JULY 6 — I was standing at a bus stop at 8.25am on a rare sunny Tuesday morning in Seattle in June, waiting to see if the bus would actually show up at the scheduled time of 8.28am posted on the bus stop. Sure enough, it did, and took me on my way to meet with Metro Transit, which runs the buses in Seattle.

While not every bus arrives so punctually, nearly 80 per cent of buses in Seattle are on time.

The trip that day resulted from wanting to know why research company Frost & Sullivan ranked Seattle No 2, after Copenhagen, in a recent global survey of 23 cities on public and private transport journey experiences.

Singapore ranked 18th. And a conversation with City of Seattle officials, King County staff and the region’s Metro Transit service did provide insights into its innovative public transport practices.

EMPLOYERS SUBSIDISE BUS TRIPS

A key factor in making public transit successful, said the Regional Council’s Charlie Howard, is that “this region has over the last decade invested about US$20 billion in infrastructure”. The improvements include new buses, light rail, highways and bridges, as well as special High Occupancy Vehicle lanes.

Roughly a quarter of the cost of improvements goes to technology, noted the City of Seattle’s Bill Bryant. These are designed to make Metro Transit “run more reliably and faster, with the ultimate goal of increasing ridership”.

But what makes the region rather unique, says Metro Transit’s Matt Hansen, “is that for going on 30 years, we’ve been consistently intervening in peoples’ commute travel, mostly through their employer”. The state has a commute trip reduction law, which requires employers to adopt programmes that help reduce drive-alone commutes, such as by subsidising employees’ bus transits.

Some companies even compete for talent with better transit subsidies, and “in 2009, slightly over 50 per cent of our fare revenue came directly from employers”, said Hansen.

INSURANCE FOR RIDERS

Developing a public commuting culture has been very important. “We consistently tried to chip away at reasons why people might not try to not drive,” said Mr Hansen. A high percentage of transit commuters are “choice riders”, who own a car but choose the bus.

One programme, “In Motion”, uses prompts, norms, local partnerships and maps to “challenge people to take a couple of trips a week and keep a travelogue”. If they ride the bus, they can earn rewards. The result has been a 20- to 30-per-cent increase in transit use, said Hansen.

Another innovative programme that has spurred bus ridership is an insurance policy. “One of the classic arguments for why you need your car is you might need it” — for example if your child is sick, he said. So what is basically an insurance policy was put together, such that an employee who needs immediate transportation can take a taxi for free.

Employers pay a couple of dollars a year and employees can take up to eight rides a year, although less than 2 per cent have actually used all eight rides, he noted.

PRIVATE SECTOR BUS ARRIVAL APPS

Another vital factor from a user’s perspective, Bryant said, is “just knowing when the bus is coming”.

Even with the prevalence of hand-held devices, riders still want such information at the bus stops. Hansen says that “by the end of next year, Metro will have installed an electronic management system on all of our fleet”. While Metro Transit could provide the data itself, it’s been recognised that “there’s a role for the private sector”, and private sector real-time bus arrival apps have also flourished.

Metro Transit measures its results regularly, and these are displayed on its website. A glance at metro.kingcounty.gov shows a slew of monthly and annual indicators: Nearly 80 per cent of buses arrived on time in April, for example, and dissatisfaction last year was only 6 per cent.

King County Council legislative analyst Paul Carlson said that other key indicators include “social equity, geographic coverage, safe operations and communication”. Overall, he said, the reporting structure is in line with a strong desire for “a more transparent and accountable and efficient government”.

ROOM TO IMPROVE

That is not to say that there is no room for improvement. “What we haven’t successfully done is to make public transit the norm for many other kinds of trips” beyond the peak morning and evening commute times, Bryant said. Ideally, “you’d want to see off-peak service levels rise to roughly approximate peak service levels.”

Metro Transit regularly looks at what to do better in areas like this, and is working with companies and the public to develop a 10-year strategic plan.

Howard also notes: “I think a lot of people like to complain about transportation and congestion.” And indeed the dashboard shows about 300 complaints per million miles driven.”

Overall, though, Bryant said Seattle’s transit programme has “successfully brought transit into the mainstream. It’s almost the norm”. Whereas public transport usage is below 25 per cent in many downtown areas in the United States, in some parts of Seattle it has “the largest single mode share”, he said.

Over 40 per cent of commuters in downtown Seattle and at the University of Washington (which has over 45,000 students) use public transport. — Today

* Richard Hartung is a consultant who has lived in Singapore since 1992.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication. The Malaysian Insider does not endorse the view unless specified.