Smoking while driving, running red lights, speeding, texting and filling out paperwork while maneuvering the wheel with a practiced knee – this is not description of Canada’s Worst Driver, but rather the nature of some of the 2,344 written complaints filed against OC Transpo and its drivers in January of this year alone. For those doing the math, that averages out to around 75 complaints a day.
These are all dangerous behaviours for which the average citizen gets ticketed. What other service industry would we allow such dangerous and illegal behaviours? Restaurants have to meet cleanliness standards, contractors have to follow building codes.
Besides the dangerous driving habits of some of its drivers, the complaints received by OC Transpo included failures in a number of other customer service standards.
More than 1,000 of the complaints involved busing schedules. The unpredictability of the bus schedule has become both a source of anger and a running joke in Ottawa. Forget going to Lac Leamy to gamble, passengers can gather at Hurdman and place bets on how late the bus will be, or whether it will show up at all.
A free GPS mobile app was OC Transpo’s half-hearted attempt at pacifying riders, but even that endeavor was glitch-ridden and unreliable and has now been scrapped for an overhaul.
Here’s a suggestion: instead of passengers tracking the bus on their phones to see whether they will get to work on time, how about just making the buses run on schedule?
It is also important to note that not everyone has an iPhone. Those that don't have these devices for one reason or another or can't afford one, also deserve to have a bus schedule that is reliable without needing to purchase an expensive smart phone.
What kind of message is the city sending to visitors and tourists who are using OC Transpo? It is already difficult trying to navigate a new city, without the added stress of unreliable and unsafe transit.
The 150 complaints in January about “discourteous” and “rude” drivers would certainly leave a sour taste in the mouths of most visitors to the city.
And it isn’t just visitors we should be thinking about, of course; how are we to convince people to take an environmentally friendly commute when our public transit has such as ghastly reputation?
The city fired Alain Mercier, the general manager of transit, in February, but there is no sign of improvement on the horizon.
John Manconi, OC Transpo’s new boss, is drafting an improvement strategy, but the focus seems to be on bells and whistles instead of the basics. At the top of the agenda is the addition of double-decker buses to the fleet, “smart cards” instead of paper passes, garage renovations and improvements to the GPS apps.
Forget modernizing and aesthetics; these are not solutions to unsafe driving, poor etiquette, and not enough buses to meet demand.
OC Transpo is lacking in the basics of good business, it is drowning in complaints but is clinging to superficial remedies instead of attacking the roots of the problem. Technology is not the answer; OC Transpo needs to put the “service” back into “customer service” first.