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Table 13. Sample of available transit-related 511 statistics.
511 System/Transit Agency
511
Transit-
Related 511 Deployment
LYNX MTC Coalition
Statistic
(Central (San Francisco Arizona 511 (National
Florida 511) 511)* 511 Virginia Statistics)
1%-2% of
Transit-related
24% of all 511 menu all 511 9% of all
calls/menu
selections menu 511 calls
selections
selections
32,800 transfers per
month to AC Transit 5.2% of all
calls (1,650
0.4% of all
Transit 6,600 transfers per call
511 calls
transfers from month to Golden transfers < 1%
(~350 transfers
511 Gate Transit per month
per month)
to Valley
6,100 transfers per Metro)
month to Muni
15% for AC Transit
Transit
agencies' 511 80% for Muni
menu requests
23% for Golden Gate
that are for
Transit
something
other than a 42% for Santa Clara
transfer to a Valley
transit operator
35% SamTrans
* Statistics associated with individual transit agencies are available for all of the more than 20 transit
agencies that participate in the San Francisco 511 system; only a few examples for 3 agencies are
shown here.
high percentage of transfers is probably related to the fact standing exactly what types of calls these are would increase the
that that agency advertises 511 as their primary customer understanding of the impact of 511 on participating transit
service number. Therefore, rather than getting just, or agencies. Case studies shown in Section 3.4 revealed that 511-
mostly, callers interested in getting automated 511 infor- participating transit agencies did not detect any 511-related
mation, they get the full spectrum of customer inquiries. change in their customer service call volumes, which may be
In fact, because AC funnels all calls to 511, this statistic is evidence enough that most 511 transfers are probably "shifted"
a good indicator of the overall percentage of their customer rather than "new" calls to transit.
inquiries that can be handled without a live operator (15%). The analysis of sample transit-related 511 statistics indicates
This would confirm the subjective perceptions of most that there is not enough data available to understand any other
transit agency personnel that were interviewed, who feel impacts and effectiveness for transit. Further, the fact that prac-
that most customer service calls to their agency will require tically none of the transit agencies interviewed were aware of,
interaction with an operator. or provided access to, what limited statistics are available sug-
gests that 511 operators have not reached out to their partici-
What is not revealed in the sampling of available transit- pating transit agencies. This also may indicate that the transit
related 511 statistics shown in Table 13 is whether the calls agencies have not asked the operators for such data.
transferred from 511 to specific transit agencies are "new"
calls to transit or "shifted" calls. The amount of transferred
calls can be significant--on the order of tens of thousands per
3.4 Transit Agency Case Studies
month for large transit agencies in large, transit-oriented 511 This section presents the 29 case studies of transit agencies
systems like San Francisco. New calls would represent calls that were performed. Conclusions based on the case studies
from people who would not otherwise have called the transit are presented in Chapter 4.
agency directly (such as tourists) and these would represent a The case studies are organized into the following three major
net increase in calls to the transit agency. Shifted calls would categories based upon the level of transit involvement in the
be calls that would otherwise have gone to the transit agency 511 system:
directly, but the caller decided to try 511 instead. An example
of this type of caller would be a veteran transit user and caller 1. Transit agencies integrated with 511--These transit agen-
to the transit agency who noticed a reference to 511 on some cies are all represented on the menu system of their respec-
of the transit agency's materials and decided to try it. Under- tive 511 systems and 511 callers can automatically transfer
