Has anyone else encountered the mysterious drifting schedules?
That’s where you have your pick-up scheduled for, say, 2:30pm, and your ride is late, but when you call MetroAccess an agent tells you that according to the computer your ride is actually in it as being at 3:00pm, and that your ride isn’t late?
I have to wonder just how dynamic and adaptive the new computer system is … the new Ranger MDT systems that manifests are being tracked on seem quite capable of being re-scheduled on the fly, since add-ons are able to be pushed out to vehicles so fitted.
The question however is, why would scheduled pick-ups be getting changed to later times?
We know that one of the most important metrics WMATA is concerned with is the late pick-up times. MetroAccess has been making multiple pick-ups and leaving riders on vehicles for long periods of time (obviously that isn’t a metric WMATA is monitoring) in an attempt to meet their contractual goals, cramming as many pick-ups onto a vehicle as possible and then heading out to drop the riders at their destinations.
The end result of this practice is akin to taking the Red Line MetroRail from Metro Center to Gallery Place/Chinatown, but on the way the train will first go to Greenbelt, Rockville, Largo Town Center, then back to Greenbelt, then Rockville, then finally stop at Gallery Place/Chinatown to let you off. MetroRail riders wouldn’t be too impressed with the trip analogy, why are we supposed to accept it?
Is it possible that there’s some padding of pick-up times going on as well?
There’s no way to be sure as yet, but when we post the “How to validate your ride report” guide shortly, we hope to give the riders methods by which they can start verifying these things in ways that are very difficult for WMATA and MV Transportation to continue to casually dismiss or claim is fabrication.
We are very interested to hear from any riders that have encountered these mysterious shifting pick-up phenomena, or the scenic tour trips.
