Metro sales clerks gave incorrect information 25 percent of the time and “provided good customer service” just 50 percent of the time, according to a report commissioned for the transit system.
In a typical year, Metro receives more than 40,000 complaints — the equivalent of more than 100 each day of the year. The majority come from the services with the smallest numbers of riders: Metrobus and MetroAccess for those with disabilities. In the current fiscal year (July through February), Metro has received 28,470 complaints in the following categories:
n Metrorail: 5,332, with escalators the most common concern
n Metrobus: 10,814, with delays the top complaint
n MetroAccess: 12,324, with early and late pickups or drop-offs the biggest concern
SOURCE: METRO
The evaluation came from “mystery riders” paid by a research company to ride the system’s buses and trains, observing whether elevators smelled, if station managers with name badges and uniforms sat in their booths, and whether the lights worked.
The Metro system already receives more than 40,000 complaints each year from riders lamenting late buses, missed pickups by disability access vans and broken escalators.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has said that cuts proposed to the transit system budget would make the system worse, with dirtier railcars, longer waits and the occasional missed bus. The trims will also make it harder for the transit system to get feedback on those very problems. The agency announced it planned to chop the mystery rider program before its first report was made public. Metro even said the wait time to file complaints would be longer — more than the current average of 15 minutes.
“It’s like spitting into a dark hole,” said Harold Snider, a World Bank consultant who has filed complaints over the years about the MetroAccess service he must rely on because he is blind.
After he has complained, he has gotten responses, including an apology and sometimes free rides. But he said the responses felt like a palliative that soothes the wound but doesn’t cure it. Metro didn’t explain how it planned to correct systemic problems, he said, and little has improved.
In 2006, Metro started a new complaint processing system to log complaints and give each customer a case number. The complaints then get routed automatically to the correct division for investigation.
But a November 2008 National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board report about MetroAccess service found the transit service’s overall complaint system did not document corrective actions to fix the problems.
Furthermore, it said, the customer service office was only staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and callers on weekends couldn’t leave a message. When callers could get through, the hold times could be “very long.”
In the first eight months of the current fiscal year, the agency has already received more than 28,000 complaints, according to Metro. Among the top problems for each service: broken escalators at Metrorail stations, plus late buses and delayed MetroAccess vehicles.
The mystery riders also pinpointed issues. Sales clerks “performed poorly on customer service,” according to the report, earning the system’s lowest overall ranking of just 63 percent. Trains showed stains and spills, scoring 60 percent on cleanliness. Just more than half of buses had schedules available.
Christopher Zimmerman, a Metro board member who pushed for the mystery rider program, said he had hoped those findings could help the system improve but also serve as a baseline for the future. But the agency is facing an economic reality, he said, that means it has to lose some programs that were intended to make it better.
“Metro doesn’t have a lot of options,” he said. “It’s going to take action of state legislatures, to some degree local governments and Congress. We can’t continue to improve the system. It’s just not free.”
