Transit Finance Learning Exchange Workshop
Valley Metro – Phoenix, Arizona
Efficiency and Effectiveness of Service

March 11-13, 2018
The theme is Efficiency and Effectiveness of Service.

Agenda

Sunday, March 11, 2018 – 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at Valley Metro offices.
Business Meeting

Where Have All the Riders Gone? Update on ridership issues
Updates from members on ridership trends at their agencies.

Efficiency and Effectiveness of Service
Setting service standards, how do you measure efficiency versus effectiveness?  How do you get through the ugliness of deciding what service to decrease or cut?  You do the model and then what do you do?
Joe Gregory, Service Planning Manager for Valley Metro will discuss the model that took them three years to develop.  Sean Murdock will discuss the dilemma at OCTA during the great recession and their performance.  Houston will discuss their service standards model and DART will discuss theirs as well.

Federal update
Discussion of 1) how the new tax law may affect transit – will it reduce the benefit of our bonds, 2) FTA’s Transit Asset Management program. Denver can talk about their program as well.

Tax Revenue Projections
How do member agencies prepare tax forecasts?  What works best?  Joshua Worley, an economist with the Arizona DOT will be on hand with Valley Metro to lead the discussion as they explain how the two entities work together in projecting tax revenues.  Also: Issues with internet sales tax and distribution centers and how much tax is realized from them.

Changing Employee Culture
Valley Metro takes center stage in discussing their efforts to change employee culture; Joe Costello, Sr. VP of Finance, DART will talk about their Five Star program, and Michelle Caldwell – CFO at Foothill Transit discusses what it was like to come into an agency that had already done the work to create and maintain a good culture.

Where Have All the Riders Gone? – Valley Metro tries to find out.
Omar Peters – Planner II with Valley Metro will discuss a recently completed ASU Student Survey.  Related to “where have the riders gone” they noticed a significant decline in college student ridership between ASU’s Phoenix and Tempe campuses and surveyed students to learn more.

For planning purposes, the Monday session typically starts at 8:00 a.m. and the Tuesday session typically ends around 3:00 pm.