D.C. Circulator Struggles With Maintenance
Drivers Ask ‘How Safe Is It Today?’ As D.C. Circulator Struggles With Maintenance
By WAMU Martin DiCaro
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More than a year after an audit exposed major shortcomings by the private contractor that operates the system, D.C. Circulator buses remain hamstrung by chronic maintenance problems, unable to meet the daily quota of working buses and leading to a wave of rider complaints about poor service.
According to District audits and other performance data obtained by WAMU, so many buses are out-of-service that the Circulator’s spare rate — the ratio of buses not in service to those available — has climbed to close to double the industry standard. That leaves the active fleet short by as many as 10 buses when it is time to hit the city’s streets each morning.
On-time performance tanked in April. Only 52 percent of buses were on time across the six Circulator lines, where wait times range from 5 to 15 minutes. The target is 80 percent, which has not been reached in any of the past seven months. February came the closest, with a high of 78 percent.
Criticisms in the most recent audit — a scathing 35-page report issued by the D.C. Department of Transportation in January and obtained through a public records request — are echoed by the Circulator’s unionized bus drivers. They say one to two dozen buses are out of service on a typical day, awaiting repairs at the garage in Northeast Washington – where, the audit found, technicians are failing to identify and repair the defects.
DDOT TRC Audit Jan 2017 Final 03-23-17 by wamu885 on Scribd
The company that operates the Circulator bus system under a contract with WMATA, Cincinnati-based First Transit cited a number of factors for its poor on-time performance.
“It is reported that the Washington D.C., region experienced record tourism in 2016. That coupled with unforeseen traffic issues and the highest population influx, will all have an impact,” First Transit said in an email to WAMU. The company promised to do better: “First Transit has hired additional maintenance staff to help improve down time.”
Since January, First Transit has failed to meet its “pullout” requirement — the number of buses necessary for full service at 6 a.m. — one out of every three days.
Intractable problems
Regardless of where the fault lies, the intractable problems show that the D.C. Circulator has never overcome its initial flaws — inadequate maintenance bays and delays in obtaining spare parts from an overseas manufacturer. These have been exacerbated by system expansion. The situation is fueling the union’s argument against the privatization of public transit at a time Metro is considering outsourcing future services to the private sector.
With their big windows, distinctive red coloring and high-frequency schedule, the Circulator has become a familiar sight to tourists and residents. Introduced in 2005, the system has expanded to 13 neighborhoods and the National Mall. But mechanical and safety problems afflict aging and new buses alike, and they persist more than a year after an audit exposed First Transit’s failure to keep up the fleet of 67 buses operating along six routes.
“We got drivers sitting in the break room mad because they have to sit around and can’t really earn their keep,” said Flynn Burke, a Circulator driver and lead shop steward for Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1764.
Buses often break down mid-route, Burke said, or drivers are forced to cut routes short to return a defective bus to the lot. “Sometimes the company will send them home early if [First Transit] doesn’t have anything for them to do.”
The “pullout” problem has worsened since the end of last year, when full service was met on 81 of 91 days October through December — a big improvement from the prior three-month period (July-September 2016) when on 46 of 92 days, an insufficient number of buses plied the routes.
“100% availability should be the norm.” — DDOT audit
Although the figure fluctuates depending on the season, the number of operational buses to meet “pullout” is about 50. Reaching this figure has been difficult because, based on District data, roughly one-third of the 67-bus fleet is unavailable on a regular basis.
Only one figure is acceptable to the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), the agency that budgets $25 million annually for Circulator service: “100% availability should be the norm,” concluded DDOT’s January audit.
Troublesome arrangement
DDOT contracts with WMATA (Metro) to oversee and manage the Circulator system’s day-to-day operations, including scheduling and route management. First Transit was hired by WMATA in 2005 because it was the only bidder with any maintenance and storage facilities.
But the District’s top transportation official said Metro’s lack of effective on-the-ground oversight has forced his agency to intervene.
“As I’ve said before, I have intentionally directed DDOT staff to incrementally get more and more involved in the day-to-day operations of Circulator to fill in gaps with the current arrangement,” said DDOT director Leif Dormsjo.
“That means our team has gotten more involved in preventive maintenance, expectations, customer service, and daily review of performance,” said Dormsjo, who said the original intent was for the District to handle policy and budget issues while leaving operations oversight to WMATA.
“Metro has the in-house expertise. While they’ve stepped up their effort, there is still a gap,” he said.
WMATA declined requests for an interview, but a spokeswoman answered questions submitted by WAMU via email.
“We’re not satisfied with the service we are providing right now.” — Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT
Metro “shall not be required to repair, replace, or maintain any bus,” said WMATA’s Sherri Ly, citing the contract’s language. First Transit is “fully responsible for all repair, maintenance, and replacement of all buses.”
Metro employs four full-time staffers to oversee the Circulator operation. “Additionally, Metro has a full-time maintenance representative whose primary duty is to perform contract oversight and is normally at the garage daily,” Ly said.
The next audit, covering the first three months of 2017, is expected soon, but D.C. officials said they did not expect to see significant improvement in maintenance since the January audit report, the most recent one available.
“We’re not satisfied with the service we are providing right now, and we’re working tirelessly to improve that service so that we don’t lose customers forever,” said Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT’s chief project delivery officer, in an interview.
Ridership plummeting, penalties soaring
Riders are showing their displeasure: Circulator ridership dropped 14 percent in the first four months of the year compared to the same period in 2016. There were 213,000 fewer trips. Daily ridership fell from 12,800 to 11,000.
For comparison, Metro, beset by an array of operational problems and disruptive track work, saw rail and bus trips drop by only 9 percent year-on-year, compared to the Circulator’s dramatic 14 percent decline.
“That means we are missing trips,” Zimbabwe said. “At times we are having trouble providing service where people can rely on it at all.”
First Transit is paying a price for its failure. Under its contract with WMATA, the company receives payment only for hours of service provided. It was docked nearly $2 million out of $18 million in potential earnings during the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2016.
In the current year, the company could earn up to $19.5 million, but has already been docked $1.4 million since Oct. 1. The potential value of the entire contract, now in its second year with three one-year options next, is $98 million – minus the deductions for service deficiencies.
Metro’s Circulator staffers are responsible for assessing monetary damages for First Transit’s failure to meet performance standards. For its part, Metro is paid an annual management fee of $698,000 for administering the contract, which includes fare collection, handling customer service calls, procurement, and engineering.
Broken buses, shoddy maintenance
First Transit’s dismal record at D.C. Circulator is the result of multiple factors.
Many of the buses are old — 29 of the 67 are from model years 2003 and 2004, near the end of their useful lifespan. The long-term absence of any effective maintenance, exposed in last April’s eye-opening audit, has exacerbated the reliability problem. Those buses never received a mid-life overhaul, either, but remain on the road with odometers eclipsing 200,000 miles.
Another 20 buses are from model year 2009.
Help is on the way, though. Zimbabwe said 40 new buses will join the fleet by the end of the year. Fourteen will run on electric power. “We expect the service to improve,” he said.
But new buses will not be a panacea if they are maintained like the aging vehicles they are supposed to replace. Problems already are surfacing among the 18 buses that joined the Circulator fleet just three years ago.
“It is possible that the focus to repair defects on the older sub fleets has come at the expense of neglecting the much newer sub fleet,” the January DDOT audit said. “Allowing defects to increase on these newer buses will lead to their accelerated deterioration. The existence of nearly five defects on buses only a few years old is unacceptable.”
Even accounting for mitigating factors like aging buses and hard-to-find replacement parts, the audit raised troubling questions about whether First Transit has enough manpower and expertise in Washington.
“None of the technicians has ASE certifications despite First Transit’s declaration last audit that it would attempt to fill vacancies with ASE certified personnel,” according to the January report. ASE (Automotive Service Excellence) is a nationally recognized program that verifies technician competence.
Five months later, the number of ASE-certified technicians is still zero. The current contract does not require First Transit to include this qualification for employment. As a result, the company calls in “supplemental staff to support mechanical work,” said DDOT spokesman Terry Owens.
Owens noted that “other public transit providers” across the country are struggling to find “a skilled workforce interested in working as mechanics.”
The starting hourly wages range from $24 to $28, depending on experience and certifications.
Auditors found that the mechanics routinely failed to spot defects during preventive maintenance checks, suggesting that Circulators in need of follow-up repairs were instead sent back out onto their routes.
The maintenance auditors from Transit Resource Center, a private firm hired by DDOT, randomly inspected 22 buses. They found an average of 5.6 defects per bus; the oldest buses had the most (6.9), but even the newest buses in the fleet, model year 2014 and manufactured by New Flyer, had close to 5 defects per bus. (On the day of their site visit, 24 buses were down).
Circulators in disrepair
Exterior body damage and engine problems remained the most common defects. First Transit, the auditors said, often did not take samples of 15 vital fluids at each scheduled preventive maintenance check. As any car owner knows, waiting too long to check the oil can cause problems. Yet First Transit got only 45 percent of the inspections done on time, well below the federal requirement of 80 percent.
Safety problems undetected
The number of safety-related defects — termed “A” defects that are supposed to prevent the bus from resuming service until fixed — “increased nearly three-fold from an average of 0.27 defects per bus last audit to 0.77 this audit” and “is unacceptably high at a time when First Transit needs to show signs of consistent improvement,” the auditors wrote.
“A” defects missed by First Transit’s technicians, but caught by the auditors include exhaust, safety equipment, brakes, fuel tanks, chassis, steering, and tires, among others. “All five of the ‘A’ defects in the exhaust category were related to excessive oil dripping onto the exhaust system with the potential to cause smoke or fire,” the report said.
The mechanics were provided preventive maintenance training, but it did not appear to help.
“Technicians either need additional training to identify the defects, choose not to document them, or are not taking (or not given) the required time to perform a thorough inspection,” the most recent audit found.
The manpower and skills shortage became so pressing that First Transit brought in contractors to help catch up on maintenance last year.
“Although the full complement of 12 full-time technicians has been put in place since the last audit and outside workers are no longer needed, additional time is needed for these new workers to become acclimated to the fleet and receive all needed training,” the report said.
Anyone who has ridden a hot, stuffy Circulator would not be surprised to learn that “a similar lack of skills is found with regard to air conditioning certification needed to legally perform refrigerant-related repairs.
Only two of the 12 technicians had air conditioning certification.
“They will still send that bus out with no horn, no radio, doors opening and closing on their own.” — Flynn Burke, ATU Local 1764
Even basic functions like horns and windshield wipers are frequently broken, the unionized drivers said. Burke, the union shop steward, asked a visitor to consider how difficult it would be to drive without a defogger.
“On a rainy day like today,” said Burke on a recent gray morning near the First Transit lot, “without it you can’t even see outside your front window. The whole windshield turns white. At that point, the bus has to sit there until the supervisor comes to help clear up the window so you can move the bus.”
Drivers note such problems at the end of their shifts, but the next day they wouldn’t be fixed, Burke said. “A horn is required by law, but they will still send that bus out with no horn, no radio, doors opening and closing on their own, and put it on another line,” Burke said.
Even worse, he said management often disregards drivers’ concerns by placing a defective bus on a different line with a new driver “who doesn’t know about it.” First Transit, in its email to WAMU, insisted safety is a top priority. “For the safety of passengers, if we deem a bus not safe to be on the road, it is removed from service.”
But the complaints weren’t confined to the union: DDOT’s own auditors wrote that the buses “windows, wheels, interiors, and exteriors” were found to be consistently filthy.
‘The outcome of privatization’
First Transit operates transportation systems at 242 locations in 39 states and four Canadian provinces, according to its website. It is a giant in the industry, boasting that its systems carry 300 million passengers annually on trains, buses, paratransit vehicles, and university and airport shuttle services.
But the company is the frequent target of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which can point to some cities and counties where First Transit had similar trouble with maintenance or labor relations. The transit union’s D.C.-area members say the company’s problems should sound a cautionary note as Metro general manager Paul Wiedefeld is considering outsourcing new services at WMATA to the private sector, such as Phase II of the Silver Line.
“This is what we see as bus operators on a daily basis,” said C.J. Miller, an ATU member and Circulator driver, during a recent visit to the garage in Northeast Washington. He was surrounded by about 20 down buses at 10 a.m., a time of day when only a handful should be sitting in the lot.
“This is the outcome of privatization. All they are doing is putting a Band-Aid on the buses and sending them out,” Miller said. “It is very disappointing, because I have to ask myself before I approach a bus, what happened to it the day before, how safe is it today, and what problems am I going to have when I am on the road?”
Inadequate maintenance
The older Circulators were manufactured by the Belgian company Van Hool, and procuring replacement parts has proven difficult, DDOT officials said. And although Circulator service expanded from its initial two routes to the current six, until recently First Transit had only two maintenance bays at its disposal in Northeast Washington.
A third bay was added to that property last year, and a fourth is available at BWI Airport.
The District plans to add a fifth bay for light maintenance at Hains Point, but is working on acquiring property in D.C. for new, District-controlled maintenance facilities. This would allow DDOT to open the Circulator contract to competitive bidding after the next option year in the contract, possibly ending the relationship with First Transit in 2018. The company would be eligible to bid under the next competitive procurement process.
“The fundamental objective to improve Circuilator performance will be to have a permanent storage and maintenance facility that has adequate capacity to support the fleet that we have,” Dormsjo said. “Without that, we will continue to face these issues.”
