Editorial: Nassau bus service needs county's help
A NICE bus making its route through Nassau Community College on July 25, 2013. Credit: Newsday / Alejandra Villa
Two years ago, Nassau County took back its bus operations from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which wanted $35 million a year to run the service. The move is satisfying to the county, having saved about $65 million so far, but a recent customer satisfaction survey showed that passengers aren't as pleased.
Only 29 percent of riders reported they were satisfied overall, and much of the dissent seems to stem from overfilled buses. The private company that operates Nassau Inter-County Express -- which has one of the highest passengers-per-miles-operated ratios in the nation on its 312 buses -- believes it is a victim of its own success. But the survey also shows the service needs to improve, particularly since 2012's numbers weren't very good, either. And that means the county may have to give up some portion of the savings to help, as it promised to do when it pitched private ownership to a very nervous ridership back in 2011.
The newly released survey and operations report compares the third quarter of 2013 with the same period in 2012. On a technical level, according to "key performance indicators" of NICE operator Veolia Transportation, most things got better in 2013: the percentage of on-time buses and number of miles operated rose, breakdowns and accidents declined. NICE also saw its door-to-door service for the disabled, Able-Ride, improve in every category it measures. However, the number of "pass-ups," times that buses drove past waiting customers because they were too full, increased 43 percent, to a total of 632, due to ridership increases across the system that are particularly intense on certain routes. And last April's rate increase of 25 cents per ride on fares paid by MetroCard didn't brighten riders' moods.
Veolia knows passengers paying more, watching buses pass them by or being squeezed into vehicles like anchovies, won't be happy. The actual rider responses, collected by the French research firm Ipsos through questions asked on the buses, seem to bear that out.
Ratings in individual categories didn't drop dramatically year over year, but that percentage of customers satisfied with their experience overall plummeted in 12 months, from 52 percent to 29 percent.
In the short term, Veolia has tweaked schedules to try to improve matters, and preliminary indications prompt the company to say it's helping. In 2015, new technology will let customers pay with smartphones and use a GPS app to learn exactly where buses are and when they'll arrive. The data will also enable the company to address problems on routes in real time as it sees traffic and other issues develop.
NICE bus service has an annual budget of $113 million. Last year 48 percent of that came from fares, an unusually high amount. Almost all the rest came from the state, both through its normal contribution and an unexpected $5 million boost in aid that may or may not recur. The county itself contributes just $2.6 million per year. Suffolk County, in contrast, spends about $28 million.
Nassau is to be congratulated for the savings from privatization, and the fact that the change has generally gone smoothly. But if buses are consistently bypassing waiting riders or are uncomfortably overcrowded, the county may have to forgo some of those savings to provide more buses to meet the needs of riders.
