shared internally and then with the public health and safety Standing Committee as one of our eight KPIs on a quarterly basis, on time performance still is well below the service standard of 85% last couple of weeks, it's been about 66% across the board combination of factors, one is vehicle availability. So one of the major impacts on on time performances. If we have to cut blocks out of the service or if we have to delay departures from either Gilbert or Shoemaker terminals, obviously that's going to have a direct impact on on time performance. So as we continue to increase the to headcount, we'll be able to expand our extra board, which will allow us to have more standby coverage and virtually eliminate any kind of cuts or weights based on driver availability we are our goal is to get up to and maintain a minimum of 200 revenue vehicles available for weekday service. Right now we're lingering around 180 to 185 our vehicle maintenance department is working on getting that number up that will also help to improve on time performance. The other thing you should be aware of is we do have a active service reliability committee with five working groups. We've identified what we call the Dirty Dozen, the 12 worst performing routes from a service reliability point of view, and also the 25 drivers that are that are performing well below the standard. Got a combination of efforts in that regard. One is increased service monitoring out on the street by the service inspectors. The other one is through the control center. What we are our first aim is to eliminate the early part of of Route performance. So if you figure that we're doing about 66% the service standards, 85% so we're about 19% substandard. We've identified that about 7% of that are early operating blocks that's can be directly controlled by the control center. We're looking at the early part of the of the service to eliminate that prove on time performance by approximately 7% and then step up our service monitoring, focusing primarily on those 12 routes, and there's 25 drivers to see if that remaining 12% late service we can improve upon as well. We recognize that when we're late, you're late to the job, to the school, to the doctor's appointment, whatever the case might be. We are not pleased with where we are right now, but we're going to we're going to continue to work it from the to point of view, from the vehicle availability point of view and from active service monitoring.
Mr. Staley, is there any way possible the busses that are broken and you're short on mechanics? Can you get private contractor mechanics, is that violation of the contract, or, you know what I'm saying, like, come outside the union to get some of that, that mechanic work done. I was just curious. Now,
that's a good question. It would be something outside of the collective bargaining agreement, and I'm sure that there would be plenty of pushback from the from the bargaining unit. Mr. Joy, what's, what's the current, what's current count on general automotive mechanics?
We currently have a 83 general auto mechanics active.
Okay, so while the numbers so while we're not fully staffed, we're a lot better off than we were a year ago. I think we were somewhere in the below 70 on general automotive mechanics. So we've been able to we've been able to recruit and hire and actually train, because oftentimes we've got general automotive mechanics that are coming in with some basic skills, but obviously there's a specialized set of skills required for 40 foot or 60 foot transit coaches, so we will continue to do that. One of the other things I need to point out, because this is while it's within the control of vehicle maintenance, it's a reality. Here at DDOT, we've got 45 vehicles in the 2012 segment of the fleet that are literally at the end of their useful life. So the FDA defines the useful life of a transit coach at 12 years or 500,000 miles. And so while the bus procurement is underway for the replacement of the 2012 fleet, we've got 45 vehicles. Half of those vehicles are down on any given day, just as a reflection of how long and how hard they've run. So that's one of the things that we're up against. We will we will try to expedite. Mr. Joy and his group did a really good job on the procurement front, finding a bus purchase contract that we could piggyback on and kind of move up in the line, if you will, on that contract. But reality is that those replacement vehicles for the 4520 12 are not going to be in here till the summer and fall of 2025 i
Great. Thank you. Our next hand up is Mr. Pavlovsky,
good evening. Can everyone hear me? Well, yes, go ahead. Awesome. My connection's going and now, so I just want to make sure thank you again for the wonderful report. Mr. Staley and the DDOT staff. I'm very impressed to see all the work. My name is Robert. Thank you. I don't really want to get too much in the weeds. I just I'm very happy to see a lot of the plans that we're trying to implement over the next few months, especially the January service changes, and also working more to fix a lot of the bus stops in the city and be able to improve infrastructure, and working with city council on a ton of different projects related to paratransit. So I'm very grateful to seeing all the progress being loaded on and just seeing it progress into the next year. The only question that I would probably propose is, is there a plan in the southwest Detroit portion of the city to replace a lot of the bus shelters, get new bus shelters, like, for example, on Ford Street, on liver noise, and potentially looking at rerouting some other routes to serve better destinations and have improved frequency once we get into the new year, those are the only questions I have. I think, you know, really focusing on other portions of the city where it's really, you know, high demand is really the biggest key to improving the service. I know it's DDOT reimagine stuff, but, you know, as a temporary fix, we need reliable service, not just in all portions of the city. I mean, all portions of the city. Look at Southwest Detroit. The only actually good route is one burner and Michigan when it wants to show up. But you also have key routes that are very priority too. When are we going to start to see improvements in southwest Detroit for a lot of riders there and other areas where they're very marginalized and don't have frequent service, like other parts, like seven mile, those are my questions. But other than that, wonderful plan, I give big credits to the DDOT staff, and you, Mr. Staley, for a tremendous job, and I look forward to seeing more great progress. Keep up the good work. Okay,
so I can address a lot of those questions. Now, if you saw the presentation a few minutes ago, we have been improving some of those roles in southwest Detroit and and also things like the one voting role once in our Sundays, where taking care of that gradually but we want, of course, we don't ridership to go up now. And as far as shelters go, those also depend on to the under ridership. We have a point system to determine whether a bus stop wants a shelter and and I believe there may be a couple in the next batch. So Jonathan might be able to address that, or, or Ricky if, yeah,
yeah, as Steve said, we go by the title six service standards, which goes by a point system I can look up and get back to you, Robert, based on the shelters in southwest Detroit. We're not sure about shelters beyond this 60 ad shelter project we're doing this year for the 100 shelter project in excuse me, 2025 and 2026 we are still working on the locations, so we can get back to you on that as well. I hope you answered all my questions, and
definitely look forward to hearing your follow up. I just wanted some clarification on a lot of the route plans in some of these areas, because, like I said, investment, we got to keep that investment going. But other than that, thank you so much. I don't take too much of your time
up. And I think Miss Torrance mentioned it earlier, but in that in October meeting, which will serve as a public hearing as well, we'll do a comprehensive review of all the service changes that have been implemented in in the current calendar year and the ones that are projected for January of 2025, so that everybody can see exactly how many routes had improvements, either in the frequency of the service, the days that they operate, or the span of service as well. So we'll do that in a comprehensive fashion. In October,
you are pulling a lot of double duty. Mr. Staley, I commend you for it. You
Thank you,
Mr. Verse, yours is the next hand up. Whoops, one second. Okay, you should be able to speak now.
Oh, come on. Oh,
there we go. We can hear you. Go ahead. Finally.
Larry Donald versus Detroit people's platform, a couple of the organizations. Good evening, and I will try to keep this short, I have like, basically three questions. One is about the inside of the roast box transit center being closed odd hours, like eight o'clock in the evening and stuff. And there's a serious problem there, because it's one of the only public toilets in that area. It considering that it's hot, sometimes it's a good place that's about the only drinking fountain in the area. Also, also it needs to be made clear, because a lot of people are getting to wonder and express concern that maybe Rosa Park isn't being taken care of because they're going to close it now that they have Jason harbor home. Can somebody please clear that up, especially why it's being closed and it's empty on the inside, in the lobby and there's nobody there, except maybe one person at one time. Another question is, well, clearly there's a shortage of county now. What about other maintenance staff and concerning that, along with that is, uh, how long does it take to get the parts to repair the busses? The third question is, clarity on the updates on the Saturday, Sunday, uh, changes that busses. Some busses will be running from nine to seven. Most will be running from nine from 7am to nine in the morning that night. He said most does that affect busses that are already running on the weekend, but not till nine, but till seven and to seven o'clock in the evening and eight o'clock in the evening on Saturday and Sunday. Thank you. Can
we do these in reverse order? So we'll start with Mr. Patrick on the span of service, and then Mr. Joy can comment about just in general, about whether supply chain issues have been, how large of a problem that is, and then I'll discuss Rosa Parks briefly.
Okay, Steve Patrick's first development schedule. So the roads that were listed for the spare improvements, they are roads that do not probably go from seven in the morning to 9pm on weekends. Okay, so we are expanding the service span on those routes by any earlier and later trips. So with the goal being to have weekend service earlier and later. So we have some routes that don't start service until eight or nine in the morning on weekends, and some that that end up like seven o'clock. I know Wyoming the last trip is at 6pm and I I've seen people after church where they're out there for the bus and and it's not going to come up. So, so we will those roles to don't go on weekends to have that earlier or later service. So the reps that do run late night and someone 24 hours a day, nobody's taking anything away. All of these service changes are additions to service. So the earlier and later trips were added, or additions to service.
And just a comment, Mister Mister Patrick, you're, you are you're muffled a little bit. So just FYI,
yeah, I stood at the you know what? Yeah, it's okay. Mister
joy, can you talk just in general about the availability of parts. How much? How big of an issue that is on vehicle availability?
Good afternoon. Joe joy, Interim Assistant Director of maintenance, so we have a various parts contract to procure bus parts and the diesel and hybrid busses and the electric busses. We are gradually seeing an increase of usage of the HVAC, the heater component, since the majority of the transit agencies are started doing the campaign. So some of the heater cores and some of the filters are seeing a long lead time on it, and overall in the diesel and hybrid vapors in the 30 to 60 day window, we are started, started getting parts. And for the electric busses, we have a Proterra now, newly called Phoenix motors, we are seeing a significant lead times due to their current financial situation when they file the bankruptcy. And some of the parts mean eight months, 10 months, lead time to get those parts. And so that's that's the overall trend currently in the market.
Thank you. Thank
you, sir. Just to dispel any any rumors that may be out there about Rosa Parks, DDOT is not shutting down Rosa Parks. We knew that once we opened up state of the art, Jason Hargrove transit center, that the attention would then shift to Rosa Parks transit center. Basically, Rosa Parks is scheduled to be closed from 12am to 4am for deep cleaning. We have had some security issues at that location. There's essentially two levels of security right now, one provided by Detroit Police Department, 24/7 365, and then we also have our own in house service guards, but we've identified that there still are some gaps in coverage, so we're in the process right now putting together a procurement to supplement the service through an outside security company that's in the works. We hope to have that on the street and begin to supplement that service provided by DPD and our own in house service guards before the end of the year, I would appreciate Mr. Verse particularly if you find out from people, or if you yourself observe it directly off hours when, when it's it's closed down. Please don't hesitate to send me an email. They can also have my phone number. Want to make sure that that that facility is open as often as it needs to be.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Verse. The next hand up is Billingsley. You.
Billingsley, we can hear you now. Go ahead.
Okay. Hi. My name is Kathy, and I was going to this meeting by Cunningham, and my concern is about the Metro lift issues. Can you hear me? Yes.
Please go ahead with your comment.
All right. Now I'm concerned, because right now I've had an issue with the dispatch services. It's hard to get into the dispatch to get your return ride. And if this is happening now, how will it just affect the same day schedule?
So So can I ask a little bit more specific? So when you say, are you calling in on the where's my ride line to find
like, you call in, and they said, well, they'll give you, like a 30 minute. You have the 50. They're going to pick you up at two o'clock to 230 Okay, and then you call back at 230 and you can't get back onto the dispatch again. You can't reach anyone. So I'm wondering, how is this going to affect the same day schedule?
Let me have, let me have somebody from paratransit answer the the first one on the where's my ride line. I just want to make sure that that you're connecting to the to the right prompt in the telephone system for that where's my ride because that should not be an issue of being able to not only connect with a where's my ride agent, but also they've got the Eco Lane scheduling software system right up in front of them, and they can literally pinpoint where that vehicle is. So can somebody just go through that where's my ride feature of the telephone system so we make sure that we're connecting correctly. So
um, this is the first issue heard about uh. Issues with uh, where's my right line? The where's my ride. Line is open, 24/7, we have agents manning it during all of those during all of those hours, so if there is an issue getting in to where's my ride, I was suggested call in and speak with customer care, I believe it's option four, and let them know that you're experiencing those issues, and we can get them addressed immediately,
and that was DeMarcus Garrett, who's our manager too, for paratransit. The other thing that I would just mention is the fact that DDOT paratransit is operating at greater than 98% on time, so the number of trips on any given day, and we all look at those numbers every day, it's it's less than double digits on the number of trips that run late. And I recognize that if your trips running late, doesn't matter what the total number is. But the good news is, DDOT paratransits operating at 98% and above Monday, actually Sunday through Saturday, as it relates to the same day service. Just to go over that briefly, it will literally be same day. So it'll operate from 5am to 7pm Monday through Saturday. Eligible individuals will be able. And eligible individuals are those people that are either currently certified on the ADA service, or in the future, can be certified eligible on the ADA service, will automatically be eligible for the same day service. And basically the way the same day service will operate, it'll be its own standalone, distinctive service from the ADA service. It'll be called DDOT. Now, eventually, we'll rebrand the ADA service to DDOT advance, and the way the same day will operate. Anybody can call in after 5am in the morning request a ride. And if we've got capacity, you'll be able to get a ride within within 60 minutes. The other thing, the other thing about the service same day versus the ADA, it will not be shared ride, so it'll be origin to destination directly.
Okay, so this is going to begin January. What
January? Monday, January 6 is our target date, if everything goes according to plan as it relates to evaluation of the technical proposals and pricing proposals and city council approval happens in due course. Our target date is Monday, January 6.
So will the prices on the ride go up same
same fare that we charge on paratransit, $2.50 per one way ride,
but I have experienced it's hard to get back into the dispatch during the evening, in the afternoons, after two o'clock, really busy. You can't just go busy. Every time you call it, it's just busy.
And if I can, if I mention one other thing, one of the things that we're hoping to have rolled out in in short order is IVR technology, as we mentioned previously in the presentation. We hope that'll take some of the pressure off of the call center, off the telephone system because of the alerts that are being prevented, presented to people day before and in near real time, and then Miss Roby Tanisha Roby, who's our Assistant Director for Administration, one of the things she's working on right now is increasing the number of users for the Mobile App, and as we begin to expand that user base on the mobile app that will that will require fewer and fewer calls into the call center. So those two things, IVR technology and the mobile app, we hope, takes pressure off the call center,
right because the call center seems to be a little overwhelmed right now.
Miss Billingsley, that that is time. All right, thank you.
Thank you, Renard, yours is the next hand up.
Renard, are you available to make your comment?
Sorry, it took a second to unmute. I Bernard raski with Detroit people's platform as an organizer for transit and District Six resident. I wanted to thank the department for shelter installations, especially on West Grand Boulevard off of second, and just wanted to know the status of the ARPA projects, with the shelters to stops and the transit corners that you all were trying to innovate, and then part of that money was supposed to go towards improvements for Rosa Parks. So what is the status with that? But really, I'm particularly interested in where the shelters are being placed, in the seating. And not all stops are going to have shelters. I understand that, but we need more seating, at least that many of these stops, and I'm one of you guys are considering equity. So not just the main routes in the main thoroughfares, but also neighborhood areas as well, too, because people still need to sit or have respite in case there's rain or elements. Um, the other issue or question I have with DDOT reimagine in terms of a plan. Is there going to be a timeline as to what is going to get implemented in DDOT reimagined, and I know this is all contingent upon getting the drivers for their service above 70% on time service. So my next question is, can you clearly convey to us what are the obstacles that's preventing DDOT to getting to 90% on time service for the fixed line and just clear, non technical language and just being transparent with us what is actually going on, and how could we possibly help as writers as well too. Is it the lack of parts? Is it the lack of busses or drivers? It kind of seems unclear, and I want to promote the use of probably 3d printing to get our parts as well. That was something that Larry brought up with city council, and there were some interest in that regard as well, to help your operations.
So if I can answer the last one as clearly as possible, drivers and vehicles, primarily vehicles. Right now we're about 19% below our service standard of 85% on time performance, about 7% of that are drivers operating early. About 12% of that is service operating late. As I mentioned earlier, the steps that we're taking through the service reliability committee, what we're doing through the control center, ie dispatch, what we're doing through the service monitors right now, the biggest issue is vehicle availability that's as that's as clear and transparent as I as I can make it. I'm not sure. I know in the previous presentations, we actually listed where the bus shelters will be. I don't know if it makes sense it I don't know if that's published somewhere, or if it makes sense to bring that back in the October presentation that will help so that people have a better idea of exactly where those 60 shelters for this year are scheduled to be installed. That might be helpful as well.
Yeah, and speaking to that, I'll make sure that that can be available. Okay,
thank you, Mr. Hondurt,
in November, right? Because we had the hearing first.
And Mr. Staley, if you'd like, I can answer the question about the progress on the projects itself. Yes, please.
I know you've got some things in the works too for Rosa Parks. That'd be great. Yeah,
we do. Yeah. So you know, Renard, totally hear you loud and clear, you know, I mean, it's a, it's, it's, you know, partially a bandwidth issue. I mean, we have, we have a drum beat that we have to march to when it comes to the number of projects that we're working on at a particular time. If you kind of imagine Jason harbor Coolidge, 60 shelters, 100 shelters coming up now, you know. And on top of that, we're looking at an onboard camera bus system, as well as installing an upgrade to our fare boxes. We actually have plans when it comes to the transit hubs. It's going to coincide with kind of mentioned before the SS 40, the safety program that DPW has going on. So we don't want to duplicate work. So we're kind of coordinating with them on that particular front, the seating, you know, we we're trying to find the best solution for that. It's not as unfortunately, it's easy when it comes to procuring something that's universally acceptable to all of our community when it comes to using it. So there are a lot of ideas. Benches are not as easy as one is to first consider, but that is actually one of the front runners when it comes to what we're going to put out there. And you know, those are all some of the things. I mean, I would say that as a whole, I think we're seeing a lot of good things, you know, when it comes to that some time frames wise, though, we are looking at trying to wrap a lot of this up before the end of calendar 2025, Rosa Parks is next on the list when it comes to what we're going to do, and getting a team out there to engage the community as well as improving it. So kind of speaking to Mr. Versus question. No, we are. We are not closing it down. We're actually going to do the opposite of it. We're going to improve it. But yeah, we are getting to that point right now and taking off on that.
And I can speak about DDOT reimagining briefly. Can Can everyone hear me? Okay, so all of the improvements we've been making, whether they're spending improvements, frequency improvements, capital improvements, shelter improvements, facility improvements, all of those are moving us in the direction of DDOT reimagined. They're all consistent with DDOT reimagine to actually get to Dwan mentioned we would need to have 900 bus operators, and we would need to be able to utilize our whole fleet that we have. So so it's going to be very gradual thing. Mister Stanley mentioned we just got over 500 bus operators, so we're more than halfway there. So as as we get more operators and more vehicles available, we can start implementing some of the realignments in groups, gradually, a few at a time. So some of those will probably happen later this year. I mean, I mean next year, like around maybe April or June. So stay tuned. There should be some exciting changes coming up.
Thank you. Renard, MS, Marguerite, your hand is the next one up. Miss
Marguerite, are you able to make your comment?
We didn't quite catch that.
Okay, where on second? Whoops, just went away. You got it? Kristen, where on second and West Grand Boulevard? On which side
are you talking about? A shelter? Yeah, I
Yes, because the one
that we had up John, did Jonathan have that information?
I think the one that we showed was Rosa Parks and West Graham Boulevard.
I'm sorry.
So what? What do we currently have at that location? Anything
new? Schedule one, sorry,
Miss Marguerite, We're having trouble understanding. Okay.
You begin
to begin,
she said they're not. They wouldn't allow the building the bus stop there,
before they put Yes. Yes. Oh,
okay. Are you talking about Henry Ford Hospital,
the chat Jamie Jr saying New Center, Fisher building is there only shelters, Goblin, new center, but it says,
Okay, you said, yes, okay,
so then the new center,
okay, there might have been a typo in the locations, and I'll make sure to update that. I apologize.
Yeah, I think she's asking which corner is going to Have any shelter over there? Okay?
And, yeah,
yeah, i
Are you asking if there's going to be a shelter by Henry Ford Hospital as part of the plan?
Go? Right? Yeah, that's
all health projects.
So Miss Torrance has the has the map, if we can, there's been enough questions about bus shelters, if we can put that up, and then
are you able to share maybe?
Yeah, give me one. Okay, yeah, if
you could share that map and I'll comment on Henry Ford real quick. We do. We did have a plan to put a shelter at the Henry Ford Hospital going eastbound. I believe there's one westbound too. I'll confirm that, but it looks like it their construction ended up being a little bit further. So we're in in some talks right now with Henry Ford Hospital construction to make sure that we are accommodating to the customers at the same time, while also making sure that the the current bus stop that that was restricted for a little while we we made sure that we went out there and had that expanded so that there's a good access to the stop. So, and I do want to reiterate that with this map, these shelter locations were chosen through the title six standards and through the point system that we have. I hope that answers your questions.
So Miss, Miss Torrance, put up the map. It yeah, do we have, do we also have a description of the location. So I get the map, we can see it by district, but obviously it's pretty indistinct. So do we have actual locations that we could put up on our website, or whatever they would have the map and then the actual physical location? Yep, we do. Okay, let's see if we can get that up on the website the next few days. So next time we talk with everybody, they'll, they'll, they'll be more specific questions that can be asked, of course. Thank you.
I you asked about the Shane bus, did you? I don't think so. What? What's, what's with the Shane bus?
I just ADA client data
And
way
he does
This, he was
the So Miss
Junior had put into the chat that the Shane bus was two hours late, and then Miss Torrance was Asking if we knew what day and what time frame it was, I'm not sure if That was today or some other day.
And 330
I 30.
Okay.
Thank you for letting us know. Miss Marguerite,
I think Mr. Mallet were you going to address?
Yeah? Let me um, good afternoon, Miss Marguerite. This is Andre Mala from DDOT operations, and I believe you said Tuesday between 155 and 3:30pm we had a two hour gap in service. And let me try to investigate, to kind of clearly understand what was going on. So I can give you a better explanation, and you can either reach back out to the department, but we'll definitely get the answers and find out what was going on for you as soon as possible. And if I have the date and time wrong, you could afford the correct information, because I want to start the proper investigation.
Thank you, Mr. Mallet, okay.
Thank you, Miss Marguerite. Next hand up is a phone number ending in 351,
phone number ending in 351, I one.
Okay, the next hand up is Jamie Jr. So whomever can unmute,
good evening, everyone. I hope you can hear me. We can Great. First of all, I want to thank Mr. Stanley and Mr. Demarcus on all the improvements to paratransit. I'm excited to see what comes out of DDOT now and the rebranding project. I'm hoping to see some hybrid busses, or some more environmentally friendly busses coming through the vendor soon. My comments sitting around bus frequency. It seems like the Plymouth bus is like only running once an hour on that bus route, lots of people go to work out in Livonia, there are schools out that way where people are trying to get their kids. I want to know if there are any plans to improve the frequency on that route. Thank you for also putting shelters along that route. I travel that route frequently, and I often see people trying to lean up against buildings or sit on walls and things, and that's unsafe for it that merchants as well as the citizens riding the bus. We wouldn't want to look at putting some seating that way. The other thing is, I'm excited to hear about the IVR. I would like to see digital payment for paratransit. That would be great, so folks can have a record of the money they pay I mentioned before, for individuals with entitlements, sometimes we have to show receipts of the monies that we spend for going to and from work or to and from medical appointments. So that would be very helpful. Thank you.
Mr. Patrick, can you talk about Plymouth a little
bit? Yeah, I believe we've already improved the Plymouth route during the peak times. That means the morning and Instagram commute periods. It's on that list of rental we went from 60 minutes to 45 minutes service. We've done that on most of the hourly rounds. So the next step in the future would be to have maybe 45 minute daytime service like what you see we're doing gradually, we improve the peaks first, and then later on, we fill in the gaps in the middle of the day,
the person came on, I was supposed to push a button.
We're gonna, we're gonna come back to you.
Yeah, that's what I got. Okay?
Thank you, Jamie. You uh, the number ending in 351, um, if you can go ahead and make your comments now.
Yes, my name is Joyce Hall, and I used to work at Frank Murphy, which is closed down now. And I go to the Community Justice Center at 53 01, Russell, I like to know if you can put a bus stop closer to the building so I don't have to walk all the way down to Warren, where the shelter is, if you just put it on one of those telephone poles there to help me, because I have arthritis in the hip and have a hard time making it to that bus stop to get the 1230 bus. And if you can, I don't know if they're allowed or not. If you could put just a bench, the three or four seat bench along there, some kind of way that would really help me, because I get I could spend so much pain trying to get to that bus stop, and also, I had to change my time at work because Russell bus gets here after eight, and I have a 15 minute grace at work. But I don't get there to 835 or 840 so now my time is 830 and then I have a 15 minute grace. I
Hi, can you tell us exactly what building you're trying to get you on the Justice Center campus?
Say that again, please tell us exactly
what building you're trying to get you at the Justice Center.
You're trying to get me to 53, 01, Russell,
okay, so the Russell bus did have some stops that are closer than the rolling bus, because the wine bus is only So, and we wouldn't take the wine bus off of wine, just so Russell, so, but we are in the DDOT reimagine plan. We are going to adding the 52 Shane bus to Russell Street, which will give you more frequent service. That would happen sometime next year when we get around to making those improvements. So, but so there should be a bus stop on a Russell that's closer to your building. And as far as putting a benchmark, this side works to meet ADA specifications, if we add, you know, to add street furniture. So that's why there's no street furniture out there.
Okay, see, I have to catch, I catch the Jefferson bus to the transit center, and then I wait on the rest of the it's convenient to me that way, because if I did the way that you were speaking of Jefferson to Woodward and Woodward to Warren. I still get there after 830 I've done it before, just to see by me being new over there, because the building opened up September 3, but I was there a week prior. I was trying different ways to get there, you know,
yeah, what Russell bus? Is there a stop that's close to your building?
Say that again,
when you take the Russell bus, is there a stop that's close to your building?
No, I have to walk up to Warren at the DLT headquarters, that's where I go. There
should be bus stops on Russell that are further north. There are
no bus stops on Russell.
We may have to take this offline if you want to give you know we can reach out as far as see if there's other trip planning that we can do, if you can put your information in where we can reach out to you, or you can email us or call us, I
will okay. I can, I can email you tomorrow, thank you and and explain it more in detail.
Okay, and
we'll make Thank you. Yeah, thank you
and thank you. Thank you for your time.
The next hand up is
A, D, G,
All right, hello. This is, I think this is my second time coming to a meeting. I came to the meet the last meeting, and I started coming because there was an issue with the Dexter bus, and there's and it hasn't been fixed. And I actually have been passed up twice this week by drivers who are not normally on the route, at the Greenfield and at the Greenfield stop, there is not a Dexter sign on the Greenfield route anymore. There used to be one, and when a car crashed into it and they picked the sign and the pole back up, they decided just to put a greenfield sign up. Now this was during the time that there was talk about changing the 16 route to go to Myers, that route has not been changed. So why isn't there a sign? And when I caught up with the driver who passed me up because I caught the Greenfield bus and caught him at outer drive, he told me he was instructed not to stop at that stop. Now my normal driver and every other driver stops, but this particular week, I was passed up twice, and the second time I talked to the driver and I explained to him, I explained him. I said, I've been catching this bus for two years at the same stop. And so he agreed that if he sees me, he'll stop. Also, what's going on with the advisory committee? I sent in the application hasn't gotten word back? Yes, no. And also, I believe there was talk about a BRT route on Jefferson is there is still talk about that. And also, one last thing about the 16 route, the ending point. Where is the ending point? Where? Where is the last stop before it gets to eight mile? There? It used to go straight down Greenfield across eight mile. And there used to be a stop in front of the pine shop. There is no stop there anymore. Some busses continue straight. Some busses go down the service drive and we'll make that stop there across the life. Just need to know where there are no bus stops. There are no signs out so the drivers don't know what to do. The we as passengers don't know what to do. So we would like some clarification and some signage. Thank you.
Hang up. Can you tell me the exact corner that that bus stop is on when you get patched up exactly what corner and what direction I
can I can give you the I can give you the actual, the actual, the sign the route. The route ID is 6094, 6094, yes,
so you say it has a number 10 decal, but not a number 16 decal, exactly.
And it used to have a 16, and when the poll got knocked down and they put the sign back up, they just put a 10 up, and there, there isn't a 16 on there anymore.
That may be easy fix, okay, 6094, okay, yes,
yeah, and I'll speak to the you're talking about the service improvements on Route Jefferson nine. So we are working on that project right now. Excuse me, it. We are planning on installing improvements to one stop in the fall and continuing on all the other stops that we have in that project in the spring, summer and fall of next year. So that's 21 stops in total. We already have improved the service frequency on that route, and some of the stops will be changing to you'll notice that like they're before when the when the bus is driving there before the stoplight they'll be moving to after the stoplight, so that'll improve the speed of the the route as well. So still working on it, and it's coming. So thank you for the question, okay,
Mr. Patchett, can you clarify? I think there was one more issue about where the end point was.
Yeah, it's it's really hard to explain where things are in Northland because all the streets are all screwy. But we do have a diagram and a bulletin so we can go over that with Andre and make sure that Andre, yeah, you'll if you find Gina in the office tomorrow, just have her go over that bulletin with you that shows where all the world around to go in there in Northland, we had to, we had to move some stops around, and we moved to shelter. So it's, yeah, it's kind of hard to explain what things are unless you're looking at the diagram. So we'll, we'll make sure if there's a need for silence somewhere
there, there is a need for signage. Not, not. There isn't. There's definitely a need for silage because the drivers don't know and the passengers don't know.
I won't. So, yeah, so we'll follow up with you tomorrow,
and Mr. Patrick and and for the caller, Hi, this is Andre Bella from operations. Could you give me the exact location again? Because I need to know if that's in the city of Detroit or Southfield. Or for the
Okay, so the so the Dexter bus used to go down, straight down Greenfield, cross eight mile, and then go into Northland. So the last stop was on Greenfield before eight mile, where the pawn shop is correct, still, still on the Detroit side. They took that sign down, and then the busses started to go down the service drive, but there is no stop on the service drive. So some busses stop. Some busses don't stop because they say there's not a sign. And then some, and then some busses will continue to go down Greenfield, like all busses don't do the same thing. It just depends on which driver you have. So you don't know, you don't know where, whether to get off at that last stop before you get to James cousin. Or do you ride the bus hoping that the bus stops at at one of the at what's supposed to be one of the last stops,
right? Exactly. Okay, understood? Yeah. So that is definitely an issue that we can get resolved right away. We do need to get some clarification as relate, relates to what's the last stop is and what the first stop is. So we'll get with our OTC, our training division, and with our service inspectors as out in the field to ensure compliance with our proper routing. So that's something that we get a resolution on. I do identify that there's definitely a concern, and we'll meet with our scheduling department, as Mr. Petronik just stated, and make sure that we have the proper documentation to disperse amongst all of our employees,
right? Sounds good.
Thank you for i Yours is the next hand up.
Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, go ahead.
Perfect.
Thank you so much for this opportunity to come on here. My name is farai gundan, and I'm a founder of a Detroit based startup that is innovating at the intersection of mobility, specifically public transit, FinTech and climate, and I've been listening into some of the questions, and I believe we are looking to solve some of those issues, particularly when it comes to payments. We are actually incubated at Michigan Central and new lab, and really have had the privilege of having gone through the tech town ecosystem as someone with a background a Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University, I dedicate time each month to serving on local transit boards, specifically the transportation riders united, where I'm very, very active. But I also spend time attending a lot of the mobility service providers board meetings like I did today for the RTA, I firmly believe that understanding the real challenges faced by mobility service providers and public transit systems such as DDOT really helps drive innovation that we develop, and especially local innovation, because we're pretty close to both you and the users of those transit platforms that you provide. So while virtual sessions have become vital, especially post pandemic, I really do see great value in the possibility of hybrid engagements. I believe the first speaker on the public comment did bring that up, and I just wanted to reinforce and reiterate that. And as I've listened to the questions that have come in, whether it is real time data of transit or payments, where you give an accounting of the power transit, this is where we we believe we can actually pair up and provide relief to to to to DDOT. I see that Rick and and Steve are on here. So for someone like myself, and really for the other transit users, it will be really wonderful to to have in person or hybrid so we can actually be able to follow up, either in person or after the session, with some of the questions, but also to some of the innovations that may be coming from the local tech ecosystem.
That is time, okay?
Thank you so much if
you want to put your contact info in the chat, okay, but I
did want to end off by saying thank you, Mr. Staley, for your leadership and the entire DDOT team for your unwavering dedication to providing excellent transit services in our city. And I know that there are gaps, but I will really see the efforts. So really thank you to you all. Thank you. Thank
you for your comments, and we will start working on the hybrid meeting before the end of the year. Obviously, that's very important to any number of people.
Okay, great. Lucas, yours is the next hand up?
Okay? We can hear you, but you're kind of fuzzy. Try again.
Okay,
let's go to can you hear me? Okay. Now that's
better. That's better.
You can hear me now?
Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead.
Hello. Can you folks hear me?
We hear you. You can go ahead.
Okay, and so I'm, I'm Lucas Becky. I'm the engagement specialist at transport questions about the Rosa Parks Transit Center. I know this was mentioned earlier with Mr. I think it was Mr. Verse who spoke about improvements and some rumors surrounding it. I've been there a couple times in the past week or so, including today, and I noticed that the interior seating area is completely roped off. There was no seating available inside the building, and I think at one point I saw a woman get chased off by a DPD officer for trying to sit there. I think this is a little concerning, especially with the hot weather out that everyone's being forced to sit outside, and the perfectly good seating that's in there is just roped off with no apparent explanation. But I think that plays into a wider question of I know it was mentioned by Mr. Honda or Mr. Yamakara, that after Hargrove has been completed, there were there was some rumbling about making some improvements to the Rosa Parks transit center. And one major issue I think should be addressed is that a large portion of the canopy roof is just gone. Has been for months at this point, I think even over a year. And I think with that specifically, but I I'm wondering when, when DDOT plans on fixing that. But I'm just also wondering, from someone at capital projects, if there's any sort of timeline we can expect to see those improvements to Rosa Parks being made on I mean, I know lots of other things that need to be considered, some of the shelter improvement projects at Jefferson corridor, but I'm just wondering how high of a priority is that, and when should we expect to see those improvements?
Mr. Leseki, the next time I see you in person, I will share my pain about the canopy at Rosa Parks, June of 2023 Yes, it's, it's the customization of that piece. That replacement piece has been, I think, would be easier to commission a frigate from the 1800s Full Sail full speed ahead, but the next time we meet, trust me, it's not an issue that that's on the back burner. We have discussions about that every week. All I can say right now is the piece has been customized, and I'm hoping that we're within 30 to 45 days of getting that, getting that southern most section restored to where it was before. But it, yeah, it's taken way too long.
And sorry to address the question about a timeline we're anticipating that engagement is going to run probably till January. Design will follow. We'll see overall improvements through the end of 2025 in terms of execution and implementation.
So do we have a formalized engagement plan worked out for Rosa Parks?
We do not. No, that's actually part of the task order that we have that's going to be coming up. So it'll be a formalized plan I can actually probably precede what the folks that are going to be doing it by giving a rough draft. So I think that that can be something that I can bring to the next meeting to try to Okay,
so, yeah, so if I heard everybody tonight, it seems like Rosa Parks is the place to do the hybrid meeting. I'll let marketing and outreach decide if that's really the the best location, but it might be the time also, knowing that we want to do it before the end of the year, to to be able to do a bit of a presentation on, on on the improvements that'll be in the works for Rosa Parks.
But in any case, we should expect to hear something about those plans before the end of the year.
Yeah, if, if we can make it happen, it'd be great to do a hybrid meeting at Rosa Parks, as many people suggested and and as the centerpiece of that hybrid meeting, be able to talk in it with some specificity on plans for future plans for Rosa Parks and calendar year 2025 I think it'd be great. Well, thank you. I'm
really glad to hear that the roof replacement is going to be that soon. I guess it didn't occur to me that there'd be that much customization involved, but I suppose it makes sense. But I'm glad to hear,
I confess it doesn't make sense to me, but we it is not. It is nowhere near the back burner, trust me,
I guess you're just dealing with some of the mistakes of the people who designed it, I guess. But And real quick, though, is there any answer to why the benches are closed off in the lobby at Rosa Parks? No,
that's the first I'm hearing of that. I don't know. Mr. Mallet, have you heard anything? Okay, well, we'll check that out. We'll check that out tomorrow. Thank you for bringing it. Thank you for bringing that up.
Mr. Staley, yes, sir. Thank you. Lucas
Steven Boyle, yours is the next hand up,
hello. Oh, go ahead, everybody. Um, so I was at the public health and safety meeting. I got one of the agendas, and I noticed that a couple of the items I'm hoping went to the meeting of the whole and got approved, for example, the Neo part transit contact, or parts, I hope that got approved. And I'm also wondering about this increasing the unified Work Program grant through semcog, it looked like they needed to get 69,690 6 million. Matching dollars from the city budget, and I'm hoping that that passed through as well as a person that's riding the Dexter bus late at night. I'm getting out of work. I'm usually getting the one o'clock bus. Been a few times that didn't quite get to Rosa Parks by one o'clock, and the next bus sometimes shows up at two o'clock, other times at three o'clock. It makes it very difficult, and I know that the bathrooms there at the transit center are closed to the public, and you said that that was between midnight and four o'clock, is there any possibility that you could put some Portage ons, or something that would allow people to have a public, you know, something that would allow them to take care of their needs that late at night? There's an awful lot of people that are camped out on the cement benches around that space, trying to find some shelter. I've seen Wayne Metro with a van down that way trying to help some people. They're not always there, though. I know the city of Detroit sends some work trucks around to try to help people from time to time. We need to do a little bit better with those that are trying to find some shelter in whatever way they can. And DDOT bus, or Dexter, is always full departing from DDOT from the Rosa Parks transit center. So I think we need more more Dexter busses running late at night.
Miss Miss Davis, can you comment on the what, what was before public health and safety?
Yes. Can you hear me? I've been having a little bit of technical issues. Can you hear me? Oh, good. Yes. Oh, first introductions. My name is Stephanie Davis, government affairs liaison for the Detroit Department of Transportation. Yes, the two contracts for parts, OEM parts was approved with the waiver so they are effective as soon as they are approved by Council. Was that the question if they were
approved? Yeah, I wasn't sure if they got approved the next day or if they're going to be on the agenda for this coming Tuesday.
No. So they were on the formal session to be approved with the waiver this this past formal session Tuesday. So yes, they will be into effect and allow us to assist the main in that those two contracts will assist in the in the maintenance division. So yes, they were approved. The grant that you referred to the United work program, or unified work program, that was approved, it is to assist. It is a grant facilitated through our partners at simcog to assist our transportation planning so that, yes, it was approved.
That's great. I'm glad to hear that. So if there's any way that we can possibly look at the frequency on the Dexter bus late at night due to the quantity of riders that are running, they're getting out of work. Many of us, you know, we have restaurant jobs, and sometimes we're getting out of work at one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning, and then trying to get on that Dexter bus to get home.
Mr. Boyle, we got it, yep. Thank you. We
gotta know that. Thank you. Yeah. We'll Yeah, we can look at passenger loads late at night on Dexter, thank you, Mr. Boyle,
thank you Andre Bryant. Yours is the next hand up, hello.
Can everyone hear me? Yes, go ahead. Yes. I'm Andre Bryant and the chairperson of the Local Advisory Council. My question as it relates to paratransit, I know it was mentioned about the interactive voice response system, is that is, that's going to be to the point where we will be able to make our reservations through the automate an automated system with our voice and also, and also, just want to know, when will that system be implemented. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Bryant, Miss Roby, can you actually talk about the mobile app? Because the mobile app is is where riders will be able to book book and cancel trips.
Yes, sir. Good afternoon. Mr. Bryant, my name is Nisha Roby, Interim Assistant Director of administration, still very much involved on the paratransit side of the house. So to ask your question, no, you won't be able to make reservations through the IVR system. It's just to remind riders a day before and the day of when they're when their driver is expected to arrive, but in the mobile app, you can definitely make reservations. I know Mr. Bright and I have had several correspondence about when things aren't working with the mobile app, and I appreciate his feedback and helping us get things back up and running right now, you can use the mobile app to book trips. It's not through voice, though. It does have to be done through, actually, the mechanism you entering the information into the app, yeah, I hope that answers your question. I'm sorry. No, I
was just, I was just thinking because I knew I wanted I booked my medical appointments through when I take medical transportation, it was, we have to do something like that. That's why. I just got confused. I thought the IVR was something like, something like that. We had to, you'll be doing an interactive voice where you you speak through and then you speak to an automated system. That's what, that's what I was thinking about. Thanks. I understood. And
couple things. Miss Roby, maybe, next lac, we can do a presentation on the mobile app. That'd be great. And Mr. Boyle mentioned the fact again, that he had, he had, he has interest in sitting on the Lac, so I don't, I don't think Mr. Rambus or anybody from compliance is on but if you could, if you could reach out to Mr. Rambus about Mr. Boyle and his application about the Local Advisory Council, that'd be great. Yes, sir,
thank you. Deonte, you said you wanted to speak. I'm glad that you spoke up in the chat, because I was looking for you, but you should be able to unmute and make your comment. Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead.
Alright. Um, my name is Deonte. I'm reaching out because I was actually calling DDOT to leave another complaint, um, regarding what I kind of briefly heard, but I didn't really catch any resolve of it, regarding what's going on with this 38 Plymouth bus. I've been riding this bus. No, I'm usually not used to riding the bus. I'm on this bus for months now, thankfully, in a position where I'm about to be able to buy another vehicle. However, this bus is always having problems. If I had to honestly rake drivers in. The route itself may probably be like a two out of 10. There's literally, at least out of my work week of Monday through Friday, I'm late at least two to three days out of the week. This morning I was late due to a driver that I don't even think I've seen before, um, made a made a turn through at the almost at the end of my ride, where I get off at Plymouth and middle belt before Plymouth and middle medal a couple stops before he actually turned behind a factory, went through the whole entire factory, took about four or five extra minutes, um, that normally I used to walk right to my job, um, which caused me to be late. Today. It's been numerous times where I usually get off around like 430 and catch the 515 bus, and I'm here till six, seven, even eight o'clock, and no driver wants to acknowledge DDOT behalf. They they still expect you to pay, which is wrong. I feel like, no, no. Nobody should be having to pay a fair especially when you guys know that you're short with drivers. Um, you're sure on busses are having problems with busses, and two sometimes the delay on not having a bus, it's not just an hour. I heard someone say, Yeah, an hour before another bus. No, it's at least an hour. It's an hour between one and four hours for another bus. I've noticed, you know, that a lot of drivers that's new on this route are also confused on their routes. There's been plenty of times on my way to work where I've had a bus stop and a driver get off the bus and call someone to ask where they're trying to go, to someone who's, you know, trying to get to work, and you got people who's trying to get have kids to get to school. You know, it's very unceptable. So I'm just trying to get some type of resolution on this subject. Is that
Sorry, Steve, can you start over? Deonte, I only visited you because there was a lot of background noise, but Steve, maybe if you start over, we can hear that better. It so
schedule for specific trips during the shift changes at the factory. So if you catch one of those busses, it serves the factory, it will go to the regular underflow, yeah,
okay, I'll repeat what Steve said real quick, I I have looked into this before. There are, there are designated trips on that route that go to that factory, so the driver was actually probably doing the correct thing, and that is because there's trips that are going there specifically based on shift times for the factory. So that might have been abnormal to you, but it is part of the route, and it probably took longer, so I apologize for the the length of time.
And Dante I'm Andre Mallett from operations, um, so I will be having our service inspectors out to dig a lot deeper into the tardiness or lateness of the route, or and or service. But there are different route patterns, as was explained by Jonathan that were the coach will leave the existing pattern to do a different pattern, but that is part of our normal routing process to serve a different area. So it is a factory that's been serviced by DDOT for years, and we continue to service that one for a couple trips out of the day. And so you may have getting a normal bus that does not follow that pattern, but on that maybe four or 415 trip, it will follow that pattern. I'm not sure the exact time, but there's different patterns that we actually service on the on the Plymouth route, in fact, I think, well, I don't want to quote how many patterns, but Plymouth is one of our routes that has several different patterns that we actually operate under. But having said that, we will aggressively look at trying to find out what's going on with the delay in service. I do apologize. I don't want to make excuses, but we do have to 100% do a better job with providing reliable service out there.
Mr. Mr. Travis, your time is up for tonight, and we are actually over time, so we do have to go ahead and close it out. But of course you can reach out another way, if you would like, Thank
you for calling in. Yes, I mean, everybody who had their hand up has had a chance to speak once so I think Mr. Director,
once again, just thank you everybody for joining us tonight. Appreciate all the comments, and we will actively work on putting together a hybrid meeting before the end of 2024. So either in November or December. So, thank you Miss Torrance Thank you Miss lukowski Thank you everybody. At DDOT for your.
