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Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25078.
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Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25078.
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Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25078.
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Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

1 Several public transit agencies in North America and abroad are adopting customer- focused practices. Customer-focused practices come in many different forms, but the two practices discussed in this synthesis are service guarantees and customer-focused transpar- ency. Put simply, a service guarantee is a statement made by a transit agency about the level or quality of service it will provide to customers (e.g., a promise that service will be on time). Some service guarantees include customer compensation (e.g., a refund) or other actions in the event the service guarantee is not met. Customer-focused transparency is open and public reporting of performance metrics that reflect an aspect of a customer’s transit experience (e.g., timeliness of service or courtesy and helpfulness of transit agency staff). Although some transit agencies have adopted more customer-focused practices, a limited amount of research documents the experiences of these agencies. This report aims to provide readers with an up-to-date synthesis of service guarantees and customer-focused transpar- ency practices at North American transit agencies, and augments the discussion by including information from a few European transit providers. This synthesis documents the following topics related to service guarantees and customer- focused transparency: • The current state of practice, • Implementation strategies, • Perceived benefits and challenges, and • Lessons learned. To obtain this information, the author collected data through three methods: • A scan of the industry and relevant literature. • A survey of 26 North American transit agencies with either a service guarantee or customer-focused transparency. (Twenty-two transit agencies responded to the survey, an 85% response rate.) • In-depth case examples for four North American transit agencies: Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, and GO Transit (in Toronto, Ontario, Canada). The synthesis study resulted in these main findings (organized by topic): Service Guarantees • Service guarantees are not common among North American transit agencies, and transit agencies with service guarantees often do not promise an action (i.e., the guarantees do not provide refunds or some other action in the event of a service failure). S u m m a r y Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices

2 Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices • When a transit agency does take action related to its service guarantee, the most common action is to provide the customer with a refund or a credit toward future fares. Other actions include reimbursement of third-party transportation expenses and attempts to arrange alternative transportation using transportation network companies or taxis. • Punctuality guarantees (i.e., promises that service would not be delayed by more than a set number of minutes) were the most common type of service guarantee. • The punctuality threshold (or the number of minutes of delay that would trigger the service guarantee) varied across transit agencies; however, all delay thresholds were 60 min or less, with over half being 20 min or less. • Some transit agencies reported challenges associated with the administrative burden of processing customer claims related to service guarantees, but automation can help reduce the workload on staff and decrease claim processing time. • The main benefit of service guarantees is improving customer satisfaction—particularly in the event a customer experiences a service problem. Customer-Focused Transparency • Customer-focused transparency was more common than service guarantees, but almost one-fourth of survey respondents did not have a customer-focused transparency program. • Transit agencies with customer-focused transparency most often reported their data using downloadable PDFs, updated on a monthly basis. However, several transit agencies used static or interactive web pages. • The most common metric reported as part of customer-focused transparency was on-time performance. In addition, accidents, customer comments, and customer satisfaction were often reported. • Some transit agencies reported challenges associated with the administrative burden of managing transparency programs, especially when manual data manipulation and reporting were required. Automation can help reduce workload on staff and decrease the likelihood of errors in final reports. • The main benefit of customer-focused transparency is improvement in the transit agency’s image among public officials, the media, and the general public. Service Guarantees and Customer-Focused Transparency Working Together • Eight of 22 surveyed transit agencies had both a service guarantee and customer-focused transparency. • When a service guarantee was coupled with transparent performance reporting, customers were able to understand the transit agency’s goals and how well the agency is accomplishing those goals. • Service guarantees and customer-focused transparency appear beneficial for improving customer confidence and public perception. • Service guarantees and customer-focused transparency may help improve transit agency employees’ commitment to customer service and high-quality transit service. Lessons Learned • Engaging customers and employees during the early stages of implementation is critical to a program’s short- and long-term success. • Service guarantees and transparent reporting that are guided by customer needs and expectations help maximize the program’s benefits. • Simple, straightforward guarantees, performance metrics, and supporting narrative may help improve program effectiveness. • Applying automation to both service guarantee claim processing and the collection and reporting of performance metrics can greatly improve the efficiency of these programs and reduce the overall administrative burden on staff.

Summary 3 Further Actions • Transit agencies need more tools and resources to make informed decisions, support customer-focused practices, and assist with program implementation. A tool kit, guide- book, or similar resource may help increase the prevalence of service guarantees and customer-focused transparency practices in the United States. • More research is needed to fully understand the effects of service guarantees and customer- focused transparency on the attitudes of current and potential transit customers. • More research is needed to assess the differences between service promises, customer charters, and service guarantees (with and without agency action) and why some transit agencies elect to keep their service guarantees as internal policies instead of promoting them to the public. Resources for Transit Agencies In addition to Appendices A and B, which are the full text of the transit agency survey and the list of survey respondents, respectively, this report includes several appendices that may be useful to transit agencies wanting more resources related to service guarantees and transparency, including: • Appendix C: Full text of the Metrolink (in Los Angeles) service guarantee. • Appendix D: Full text of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA; in Boston) customer bill of rights. • Appendix E: Full text of the GO Train (in Toronto) service guarantee policy. • Appendix F: Full text of the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority (Dayton RTA; in Ohio) service guarantee policy. • Appendix G: Dayton RTA on-time service guarantee claim form. • Appendix H: The Canadian Urban Transit Association’s guide to launching a passenger charter. This synthesis about customer-focused service guarantees and transparency practices illuminates the current state of the industry, which appears to have adopted transparency but not generally accepted service guarantees as a norm despite previous studies that suggest service guarantees may be an important tool in adding and retaining customers. The transit industry has some tools and resources to help agencies implement service guarantees and customer-focused transparency, but more resources are needed to equip transit agencies in their efforts to meet customers’ expectations for high-quality service and transparency.

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TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 134: Customer-Focused Service Guarantees and Transparency Practices documents the nature and prevalence of customer-focused practices among transit providers in North America and supplements the discussion by including information from European transit providers.

A growing number of North American public transit agencies have adopted service guarantees or transparency practices as part of a customer-focused service strategy. Service guarantees describe the level of service customers can expect and the procedures they may follow if standards are not met. Transparency practices might include reporting performance metrics as online dashboards or report cards on the agency’s website. Currently, there is little existing research on these practices and experiences among U.S. transit providers.

Update June 29, 2018: Page i of the synthesis omits some of the authors. The correct author list is as follows:

Michael J. Walk

James P. Cardenas

Kristi Miller

Paige Ericson-Graber

Chris Simek

Texas A&M Transportation Institute

Austin, TX

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