Introduction
On Saturday, February 15, RIDE hosted our monthly Coalition for Quality Transit meeting to discuss transit communications. The Coalition for Quality Transit is RIDE’s volunteer, rider-led organizing arm. Members gather monthly to guide our policy recommendations and campaigns.
Twenty-five members were divided into three groups: emergency and special events, detours, and overall communications. Members researched communication guides and strategies from other agencies nationwide, FTA and APTA standards and practices, and personal rider experience.
Emergencies and Special Events
Problem: Riders often remain unaware of stop closures or route detours. Extensive outreach and engagement have shown that riders, particularly those lacking technology access, frequently miss important information about emergency and special event detours. This can lead to several issues, such as arriving late for work (which puts jobs at risk), needing to miss work entirely (resulting in lost income) at the last minute, or long wait times, often in harsh weather.
Recommendation: Develop an inclusive communications strategy that provides wide-reaching and immediate alerts during emergencies and special events—including recurring events like Mardi Gras, Essence Fest, and Jazzfest. Engage with riders to discover how they prefer to access transit information. Partner with organizations that serve riders of all abilities (such as Lighthouse, the NOLA Council on Aging, etc.) to make information as accessible as possible and major job centers such as the hospitality industry.
Ensure that riders who may not be on social media or who may not regularly check the NORTA website will receive the necessary information to plan their trip. Communicate service changes through all possible mediums:
- Telecom: Push notifications or text messages to which riders can subscribe with clear and specific accessible instructions.
- Direct: RTA supervisors drive down affected routes to engage stranded riders, provide alternatives, and work out accommodations. Ensure they have accessible handouts in multiple languages to offer riders or to leave at stops
- Media: Social media, TV news, radio news, RTA website, etc.
Problem: Stranded riders lack shelter while waiting for services to resume during extreme weather. For instance, during the freezing temperatures earlier this year, detours and closed routes left many residents without transit to access warming shelters, putting them at risk of injury. Similarly, during summer, detours and closures often leave riders stranded, forcing them to walk long distances or remain in the heat without shade for extended periods. These riders, especially the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, are at greater risk for heat-related illnesses.
Recommendation: Develop a plan to transport stranded riders to shelter and emergency resources until the extreme weather passes and services resume or detours return to normal.
- Cross into neighboring parishes to account for those riders (riders who transfer onto RTA buses, etc)
- Have personnel and materials to offer assistance in languages other than English (Vietnamese, Spanish, Haitian Creole)
- Have supervisors near closed stops to direct confused riders
Problem: Employers frequently discipline or terminate employees for tardiness caused by RTA service delays or cancellations. Many employees rely on RTA as their sole means of transportation to get to work, and they should not be penalized for late buses that are beyond their control.
Recommendation #1: Conduct outreach to inform employers about transit-related reasons for lateness and to establish accountability measures. Additionally, an online portal should be created to display current service issues, not just DELAY or DETOUR
- Focus particularly on the hospitality industry and downtown job hubs.
- Collaborate with employers, including hotels and service industry providers, to spread the word.
- Partner with the Office of Nighttime Economy, the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association, the Downtown Development District, and/or NOLA & Company to reach nightlife and tourism employers more effectively.
Recommendation #2: As the bus fleet expands, consider extending service hours on routes that serve hospitality workers. Through outreach, RIDE has learned that hospitality workers need buses that operate later at night and earlier in the morning, along with more frequent service on weekends. Conduct outreach to identify which lines would benefit from expansion to better support the backbone of our economy: the hospitality industry.
Problem: When emergencies and special events arise, there are often inadequate transit alternatives available.
Recommendation: Establish a standard that mandates the implementation of alternative routes unless all roads are blocked. Consider using transit shuttles or rideshare options if specific areas are particularly underserved during emergencies.
Detours
- Problem: Routes are often shortened during events with a large geographic footprint, such as parades or attraction zones. However, even though they are shortened, frequencies do not often increase. This creates several issues, including overcrowded buses and streetcars (which often leads to skipped stops), riders arriving late to their destinations, and unplanned walking (which can be detrimental and sometimes impossible for those with mobility challenges). These problems disproportionately affect local residents who are commuting to and from work, particularly those in service industry jobs downtown.
- Recommendation: Increase frequencies on shortened routes.
- For instance, when St. Charles Mardi Gras parades cause the #12 streetcar to end at Napoleon Ave., the frequencies between there and Carrollton/Claiborne can be significantly increased.
Problem: Due to inconsistency in following published detour plans and frequently lacking, confusing, or contradictory communication, many riders doubt the accuracy of the information they receive, discouraging them from using transit. For instance, during the snowstorm earlier this year and the Super Bowl, only limited information was shared about detours, and the information that was provided was often inaccurate, delayed (with updates sometimes released hours after a detour had already changed again), or confusing. When information was shared, it was written in what we believe was internal language, which made it hard to understand.
Recommendation: RTA must strictly adhere to publicized detour plans to rebuild trust and take action against bus operators’ agencies altering routes at their discretion. Riders should have access to real-time accessible detour information to make informed decisions about their commutes. Training for the communications team is also recommended. This will ensure they can translate the “planner language” to easy-to-understand directions, which should be displayed in multiple languages.
Problem: Often, particularly during times of altered service, practices vary between operators. For example, when buses replace St. Charles Streetcar service but the street remains open, they may pull up near streetcar stops to pick up the waiting riders or may only stop at temporarily designated street corners. Similarly, during the Super Bowl detours, riders notified RIDE that operators were inconsistently following the communicated detours. This made riders uncertain where to wait for buses and, at times, left them stranded.
Recommendation: Implement stricter, updated standards to ensure practices are clear, concise, and consistent. Communicate detours to operators in real-time whenever feasible.
Problem: RTA office staff and city leaders are both in positions to make decisions and bring about changes around transit issues and are often disconnected from understanding the struggles riders deal with. These leaders regularly admit to riding transit minimally, if at all.
Recommendation: Require RTA staff and city leadership to use public transit three times a week to bridge the current disconnect in understanding issues. This is likely to spur quicker positive change and help reestablish trust. Encourage and incentivize RTA and non-leadership city staff to ride as well
Problem: Often, detour information is posted only online, or minimal details are available on the ground with links to online information. When unaware, riders often waste considerable time waiting at stops when transit vehicles will not arrive. Riders are busy trying to get to work and do not have extra time to sift through confusing information to determine when and where detours will be.
Recommendation: Install more detailed signage at every affected stop and remove it immediately after regular service is restored. Provide as much detail as possible about the nature of the changes, rather than just including an online link, to eliminate unnecessary steps to access information and remove smartphone ownership as a barrier. Ensure communications are accessible and available in multiple languages. Have supervisors stationed at high-traffic stops to assist wayfind.
Problem: Riders sometimes overlook travel alternatives that could help them reach their destinations during detours.
Recommendation: During detour communications, highlight alternatives such as Blue Bikes that temporarily reduce reliance on public transport.
Problem: The Le Pass app often provides little detail about detours. Notices typically direct riders to the RTA website for information. Once there, they need to search for relevant details and may have to download documents that can be hard to read on smaller smartphones. Additionally, during peak traffic times (such as emergencies and special events), the website can be slow or even inaccessible.
Recommendation: Simplify detour communications in Le Pass by reducing the steps required to find information. Instead, present details as quickly and clearly as possible. Include essential information like an estimated detour time (is it a traffic jam that will soon clear, or a sinkhole that will disrupt the area for weeks?) and clarify the language–for instance, what do “serious” or “severe” delays mean for riders compared to a standard delay? Are there specific timeframes linked to these terms?
Problem: Buses often handle detours differently from what official plans and communications outline. This erodes public trust and creates frustrating experiences for riders who justifiably expect a vehicle to arrive as scheduled.
Recommendation: Conduct a thorough review of bus routes during detours compared to public expectations based on published plans. Investigate specific serious incidents and all causes of discrepancies. Who disregarded the detour plans: the operator, their supervisors, or even higher-level RTA staff? Establish policies to prevent this from happening in the future.
Communications & Lack of Trust
Problem: In RTA daily communications and customer service, information is often inconsistent, unavailable in languages besides English, dense, and written to a higher literacy level.
Recommendation:
- Provide alerts and notices in additional languages such as Spanish, Haitian Creole, and Vietnamese.
- Isolate messages to their central point to minimize extra verbiage.
- Write alert messages to match lower literacy levels so more riders can easily understand.
- Spread awareness around service alerts through radio, TV, and TV ticker (bottom of screen), website, social media, Le Pass push notifications, and text messages.
- Provide notification in a timely manner to alleviate the chance of frustrating rider experiences and to allow the public to form alternate travel plans.
- Specify more precisely when service will resume after parades and special events.
- Put policies in place to ensure Rideline operators get pertinent information in real time, as often their communications are delayed and the information they give riders is inaccurate.
Problem: New Orleans communities lack trust in the RTA for multitudinous reasons.
Recommendation:
- Build back good faith, winning over new riders to increase overall ridership.
- Conduct regular and consistent outreach with your riders (put a policy in place for the cadence of this outreach, and don’t lean solely on RAC meetings as many riders cannot attend). Put in place changes based on feedback. Publish this information
- Publish your data on a dashboard for accountability and transparency and so riders can remain up-to-date on improvements and progress.
- Establish community transit representatives for each district that can attend RAC, RTA board, and or operations meetings. Keeping you connected and responsible for the people you serve.