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Metro Transit gets high marks in latest customer survey

Metro Transit received high marks from thousands of customers who were asked to evaluate the agency on a wide range of topics related to its bus and light-rail service.

Results from the agency’s latest customer survey provide a snapshot of customer impressions of Metro Transit across a variety of service areas – operators, phone staff, signs, cleanliness, safety, fare collection, communication, reliability and more. Survey results also reveal information about customer demographics.

“Customers continue to hold us in high regard, with 95% of train customers and 91% of bus customers agreeing or strongly agreeing that they are satisfied with our service,” said Metro Transit General Manager Brian Lamb. “On every service rating – dozens in all from shelters to schedules – we came out on the positive side.”

Customers completed surveys in late October 2008. Metro Transit previously surveyed its customers in 2006.

Customer riding patterns revealed

Survey results indicated that more customers are riding both weekdays and weekends, especially on buses, than two years ago.

Nearly half of respondents reported they usually ride the bus on both weekdays and weekends, up from 39% in 2006. Among train customers, one-third said they do the same, up from 29%.

Most customers are heading to work or school. Nearly 80% of rail riders and 77% of bus riders said work or school was the primary purpose of their trip.

Who uses transit?

Here are some additional highlights of customer demographics:

• 33% of train customers and 25% of bus customers were new to Metro Transit since 2006.

• More bus customers have less access to cars than in previous surveys. In fact, 38% said they do not own a car, up from 32% in 2006.

• Among two growing segments of riders – those 18 to 24 years old on the bus and those 24 to 35 years old on rail – metrotransit.org is the most important customer information tool.

• 19% of bus customers have household incomes of less than $10,000 (up from 16% in 2006). About one in five of these customers use a Go-To College Pass or U-Pass. On the other hand, 17% of bus customers and 29% of rail customers have household incomes of more than $80,000.

 

How the survey was conducted

The bus survey was administered using a probability sampling technique, with each customer having a unique chance of being selected for participation. For the train component, packets were distributed to customers at 17 separate stations as customers waited for trains. The response rate was about 23% for bus customers and 15% for train customers.