2012 - 2017 Transit Development Plan

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 October 2012 13:02 |

Transit Development Plan 2012 - 2017 and 2011 Annual Report

City of Pullman/Pullman Transit

Date of Public Hearing: September 25, 2012

Table of Contents

Section Title Page

I Organization 3

II Physical Plant 4

III Service Characteristics 5

IV Service Connections 7

V Activities in 2011 7

VI Proposed Action Strategies, 2012 - 2017 12

VII Proposed Changes, 2012 - 2017 13

VIII Capital Improvement Program, 2011 - 2017 16

IX Operating Data, 2011 - 2017 17

X Operating Revenues and Expenditures, 2011 - 2017 18

Appendix A Equipment, Rolling Stock and Facilities 25

Appendix B System Route Maps and Schedules

Section I: Organization

Pullman Transit is a city-owned public transportation service, authorized in Chapter 36.57A RCW, located in the city of Pullman, Washington. Pullman Transit began providing public transportation services in March 1979. Our current fixed-route system map appears in Appendix B, showing the extent of our service area.

Pullman Transit's main governing body is the Pullman City Council. The transit system is a division of the Public Works Department and is under the direction of the Director of Public Works. The transit staff handles day-to-day operations and administration. Support services such as finance and maintenance are provided by other city departments.

Below is the table of organization for Pullman Transit.

As of December 31, 2011, Pullman Transit employed 32.4 full-time equivalents in the Operations Division. This means that .49 more full-time equivalents were employed in 2011 than in 2010. This increase in FTEs is attributed to expansion of both the fixed-route and paratransit services. Portions of the Director of Public Works, Deputy Public Works Director and Support Service employees' wages are funded through the transit budget.

   Transit Division Employees
Transit Manager     -   1
Operations Supervisor    -   1
Customer Service Supervisor   -   1
Safety/Training Officer    -   1
Full-Time Dispatchers   -   2
Part-Time Dispatchers     -   3
Full-Time Customer Service Representative -   1
Part-Time Customer Service Representative -   1
Transit Drivers     -   30
Bus Washer     -   3

Management
Pullman City Council    -   7
Mayor      -   1
Director of Public Works       1

Support Service Employees
Finance
Finance Director    -   1
Support Staff     -   6

  Maintenance
Automotive Repair Supervisor   -   1
Equipment Mechanics           -   4

Section II: Physical Plant

Pullman Transit has its administrative offices at 775 NW Guy Street in Pullman. These offices are located in the City of Pullman Maintenance and Operations yard. Pullman Transit administrative offices and bus storage facility are separate from all other city divisions located in the city yard. The vehicle maintenance facility is also located within the city yard, but is operated by the city's Equipment Rental Division, not Pullman Transit.

Appendix A contains the completed State Public Transportation Management System forms for all revenue vehicles, non-revenue vehicles and facilities currently owned by the city of Pullman/Pullman Transit.
Section III: Service Characteristics
In 2011 Pullman Transit provided fixed-route service for the general public within the city of Pullman and on the Washington State University (WSU) campus. In addition, Pullman Transit provided complementary accessible paratransit service (Dial-A-Ride).

As of December 2011, Pullman Transit operated eight fixed routes, Monday through Friday, 6:50 a.m. – 12:30 a.m. During the school year, fixed-route service to the University from an area north of the campus (a highly developed area with apartment complexes populated with students) between 7:00 a.m. and 7:15 p.m. was operated with six buses on 24-minute headways. This service was provided by two routes: Express 1 and Express 2 running in opposite directions. The Express 1 Route had three buses providing service on the route, which means that a bus went by each stop every 8 minutes. The Express 2 Route also had three buses. In addition to the six buses operated in this high density area, several additional bus trips (the Express Shuttle) were provided from 8:40 a.m. to 10:15 a.m. to meet the high demand when school starts.

Starting at 5:30 p.m., the PM North and South routes were operated until 12:30 a.m. (Monday through Thursday) and until 3:00 a.m. on Fridays to the high-student-population areas, downtown, and to outlying retail areas on 30-minute headways. The A, I, J and E Routes provided the daytime service to the remainder of the community, all on 30-minute headways. All community routes provided service to and from the WSU campus. The A and E-Routes provided service to the northwest area of the community while the I and J-Routes served the southern section of the community, with the E, I and J-routes operating from 6:50 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. and the A-Route operating from 7:20 a.m. to 9:20 a.m.

During the WSU school year, two routes, Saturday North and Saturday South, were operated on Saturdays. One route served the north side of Pullman and the other the south side. Both routes operated from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. on 30-minute headway. During WSU breaks and the summer, the Saturday routes operated from 10:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

During the summer—May, June, July and August—and during WSU breaks three routes were operated. The E-Route on the north end of the community was modified to include service to the high density apartment area. The C-Route offered service to the same high density housing, to campus and retail areas on the south side of town and downtown. The H-Route provided service to the residential areas on the south side of the community and to the campus. All of these routes were operated on 30-minute headways from 6:50 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. These routes continued to prove to be effective and ridership for the overall summer months increased by 87,213 rides or 78.6 percent over the summer of 2010.

Our accessible paratransit service (Dial-A-Ride) was available weekdays (Monday – Thursday) from 6:50 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. and from 6:50 a.m. to 3:00 a.m., concurrent with our fixed-route service on Fridays and on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. as well during the WSU school year. During WSU breaks and the summer months the service was offered from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Paratransit service was limited to senior citizens (65 and over), and persons with disabilities (ADA and non-ADA) only. Service was provided with four, wheelchair-accessible vans and two, wheelchair-accessible minibuses. Section IX shows our operating data for 2011.

The fixed-route fare structure, per boarding, as of December 31, 2011

Adult, ages 18 - 64:      $0.50
School-age youth grades K-12:     $0.30
Pre-Kindergarten Children when accompanied by an adult: free
Senior Citizen, age 65 or older:    $0.30
Disabled, ADA certified or not:     $0.30
Transfers between fixed routes:     free
(Transfers are generally done within 5 minutes)

Our fixed-route passes

Monthly
Adult, ages 18 - 64      $ 14.00
School-age youth grades K -12     $ 10.00
Senior Citizen, age 65 or older     $   9.00
Disabled, ADA certified or not     $   9.00

Semi-Annual
Adult, ages 18 - 64      $ 72.00
School-age youth grades K -12     $ 48.00
Senior Citizen, age 65 or older     $ 45.00
Disabled, ADA certified or not     $ 45.00

Annual
Adult, ages 18 - 64      $141.00
School-age youth grades K -12     $ 94.00
Senior Citizen, age 65 or older     $ 88.00
Disabled, ADA certified or not     $ 88.00
School Year
This pass is for school-age youth grades K -12   $ 72.00

Summer Youth Pass
This pass is for school-age youth grades K -12 $ 24.00

Tokens (Sold 20 to a package)
Adult, ages 18 - 64      $ 10.00
School-age youth grades K -12     $   6.00
Senior Citizen, age 65 or older     $   6.00
Disabled, ADA certified or not:     $   6.00

Dial-A-Ride fares were $0.40 per ride in town and $3 to the airport for all eligible riders. Pullman Transit also contracted with Washington State University to allow all students, staff, retirees, and faculty to ride the buses and paratransit vans (if they are eligible) by showing a valid University identification card.

In addition, a contract with the Pullman School District (PSD) allowed students who qualify to ride the buses by showing a school district-issued pass. These students were eligible to ride all our fixed-route service during the week. They were not allowed to use their school district issued passes on Saturdays.

Section IV: Service Connections

Pullman Transit provided access to the following public transportation operators and facilities:

• Wheatland Express; which provides service to the Spokane Airport and charter service in our area.
• Northwest Trailways, regional bus service depot
• Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport (service is only provided by Dial-A-Ride and only to eligible riders of the service).

Section V: Activities in 2011

Dial-A-Ride

In 2011 the Dial-A-Ride service experienced some changes that expanded and improved service during high peak times. Additional service was added during the day from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. These additional service hours expanded the daily service hours from 25.75 hours to 30 hours per day, an increase of 16 percent. As a result ridership increased by 1,423 rides, or 8.7 percent.

After reducing our Dial-A-Ride driving staff in 2010 by one driver, the additional service added in 2011 required that the driving staff increase by 0.5 FTE, bringing our total driving staff to 4.08 drivers.

The staffing changes made in 2009 payed dividends by 2011 as the addition of the Customer Service Representatives gave us the dedicated personnel to control the scheduling of all our paratransit rides. In 2011, the new Customer Service Supervisor guided these employees through some problems with our scheduling hardware that had been limiting our scheduling capabilities. These hardware issues were resolved and the system is working much better. With these improvements, our riders are pleased with the service they are getting and drivers are seeing that the changes we made are making their jobs much easier.

Ridership on the Dial-A-Ride service started to make a turnaround in 2010 and in 2011 service increased considerably. As reported, two TDPs ridership had been declining at about 7.5 percent annually. Ridership for 2011 increased by 8.7 percent, or 1,423 rides over 2010 annual boardings. Total ridership for 2011 was 17,733 boardings. To date, 2012 ridership is up by more than 8 percent over 2011 first four months' totals. Our service is well used and a vital part of the community's transportation infrastructure. With the city of Pullman growing ridership has begun to rebound, and we expect to exceed 18,000 boarding in 2012.

Fixed Route

2011 was once again a year of very little change in fixed-route service, but another very big year for ridership increases. Only one minor change took place. Due to south side demand on the J and South Routes, we added extra service to both routes. Most of our riders did not notice the change, other than the buses were not as late as they had been in the past. While shifting service to the south side of town was a positive move, to do so meant that some underused service on the north side of town had to be terminated. By ending the north side A-Route service in the afternoon and adding service on the south side, we had a net gain of four hours of new service. Our hope for the new service was to keep the regular routes on time by adding a second bus on the routes during peak hours. This was not what happened. The J and South Routes still ran late and were still unreliable. Ridership on two buses was reasonable, but not what we had hoped for during the fall semester. As a result, the additional J and South Route buses were terminated in 2012.

While the core routes made very few changes, we decided in the fall semester to change the way we operated the Express routes. Gone were the time schedules for each route. In their places, we instituted a system whereupon leaving a certain stop, the driver would advise the driver of the bus following that it was leaving that stop. This made the gap 8 minutes between buses at any given stop, improving our frequencies. While it is not a perfect system, it allowed for more trips around the express routes and cut out the need to drop loops. There are still issues with buses running too closely to each other at high ridership times, but it has improved the service dramatically.

Our fixed-route ridership increased dramatically in 2011. We experienced the fourth highest annual increase in ridership Pullman Transit has seen in its 33 years of operation. This pushed 2010's increase down to 5th all-time high and showed us that we still have room to grow. Our fixed-route ridership increased by 112,416 rides, an increase of 7.9 percent. This is the first time in Pullman Transit history that fixed-route ridership exceeded 1.5 million rides, with a total for 2011 of 1,529,380.

As we have always said, we are very pleased that our community utilizes our service so effectively, but the increases in ridership do not come without challenges. Due to the demand on our Express Routes, we had to add more shuttle bus trips during our peak times. The shuttles were a change from our past supplemental service. Supplemental service offered additional buses that followed the same route as the Express buses, while the Shuttle service had its own route and limited it stops to four boarding locations and one drop-off location on campus. The buses that operated on this service generally operated on 12-minute headway and ran about 3 minutes apart. Ridership on the shuttles has doubled compared to the same supplemental service we provided in 2010.

Even with the adjustments we have made, the major drawback to the large increases in ridership without increasing service has been the difficulty of keeping our routes on time. During the 2011-2012 WSU school year, it was virtually impossible to keep the routes on time and when it snowed, just getting around was all we could do. As a result, many of our community route riders complained about the busses being late and unreliable. Ridership continues to increase, while not at the rate we have seen for the past few years. We are running about 29,000 rides ahead of 2011, or 3.9 percent.

We have recently changed many of our routes from 30-minute headways to 45-minute headways. While this will certainly cause some concerns for riders, we believe it will improve our reliability and allow us to expand service to areas that are currently not served. Along with the change in headways, we are expanding all four of the community routes hours of operation from 11 hours per day to 12 hours per day, which allows more of our riders to get to work, school, and shopping earlier and later in the day. We are adding a new route for 14 hours per day to serve the major shopping areas and the WSU campus on a 35-minute schedule. We are excited about this expansion and we are hopeful that it will solve our reliability issues, not only during normal day, but when it snows as well.

For the fourteenth consecutive year, Pullman Transit provided no-fare service for our community Fourth of July celebration. For 2011 we once again offered our three summer routes: one on our north side (E-Route), one on our south side (H-Route), and one to our high density campus housing (C-Route). The routes covered the entire city and offered our residents and anyone who wished to go to the celebration rides to the event. Buses operated from 4:30 p.m. to 10:10 p.m. and again, after the fireworks display, to take everyone home. As in the past, this service was very popular and we are very pleased to be able to provide it. In 2011 we provided 1,868 rides, an increase of 438 from 2010.

Capital

Capital projects for 2011 were few, but needed. We installed three new bus shelters in the high density apartment area served by our Express routes. All three are equipped with solar-powered lighting, and provide this high density area with needed shelter on Pullman's rainy and windy days.

We replaced our entire two-way radio system in 2011, two years ahead of the 2013 regulatory deadline requiring all two-way radio systems go to narrow band. Since we had very few capital expenditures planned for 2011, it was a good time to make this purchase. The radios are all installed, but will not be switched to the narrow band frequencies until other infrastructure work is completed.

Lastly, the AVL/GPS final installation phase was completed in 2011. This portion of the system included all of the hardware and software so that we can locate the buses via the computer. This portion of the system was completed and we are able to follow the buses on route in real time. At the same time, our new RFID passenger counting system was installed, but it did not function correctly. By the end of 2011, there were still some bugs in the system being worked on. By the end of June 2012, this system was up and running and in the test period. We are confident the system will be completely functional by the time WSU starts in the fall. One really exciting feature of this new system is that our riders will be able to monitor their bus location online via computer or smart phone app.

We are very appreciative of the efforts and support of the Public Transportation Office for their assistance in the project. We could not have done this without funding from an ARRA grant administered through their office. Our riders and community will benefit greatly from this project. Pullman Transit spent $284,861 for all of these capital projects in 2011.

General

Once again in 2011, we renewed our contracts with PSD and WSU to continue providing transportation services for them. The signing of these agreements marks the thirtieth year we have had an agreement with PSD and the twenty-first year we have had an agreement with WSU. These agreements allow all WSU and designated PSD students to ride our fixed-route services without paying a fare by showing a valid ID. In addition, the agreement with WSU allows all staff, faculty and retirees to ride the fixed-route service without paying a fare by showing their WSU IDs. The agreements also allow eligible WSU and PSD students, as well as WSU staff and faculty and retirees, to utilize the paratransit service.

For the 2011-2012 school year, WSU fees did not increase, remaining at $1,564,048. PSD agreed to increase their fee by 4.2 percent ($4,396) to $109,069 for the 2011-2012 school year. The city of Pullman and Pullman Transit are appreciative the support and financial contributions of these two groups, which greatly assist us in providing service in Pullman.

This Transit Development Plan reflects what we want to do if funding allows. With continued funding from WSU and the PSD, our future looks stable. However, in these continued times of financial uncertainty, we must be very conservative with our spending. While we have had a better than expected rebound in our reserves, we still have old buses to replace. In the fall of 2012, we expanded service to accommodate our current ridership increases and to ensure that the system remains reliable and viable for our community. With ridership at an all-time high, remaining reliable is a challenge. The additional service is necessary and we have moved forward with changes that we think will maintain route reliability and improve safety for our drivers. All of our community, night and weekend routes will move from 30-minute headways to 45-minute headways. With the expanded time schedules, , service to areas that have not had service in the past will now get service. We have also added a new route to serve downtown and major shopping areas of the community on a very convenient route. This new route (LOOP Route) will operate 14 hours per day from 6:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. We offered this route for a short time during the spring and it was very promising. We hope this year it will take off and be very successful.

As has been our position for a number of years, our most pressing future capital need is the purchase of new buses and vans to replace our aging fleet. In 2011 we did not replace any vehicles, but in 2012, we did receive grants to replace a van and three older buses with three new hybrid buses in 2013. The AVL/GPS system for the buses that was planned for 2010 was postponed until 2011. All the hardware and software were installed in October 2011. The system was operational by the end of 2011after many problems were worked out. By June 2012, the system was up and running and we went public with the system.

We will have to continue to be very frugal with our local resources to ensure Pullman Transit is able to get the equipment it needs to provide services. Pullman Transit's finances have improved over the past few years, but cautious use of those resources must continue if the system is to maintain viable and effective service. Having a stable funding base is the key to the future, and with continued support from federal and state sources, WSU and PSD, as well as improving local revenues, we should be able to continue providing the type of services our community expects for many years to come.

In 2011 we addressed the Washington State Department of Transportation State Public Transportation Policy Objectives through the following action strategies:
Maintain the effective and predictable operations of the transportation system to meet customers' expectations. 2011 was a year in which Pullman Transit's services experienced some changes to help improve reliability. The fixed-route service added some "Shuttle" service to the Express service and we reworked the Express 1 and 2 operating schedules. We eliminated our afternoon peak service to the north side of the community, because ridership was so low (only about 12 rides per hour). We reallocated those hours to the south side of the community, by providing a second J-Route bus from 4:05 p.m. to 6:05 p.m. We also added more South Route service in the evening to offset it running late most of the night. This additional service was operated 15 minutes behind the regular route from 6:15 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. While ridership was good for both routes, our riders did not understand the concept of two buses on the same route and it did not seem to work as well as we planned. Both routes were eventually terminated and their service hours were incorporated into the new LOOP Route. With these changes, the fixed-route service saw an increase of 683 operating hours, bringing our total for the year to 25,179 hours.

Our paratransit service (Dial-A-Ride) saw a few changes in its service during 2011. We eliminated the Shopper Shuttle, which provided service to major retail areas from the major senior living centers. Ridership was very poor and we only operated it two days each week. We reallocated these hours to the Dial-A-Ride service between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. This was a beneficial change which helped us to meet the demands during this time frame. Overall, we provided 7,307 hours of service in 2011, a slight decrease of 77 hours from what was provided in 2010.

Meet all basic transportation needs for special needs population. (Basic transportation needs means health and work-related essential travel.)
At the start of 2011, ridership on our Dial-A-Ride paratransit service continued to show marked gains in ridership. As a result, additional operating hours were added and ridership continued to increase throughout the year ending with our highest annual ridership since 2008. The pattern of increasing ridership has continued into 2012. We are currently running about 8% ahead of 2011. We believe we are doing everything possible to meet the needs of our elderly and special needs population and our increasing ridership seems to confirm that.

Increase stakeholder and partner satisfaction with the level of involvement in decision-making in the development and implementation of transportation projects.
We renewed our contracts with WSU as well as PSD, but only PSD increased their financial commitment to transportation services. We continued to work with Wheatland Express to ensure that they remain the primary provider of charter service within the area. However, because of budget constraints at WSU and the University of Idaho, the intercity public transit service between Pullman, Wash. and Moscow, Idaho was terminated in May of 2011. With the loss of this service, there is no economical public transportation service between the two communities. We continue to seek public comments through public meetings with the Pullman City Council, through online e-mail, onboard comment forms, and through mailings to our fixed-route and paratransit riders for any and all issues related to our service.

Section VI: The proposed changes in Section VII, 2011 – 2016

The proposed changes in Section VII, below, are action strategies that reflect the state public transportation policy objectives.
Preserve transportation infrastructure to achieve the lowest life-cycle cost and prevent failure. In the next six years, should funding remain stable, Pullman Transit is on schedule to replace two of its eight older coaches and would like to replace the remaining six buses after 2013. We would also like to replace three paratransit vans and add three minibuses by 2017. In 2011, expansion and remodeling of our vehicle maintenance facility was completed and has improved our vehicle maintenance capabilities. Also in 2011, we completed most of the process of replacing our fixed-route data collection software and hardware. The previous data collection equipment completely failed in mid-2010 and we had reverted back to manually counting our riders. The system we installed uses a proximity reader to count boardings. The current system will replace our manual counting process and it will give us more accurate ridership data. We completed the installation of GPS/AVL equipment in our fixed-route coaches which shows the real time location of our buses. It also allows the public to view the real time locations of the buses on their computers and smart phones. We purchased and installed new narrow band mobile two-way radios for all our vehicles. We also purchased three more bus shelters for our routes, bringing the total to 25 shelters located around the community. We see a need for many more.

Maintain the effective and predictable operations of the transportation system to meet customers' expectations.
With the continued financial support from WSU, the PSD, and state and federal sources, we will be able to maintain our current and proposed service levels, plan for capital replacement, and stay within our revenue sources. Pullman Transit's future looks bright, but maintaining a prudent fiscal policy will be the key to any long-term stability. Maintaining viable fixed-route and paratransit service is paramount among the goals of Pullman Transit and the state. To do this, Pullman Transit will have to use its resources wisely to assure responsible growth and to maintain its capital programs.

Section VII: Proposed Changes, 2012-2017

2012

Preservation Improvement

Services                    No change                                         Expand community routes from
                                                                                       30-minute headways to 45-minute
                                                                                       headways and expand daily service by
                                                                                       four hours on these routes.
                                                                                       Expand the LOOP Route from 5 hours
                                                                                       per day to 14 hours per day.

Facilities No change Purchase three bus shelters

Equipment                 Upgrade fixed-route data
                                Collection system
                                Replace one ADA van                         Purchase Road Supervisor vehicle

2013
Preservation Improvement

Services No change No change