The RESCUE MUNI Service Standards (Customer Bill of Rights) committee
will be meeting this TUESDAY, JANUARY 6. My hope is that we can APPROVE
a proposed set of Service Standards that RM can endorse at that time.
The meeting will be at the SIERRA CLUB, 85 Second Street, at 6 p.m.
For everyone's information, attached is something I not-so-recently
distributed to the membership and George's comments on it. Read and
consider, if you can, before the meeting. Keep in mind that these are
service QUALITY standards, not service design recommendations.
See you then - call if you have ?s. Thanks!
ANDREW SULLIVAN
415 673 0626
My proposal, from the Fall TRANSFER:
>1. MUNI MUST RUN ON TIME. This means Muni must publish an accurate
>schedule and meet it.
>Measure: On-time performance as published annually by Muni in the
>Short-Range Transit Plan; in 1995-96 it was discussed in performance
>objective 3.5.
>Status: In 1995, 53% of Muni vehicles ran on time. By comparison, the
>buses in London, England ran on time almost 70% of the time the previous
>year. Muni must set its goals at least this high.
>
>2. MUNI MUST PROVIDE THE SERVICE ADVERTISED. This means advertising a
>level of service that can be provided. Muni must not miss scheduled runs.
>Measure: Missed hours of service (Figure 4.1 in SRTP)
>Status: In FY 1995-96, 4% of scheduled service was missed, or over 9,000
>hours per month. Of this, 2.7% of missed hours were due to "lack of
>operators" - when the rate of absenteeism (scheduled and unscheduled) was
>24%. Muni must meet its stated goal, which is to miss less than 1% of
>service.
>
>3. MUNI MUST MAINTAIN ITS VEHICLES PROPERLY. This means keeping buses and
>streetcars in good working order. No vehicle should leave the shop unless
>it is working perfectly.
>Measure: Mean distance between failures (miles between road calls, SRTP
>figure 4.24, which translates to failures per month)
>Status: This varies widely by vehicle type. The most reliable vehicle is
>the diesel bus, with a road call once every 4000 miles, or about 260
>failures per month. But the least reliable vehicle, the trolley coach,
>requires a road call every 450 miles, or about 1,300 failures per month.
>
>4. MUNI MUST KEEP THE SYSTEM CLEAN. This includes removing trash and
>graffiti immediately from vehicles and stations. Dirty vehicles should
>not be sent out until they are cleaned. Surface streetcar/bus stops must
>also be kept as clean as possible.
>Measure: Muni tracks the frequency at which vehicles are cleaned in SRTP
>Objective 1.6. A better measure of actual cleanliness (not implemented
>today) would be frequent independent spot checks.
>Status: Muni says it cleans vehicles daily and washes them twice a week.
>Our committee members expressed skepticism that this goal is really met,
>since we ride dirty buses and streetcars often.
>
>5. MUNI MUST KEEP ACCIDENTS TO A MINIMUM. This means that staff must be
>held accountable for accidents that they cause.
>Measure: Total number of accidents (and # per million miles), SRTP Figure
>4.5.
>Status: Muni's accident rate declined slightly in 1995-96 (the latest year
>for which data are available) to 120 per million miles, which translates
>to 240 accidents per month, or OVER 7 PER DAY. Staff accountability
>remains a major question mark, given the recent experiences with the
>31-Balboa crashes at Ocean Beach and the J-Church crashes at Dolores Park.
>
>6. MUNI MUST PREVENT CRIME. For SF's citizens to feel safe riding Muni,
>the crime rate must be held to the absolute minimum.
>Measure: Assaults on operators and passengers, SRTP Figure 4.18.
>Status: This is an area in which Muni has made substantial improvements of
>late. Crime dropped by almost half from 1995 to June 1996, to 17 crimes
>per month.
>
>7. MUNI MUST HOLD ITSELF ACCOUNTABLE. This is the goal on which all of
>the others depend. Muni must track all statistics discussed here as well
>as customer satisfaction and complaints, publishing them on a much more
>regular basis. Most importantly, Muni staff and management must be
>evaluated and retained or let go on the basis of Muni's performance -
>something not done today.
>Measure: Frequency with which Muni published performance stats.
>Status: All data used in this discussion are over a year old, since they
>are only published once a year. Muni needs to publish its performance
>data monthly, preferably on the World Wide Web so anyone can read and
>analyze them, and announce them to the Public Transportation Commission.
>Measure: Customer complaints (the closest thing to satisfaction measures).
> SRTP Figure 4.20.
>Status: In FY 1995-96, Muni received around 700 complaints per month.
>This declined slightly from the previous fiscal year but has been quite
>steady over the past five years.
and from George...
>Perhaps we could give riders the
>right to ask questions of Muni officials under oath. I don't know
>whether this belongs in this bill of rights or elsewhere - we
>should check what the British customer charters specify.
>
>And how about this: The rider has a right to speedy resolution of
>complaints. Measures: time to wait for a customer service rep on
>the phone (no more than 5% of callers wait more than 30 seconds);
>time between complaint and action (no more than 5% take more than
>5 business days).