From the General Manager
Message from General Manager
To the Commissioners and our Customers, September 20, 2017
COMMUNITY
Hurricane Harvey - On August 31, Fox 29 partnered with the American Red Cross to collect donations throughout the region, including Woodcrest Station. PATCO's generous customers opened their hearts and wallets for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. Thanks to Fox 29's coverage, some kind individuals drove to Woodcrest solely to drop off their contributions.
Employment Engagement Committee / Staff Volunteers - DRPA and PATCO volunteers again helped the White Horse Rotary and Food Bank at the Mobile Food Pantry at Lindenwold Station's parking lot on Saturday, August 26. With an ample supply of volunteers, we were able to set up, distribute food, and disassemble in under 4 hours while providing much-needed supplies to over 200 families.
SERVICE
New Schedule - On August 19, PATCO implemented a new schedule to accommodate a longer speed restriction area for the Westmont viaduct rehabilitation work and to enhance our ability to provide more reliable service. To draw our customers' attention to the minor change in our schedule, we sponsored a contest through social media. Over 80 customers responded, and two winners, one from Twitter and one from FaceBook, accurately guessed that PATCO printed 35,000 timetables.
PATCO's Lost & Found Makes the News - The South Jersey Times featured our Lost & Found efforts and the strangest things found on PATCO. As a follow-up to this very positive coverage, we received input on social media about Fran Egolf, Station Supervisor and Manager of Lost & Found:
- From Heidi - One of the nicest customer service/station supervisors you will ever meet!!
- From Shirley Jean- I agree! Fran is the sweetest!!!
- From Sandee - Love Franny!!! She's the best!
- From Maureen - I agree Fran is the best. Boy a lot of weird stuff has been left on the train.
PATCO FREEDOM Card Service - It's hard to believe it has been 10 years since the introduction of the FREEDOM card. Today over 70% of PATCO customers use the FREEDOM card to travel on the system.
The original cards are expiring after 10 years. Why? Because the well-used card can wear out. The FREEDOM card contains a microchip and antenna, which communicates with the gates and vending machines. The useful life of the card was determined to be 10 years, so the microchips are programmed to start expiring after 10 years. Each month we have been sending out hundreds of letters, alerting customers that their cards will be expiring in 6 to 8 weeks. The value on the expiring cards is being moved to new FREEDOM cards with a new 10 year life span (2027 expiration).
A few years ago, PATCO moved to a FREEDOM card with a higher level of security encryption. All FREEDOM card replacements and purchases since 2014 have used the higher encryption standard. As new encryption standards enter the market place, the microchips in new FREEDOM cards embrace the technology.
Since the card replacement program started in June, 2017, over 2200 older FREEDOM cards have been replaced.
To better serve customers, a second FREEDOM Center window has been opened at Woodcrest Station with expanded hours. More customer service hours will be added soon.
Reduced Fare FREEDOM Cards - Customers who have Medicare cards, are 65, or are disabled may travel during off-peak hours at a discount. In June and July, 2017, over 220 customers signed up for the reduced fare FREEDOM cards. This number adds to over 10,000 reduced fare cards in our system.
Ridership - Ridership in August, 2017 was 937,835, an increase of 13,246 (+1.43%) when compared to August of 2016. A comparison of calendars reveals that the number of weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays in August was the same in 2017 as in 2016. Average weekday ridership in August, 2017 was slightly higher (+147 riders) than in August of 2016. Year to date as of the end of August, ridership in 2017 was 7,243,164, an increase of 129,990 (+1.83%) compared to last year.
On-Time Performance - Our on-time performance for the 5,716 trips in August was 96.51%. In at least 4 cases, significant delays resulted as we investigated passengers' reports of unusual situations. PATCO's philosophy is that safety is paramount, and we take the time to ensure that we have addressed the issue or have confirmed that no defect exists. In addition, a single incident, the derailment of work equipment, resulted in 15 annulments and 22 late trains, affecting all our morning commuters that day. If we recalculate on-time performance to remove the annulments and late trains during that work equipment derailment, on-time performance for August would have been 97.16%.
On-time performance year to date is 96.45%. We continue to strive to improve our performance and note that at this point last year, our year to date performance was 95.93%.
STEWARDSHIP
Escalators / Elevators
- Availability - We again met our goals in August. Availability of all escalators was 97.03% for the month and 97.54% for the year to date. Availability of elevators was 99.17% for the month and 99.45% for the year to date.
- Performance of Preventive Maintenance - Monthly preventive maintenance was performed on all escalators and elevators again in August. The consistent performance of this maintenance significantly contributes to the reliability of the escalators and elevators.
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