2012 Budget Book.indd - Metra

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E ective Stewardship
As this agency navigates the sluggish economic
recovery and diminishing capital resources, we are
rea rming the goals that have helped us create
the current Metra system. These include: maintaining
nancial stability through cost containment
and e cient deployment of operating assets,
continuing the aggressive pursuit of an equitable
share of federal, state and local funding, and, most
importantly, maintaining safe, reliable and quality
service to our riders and the region.
Metra is also working to increase transparency in
its dealings with the public by providing more,
and more accurate, information to its customers
and the public at large. In 2011, we began an
unprecedented dialogue with our riders, which
we plan to continue in 2012.
Through the Metra website, we increased the
amount of information available regarding our
day-to-day operations, adding on-time performance
reports and service-related statistics. We
also deployed the technologies available to solicit
customer feedback on issues such as Quiet Cars,
proposed schedule changes, and the 2012 budget
process through online surveys. The added
information and feedback tools have been very
well received. More than 7,000 people responded
to the survey on our 2012 budget proposals.
We also worked to improve how we communicate
with our riders in other ways. In May, Metra
discontinued the practice of giving construction
time allowances on our train schedules for routine
projects. Time allowances are now only granted
for large-scale projects. For these projects, special
revised schedules are printed and distributed to
passengers. Information regarding routine proj-
ects is posted on Metra’s website and customers
are also informed of delays through service alerts.
This new policy will impact Metra’s on-time performance
calculations and will give our passengers
more accurate information.
Metra has been working with the RTA and the
other service boards to develop more formal and
statistically accurate methods to track and evaluate
the region’s transit performance. A direct result of
this is the development of a customer satisfaction
survey that includes a common scale for recording
responses, a set of customer satisfaction questions
and a common set of demographic questions. A
survey will be conducted in November 2011, using
this common methodology as well as questions
unique to each service board. The survey will be distributed
onboard Metra trains and made available
online through Metra’s website. The results of this
survey will be used by Metra and the RTA as part
of its performance measurement and monitoring
program. Survey results will also be used by Metra,
where feasible, to tailor service re nements and ongoing
marketing e orts.
Metra also kept the public and its riders informed
regarding emissions testing. A series of stories in
the Chicago Tribune in 2011 questioned the quality
of air in our stations and on our trains. Metra
responded quickly to these concerns through a
series of meetings with stakeholders and regulatory
agencies and comprehensive testing of air quality
on its trains and at its stations.
Metra found that there are federal standards for
many, but not all, of the chemicals and other components
of diesel exhaust. Metra meets all existing
standards. However, there is no federal standard for