Miami- Dade Transit JANUARY 10 www. bus- ex. com 219 I magine running a business where, for one reason or another, your selling price was locked for 15 years, and many of those during periods of inflation. Of course, if the quantity of sales was increasing then the numbers might add up. But in the case of Miami- Dade Transit, passenger numbers have remained stubbornly flat for the best part of a quarter- century, except for those times when the high cost of gasoline drove more people to public transportation. Fares have recently been bumped up by 50 cents, but at a flat rate of just $ 2 to go anywhere in the system, it's still an excellent value. Miami- Dade Transit is the largest public transportation operator in Florida and the 14th- largest in the United States. It provides bus service 365 days a year throughout Miami- Dade County from as far north as Broward County to Homestead, Florida City and the Middle Keys. Buses are complemented by a 22.6- mile stretch of elevated rapid rail transport, and in downtown Miami there is a free automated people mover. MDT also runs the United States' busiest Special Transportation Service for people with disabilities who qualify. Every day as many as 6,000 door- to- door STS journeys are made, at a flat fee of $ 3 per trip. The responsibility for managing MDT lies with executive director Harpal Kapoor. He's worked there on and off since 1985 when he joined as an electronic technician. These days, Kapoor is a member of a Getting Americans out of their cars and onto public transportation is notoriously difficult, but that doesn't stop Miami- Dade Transit from trying, as Alan Swaby discovers

220 www. bus- ex. com JANUARY 10 number of important industry steering committees and a highly qualified administrator who is using advanced management techniques such as six sigma to determine how best to improve the service. " With revenue capped and costs always rising," explains Kapoor, " one aspect of MDT that suffered was maintenance. And when vehicles aren't maintained, passengers also suffer due to breakdowns and service curtailments. In that light, there is little incentive for people to switch from their cars to public transportation." The two main stands of MDT's strategy, then, are to improve customer satisfaction and to squeeze costs out of the way the service runs. A key tool in this regard has been not only to log every complaint received but also to investigate and provide the complainant with a personalized explanation. Similarly, every incidence of a delay longer than five minutes is also investigated. Bit by bit, bottlenecks have been mapped and then subjected to detailed analysis. Solutions thrown up in this way are trialed for a month and, if successful, implemented throughout the system. Kapoor realizes that investing in human capital is also what makes an organization efficient. This is why he places high standards in the recruitment of a new generation of managers and supervisors who are best able to tackle the complex problems that MDT faces using more than just rule- of- thumb techniques. For example, a spate of breakdowns indicated that engine overheating was the root cause. Further investigation put the finger on a maintenance routine that reactively fixed individual problems rather than thinking in the round. These days, all vulnerable parts of every vehicle are subject to a preventive maintenance program. Coolant hoses have a life of, say, three years, so after two years and nine months they are changed before a breakdown occurs. The consequence of such a methodical approach has been to breathe new life into an aging fleet of vehicles without spending a fortune. The fact is that with an operational budget of $ 400 million to cover 816 buses and 136 Metrorail cars, it's not a business that has spare money to throw at the problem. Nevertheless, there are significant ongoing investments. In May of 2009, MDT broke ground on a 2.4- mile link from the existing Metrorail line to the Miami Intermodal Center, Miami- Dade County's future central transportation hub under construction next to the Miami International Airport ( MIA). Meanwhile, in December, MDT inaugurated the Airport Flyer, which provides visitors direct express bus service from MIA to Metrorail and Miami Beach for a single fare of just $ 2.35 each way. Kapoor is a big fan of technology and is using $ 55 million from federal stimulus funds to upgrade infrastructure. " We have to get passengers on our side," he says, " and one way is with information. They can sign up to receive Rider Alerts for up- to- the- minute text messages on their mobile devices or email regarding any disruptions affecting our transit services. Soon