Buried at the bottom of the Post’s article today about WMATA’s changes to the bus routes is a note that WMATA is to pilot giving MetroAccess drivers cell phones to use to contact riders directly when necessary.
This move, coupled with MV Transportation’s returning rider’s phone numbers to the manifests a few weeks ago, is a positive step towards giving the drivers (and the riders) back some of the tools that enable the service to run more efficiently, allowing direct driver-to-rider contact to help locate them in those impossible-to-find-on-the-map places.
As riders will know, Logisticare drivers had unofficially been calling riders to facilitate pick-ups for a while, and the lack of such a facility had been causing an untold number of problems due to WMATA having the practice stopped when MV Transportation took over.
One of the main objections to the whole idea was that under Logisticare, some riders had been reported as calling “their favourite drivers” up directly, bypassing the MetroAccess reservation process. We’re not sure how, given most drivers have their own personal cell-phones, such a practice could be prevented, but if the objections are still held with regards to it happening with “official” cell-phones, the solution would seem to be simple – give the drivers a random cell phone at the beginning of each shift.
We hope that the pilot goes well and that we will see this simple yet powerful added resource for MetroAccess drivers to use in expediting and successfully completing trips implemented service-wide as soon as possible.
BootNote:
The Washington Examiner has a more detailed article on the cell phones pilot available.
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