Transit Innovation in a University Town with Planning Manager, Shelley Strimaitis

00:00 Stop Requested.

00:01 Levi McCollum: Welcome to Stop Requested, the podcast where we discuss everything transit.

00:05 Levi McCollum: I’m your co host, Levi McCollum, director of operations at ETA Transit.

00:10 Christian Londono: And I’m your co host, Christian Londono, Senior customer Success Manager at ETA Transit.

00:21 Christian Londono: Hi Levi. Welcome to another episode of Stop Requested.

00:24 Christian Londono: How you doing today?

00:26 Levi McCollum: Hey Christian. I’m doing pretty well.

00:27 Levi McCollum: How about yourself?

00:28 Christian Londono: Can’t complain. It’s a good day, especially when we’re recording Stop Requested.

00:32 Christian Londono: So tell me a little bit about today’s episode.

00:35 Christian Londono: What do we have prepared for today, Levi?

00:37 Levi McCollum: Yeah, so today we’re going to be interviewing Shelley Shamitis from Bloomington Transit.

00:42 Levi McCollum: How are you doing, Shelley?

00:43 Shelley Strimaitis: I’m great. How are you, Levi?

00:45 Levi McCollum: I’m doing very well. And for those of you who don’t know, Shelly, Shelly is the planning manager over at

00:52 Levi McCollum: Bloomington Transit. So we’ve got a full list of questions to ask Shelley, hopefully to dive deep into what’s going

00:59 Levi McCollum: on there, some of the projects and also your background.

01:03 Levi McCollum: So let’s start there. Shelley, can you give us an introduction into you and how you got into transit, how

01:11 Levi McCollum: you got to your current role?

01:14 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I’m here in Bloomington, Indiana.

01:17 Shelley Strimaitis: Bloomington Transit. I’ve been here almost two years.

01:21 Shelley Strimaitis: I started in July 2020, came in from Hampton Roads Transit in Virginia.

01:28 Shelley Strimaitis: I worked there for about two years before that doing kind of budget analysts, very mind numbing financial work.

01:38 Shelley Strimaitis: But I’ve always loved transit. I kind of came into this career path from getting my master’s in public policy

01:44 Shelley Strimaitis: in Virginia, spent some time in government and realized that I really wanted to focus on transit specifically.

01:50 Shelley Strimaitis: I’ve kind of always been a lover of transit.

01:53 Shelley Strimaitis: I don’t know how far back we want to go in my life, but I kind of fell in love

01:57 Shelley Strimaitis: with transit when I was a child.

01:59 Shelley Strimaitis: I lived for a few years in Singapore at the beginning of my life and I got very familiar with

02:04 Shelley Strimaitis: the MRT and the bus system there.

02:06 Shelley Strimaitis: And it was a real culture shock to be thrown into rural Tennessee after living in Singapore.

02:11 Shelley Strimaitis: And I felt like kind of my whole life I was like, why isn’t America caught up with the rest

02:16 Shelley Strimaitis: of the world on good public transportation? So happy to be where I am now, being able to hopefully make

02:23 Shelley Strimaitis: a difference in people’s lives and kind of shaping the transit routes and options that we have in the city.

02:29 Christian Londono: It’s very interesting, you know, having lived in Singapore.

02:36 Christian Londono: Singapore is, is a very advanced, you know, a community.

02:42 Christian Londono: I mean they, they’re. What were you impressed about their transit system? What was something that you can Remember off.

02:48 Christian Londono: That was impressive while you were there.

02:51 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, it just was so easy.

02:52 Shelley Strimaitis: This was in the late 90s when I was there.

02:56 Shelley Strimaitis: And even then, just the ability to truly get anywhere in the city and from anywhere in the city super

03:03 Shelley Strimaitis: easily and very independently. I think one thing that Singapore does really well, even though it’s a very major metropolitan

03:10 Shelley Strimaitis: area, is there’s a lot of autonomy that they give kids.

03:14 Shelley Strimaitis: So even though I was really young when I was there, my sisters and I would, would independently be able

03:19 Shelley Strimaitis: to take the bus system or the train system to go do shopping, to go visit our friends, even when

03:27 Shelley Strimaitis: we were, you know, under the age of 13.

03:29 Shelley Strimaitis: And I feel like that seems really shocking to an American audience, but I think Singapore does a great job

03:33 Shelley Strimaitis: of making it very intuitive for like new transit users and then also just making it very safe for everyone

03:41 Shelley Strimaitis: who’s, who’s using the vehicles there.

03:46 Christian Londono: Wow, that sounds really cool. Yeah, I, I can.

03:49 Christian Londono: And, and that’s the thing about traveling, being able to see other transit systems when you know, visiting or, or

03:55 Christian Londono: living in a different countries, that you’re able to do that comparison in contrast, and then potentially see some technologies

04:03 Christian Londono: or practices that, you know, when, you know, you go back to your community or you work for a transit

04:09 Christian Londono: agency, you know, you can implement and put in place.

04:14 Christian Londono: So on that note, let me ask you a question.

04:19 Christian Londono: What have you seen change in the industry during your time that you’re being, you know, in transit? Are there

04:25 Christian Londono: any things that come to your mind or that you’ve seen come into place to improve public transit?

04:32 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, I mean, I think honestly just like live vehicle tracking and specifically like the GTFS real time introduction of

04:41 Shelley Strimaitis: that as kind of the new standard has been really revolutionary.

04:45 Shelley Strimaitis: I think about when I was in grad school in 2018, 19, I didn’t have a car at the time,

04:52 Shelley Strimaitis: so I relied on the bus system.

04:54 Shelley Strimaitis: This was in Williamsburg, Virginia. And at the time there was no way to see where your vehicle was.

05:01 Shelley Strimaitis: There was also no way to even see what a full list of every stop on every route.

05:07 Shelley Strimaitis: It was just really difficult at the time.

05:10 Shelley Strimaitis: Even though there was already a GTFS feed where you could kind of understand how to get from point A

05:17 Shelley Strimaitis: to point B using Google Maps.

05:19 Shelley Strimaitis: It really was difficult to figure out where, where your bus was.

05:23 Shelley Strimaitis: When are you going to get where you’re going.

05:25 Shelley Strimaitis: So I think in just in the past few years that’s been revolutionary that any even like a very small

05:31 Shelley Strimaitis: transit agency now has the resources to do kind of like live vehicle tracking.

05:37 Shelley Strimaitis: That’s been huge. And then I’d say probably the other biggest change has been the introduction of microtransit as a

05:45 Shelley Strimaitis: concept into the public transit sphere and kind of how that is making people reevaluate what does service look like,

05:53 Shelley Strimaitis: what does efficiency look like? Yeah.

05:59 Levi McCollum: I like the micro transit example there.

06:01 Levi McCollum: And you’re right, that has been pretty revolutionary in our space.

06:06 Levi McCollum: Has it changed the way that Bloomington operates specifically? And are there any examples that you could give us?

06:13 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, so we rolled out a very small kind of phase one microtransit program last July.

06:21 Shelley Strimaitis: So it’s been going for about nine months now.

06:24 Shelley Strimaitis: And we wanted, we basically created zones where people can travel to and from that are not able to be

06:31 Shelley Strimaitis: served by traditional fixed route. Either there’s too low population density or we used to have routes there and the

06:39 Shelley Strimaitis: ridership just never became sustainable. So we’ve been able to kind of fill in pretty large gaps in the city

06:47 Shelley Strimaitis: with this service. And I think it’s been great because it’s not.

06:51 Shelley Strimaitis: We use a commingled approach. So it’s our paratransit vehicles that offer this microtransit service.

06:57 Shelley Strimaitis: You’re riding in conjunction with like both rider types are in the vehicle together and the booking platform kind of

07:05 Shelley Strimaitis: fits in what’s efficient for each rider and driver.

07:09 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’ve been able to cover like a much larger area of the city with no extra resources.

07:14 Shelley Strimaitis: Essentially we’re just kind of filling in the empty slots that our paratransit vehicles had during the day.

07:20 Shelley Strimaitis: So that’s been really great. We haven’t seen the demand for it really take off.

07:24 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’re getting ready to ramp up this summer for kind of phase two, which will offer slightly larger zones,

07:32 Shelley Strimaitis: slightly different service hours. And then we’re experimenting with like a kind of a downtown shuttle option this summer to

07:40 Shelley Strimaitis: help people get kind of first mile, last mile service in a really dense area of the city.

07:48 Levi McCollum: I see. Wow, that’s. That’s really cool that you’ve.

07:50 Levi McCollum: You’ve got those projects going on.

07:52 Levi McCollum: Is, is there any concern though, that expanding those zones could potentially cannibalize some of your fixed route or because

08:01 Levi McCollum: they’re separated or because of your, your low density areas not being intermingled with your high density areas.

08:08 Levi McCollum: Perhaps that’s not an issue. But just, just curious there what your thoughts are.

08:12 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, I think it’s. I’m, as a planner who really, really cares about buses specifically and fixed route service and

08:22 Shelley Strimaitis: improving that microtransit really frightened me as a concept when we first Started talking about bringing.

08:30 Shelley Strimaitis: I think we created these zones so specifically where fixed route would not work, because I was not going to

08:38 Shelley Strimaitis: create a service where people are going to be using that instead of our buses.

08:42 Shelley Strimaitis: Our buses are number one priority.

08:44 Shelley Strimaitis: I think in my mind, this is really just a way to fill in the gaps.

08:48 Shelley Strimaitis: And I think if that’s what you use microtransit for as an agency, I think it can be a really

08:53 Shelley Strimaitis: beneficial way to provide extra service for people.

08:57 Shelley Strimaitis: But you have to be very intentional about carving out specific areas or times of service where you’re not going

09:06 Shelley Strimaitis: to be competing with yourself. And I think one way to do that too is if with this expanded service

09:11 Shelley Strimaitis: that we’re looking at doing this summer, you know, if it takes off and it grows in a way that

09:18 Shelley Strimaitis: we’re not really expecting it to, I don’t really see that as a failure.

09:21 Shelley Strimaitis: I see that as an. As a way for us to then switch from a micro transit to a fixed

09:26 Shelley Strimaitis: route service in that area. And I think then the kind of thing we’ll have to figure out is are

09:33 Shelley Strimaitis: people taking microtransit because they don’t like the bus, or are they taking it because they need public transit service

09:39 Shelley Strimaitis: and they would be willing to take either vehicle type? And that’s something that I don’t totally have the answer

09:44 Shelley Strimaitis: to yet. So kind of wait and see on that.

09:49 Levi McCollum: Yeah, that makes sense. It seems like that would require some teasing out, maybe with surveys or, you know, perhaps

09:57 Levi McCollum: just getting some additional feedback from your writers in another way.

10:01 Levi McCollum: But yeah, thank you for the answer.

10:03 Levi McCollum: Appreciate it.

10:07 Christian Londono: Yeah, that’s a very exciting project.

10:09 Christian Londono: And definitely the demand and the usage, it’s what it’s always under evaluation to see if at some point you

10:19 Christian Londono: have to change the service model.

10:22 Christian Londono: You know, if you don’t have that much of a demand and, you know, it just makes no sense to

10:27 Christian Londono: just operate, you know, fixed route in that area for, you know, the amount of trips people would take and

10:33 Christian Londono: also the cost of operations. That microtransit, a lot of times is the answer and is the best way to

10:40 Christian Londono: go. But then as that service is growing, then it’s important to see how it’s connecting with the rest of

10:46 Christian Londono: the network and how to also make it more cost effective for the community.

10:51 Christian Londono: So I want to take it a couple steps back.

10:54 Christian Londono: You know, we started talking about some of the projects you have going on upcoming, but just want us to,

11:03 Christian Londono: you know, hear from you about your current role in the planning department and just wanted to understand what is

11:10 Christian Londono: some of Your responsibility today as a planning manager in, you know, scope of what you have to do on

11:17 Christian Londono: your day to day. So if you could share some of that with us, that would be great.

11:22 Shelley Strimaitis: Sure, yeah. Well, of course, every day in transit is completely different than the day before, and I’m learning that.

11:29 Shelley Strimaitis: So I’m the planning manager and I’m also the special projects manager here.

11:33 Shelley Strimaitis: So half of my job is planning.

11:37 Shelley Strimaitis: So that looks like evaluating data about the routes, suggesting route changes when necessary.

11:47 Shelley Strimaitis: I get super into the nitty gritty sometimes with bus stops and managing bus stop placement and even installing bus

11:54 Shelley Strimaitis: stops when everyone else is busy.

11:56 Shelley Strimaitis: I do that. And then I’m also kind of the other half of my job is the big picture kind

12:01 Shelley Strimaitis: of special projects implementation person here.

12:05 Shelley Strimaitis: So big part of that, like last year we had three large kind of software project rollouts.

12:12 Shelley Strimaitis: One being the CAT AVL system through eta, one being the microtransit paratransit routing software implementation.

12:20 Shelley Strimaitis: And then the third that we’re still kind of in right now is our automatic fare collection system upgrade.

12:28 Shelley Strimaitis: So I was kind of the point person on those, making sure the details of what’s getting installed, what rules

12:36 Shelley Strimaitis: are we doing, what needs to be ordered, all of that good stuff.

12:40 Shelley Strimaitis: I was in charge of that.

12:41 Shelley Strimaitis: And then looking forward, we’ve got, you know, every year there’s a new set of projects that we’re working on.

12:47 Shelley Strimaitis: So I’m coordinating a few things.

12:51 Shelley Strimaitis: I’m kind of the, a little bit of the do it all person here, but that makes me sound more

12:55 Shelley Strimaitis: important than I am. So.

12:58 Christian Londono: No, it’s, it’s a very important role.

13:00 Christian Londono: And in my opinion, you know, transit planning is really the brains of the organization and is a materializing division.

13:09 Christian Londono: You know, those, those leaders in transit agencies set up a vision for the agency, but you have to break

13:14 Christian Londono: it into actionable, you know, set of steps and a strategy to, you know, bring that into reality.

13:21 Christian Londono: And those people in planning, you know, have a lot of responsibility with making that happen.

13:28 Christian Londono: And with that, I wanted to ask you if you could tell us for, you know, the next five to,

13:34 Christian Londono: you know, 10 years or maybe the very next five, what are some of your strategic initiatives like, you know,

13:40 Christian Londono: what are some of the priorities that you guys are working on on, you know, completing or achieving over those

13:48 Christian Londono: next five years?

13:50 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, big headline over the next five years is a building expansion, which is a very difficult thing to plan

13:59 Shelley Strimaitis: for. We have outgrown the space that we’re in right now, which is, you know, it’s kind of A wonderful

14:05 Shelley Strimaitis: problem to have. We need more buses and bigger buses than we currently have.

14:09 Shelley Strimaitis: We need more space for our staff and we’re on a fairly small plot of land here.

14:17 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’re looking at purchasing some land and then hopefully getting a grant from the FTA to expand our footprint

14:25 Shelley Strimaitis: just to be able to offer greater service.

14:28 Shelley Strimaitis: So that’s, that’s the big thing, that’s what everyone is thinking about all the time here.

14:33 Shelley Strimaitis: But I’ll say a little bit more in my wheelhouse is our, the potential for a brt, a bus rapid

14:40 Shelley Strimaitis: transit system. Another project we did last year was a feasibility study for East West Corridor BRT in the city.

14:49 Shelley Strimaitis: And that is a very long timeline project for sure.

14:55 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’re looking at three to five years at a minimum on that.

14:59 Shelley Strimaitis: And so right now we’re kind of in the very early planning phases of what would that look like? What

15:04 Shelley Strimaitis: infrastructure do we need in place? How can we work with our city of government, city government partners on preparing

15:12 Shelley Strimaitis: for that? So that’s another big five year project we’re working on.

15:19 Shelley Strimaitis: And then I guess a third one is we have a goal of 60% electric vehicle adoption by 2030.

15:28 Shelley Strimaitis: So I can’t believe 2030 is only five years away.

15:31 Shelley Strimaitis: That’s going to be here before we know it and we’re making a lot of progress on that.

15:36 Shelley Strimaitis: By the end of this year, we’ll have 16 fully electric buses out on the road.

15:43 Shelley Strimaitis: So that is almost half our fleet.

15:45 Shelley Strimaitis: I think we’ll be able to meet our goal by then.

15:49 Levi McCollum: It sounds like you’re well on your way for that.

15:53 Shelley Strimaitis: Yes, definitely. So. And this next generation, second generation of electric buses are vastly outperforming the first.

16:01 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’re really excited to have all this new tech.

16:05 Levi McCollum: Which bus manufacturer did you go with for this second batch?

16:11 Shelley Strimaitis: We went with Gilligs. They did our first batch.

16:14 Shelley Strimaitis: So we got two electrics back in 2021.

16:17 Shelley Strimaitis: Those were also Gilligs. They were, I think John has said they’re like number eight and nine off the line

16:22 Shelley Strimaitis: of first ever electric buses made.

16:25 Shelley Strimaitis: And you know, with version one of everything, there’s been some hiccups here and there.

16:30 Shelley Strimaitis: They’re still obviously in revenue service.

16:32 Shelley Strimaitis: We still use them regularly. But this newest batch also from Gillig, the promises they made about electric or the

16:41 Shelley Strimaitis: battery life on these are holding to be true.

16:45 Shelley Strimaitis: They can do a full 12 to 16 hour route without any problems.

16:51 Shelley Strimaitis: So yeah, that’s been very exciting to see those come on board.

16:57 Levi McCollum: Wow. A full 12 to 16 hours.

16:59 Levi McCollum: That is Impressive. So it sounds like you haven’t had to, you know, change your service in any way.

17:05 Levi McCollum: You’re not decreasing headways in order to, you know, just to be able to put an electric vehicle out there.

17:12 Shelley Strimaitis: No, yeah, it’s been great. We really have not had to change the service with, with the first round.

17:16 Shelley Strimaitis: Those two electric buses we had, they basically could only run.

17:20 Shelley Strimaitis: They could run about 10 to 12 hours, but given that our shifts here are eight hours, they would basically

17:25 Shelley Strimaitis: only run half a day and then they’d have to be swapped out for another one.

17:29 Shelley Strimaitis: So, yeah, this is a total game changer.

17:30 Shelley Strimaitis: These new ones being able to run full day’s route.

17:35 Shelley Strimaitis: It’s been great to not have to.

17:36 Shelley Strimaitis: I know a lot of transit agencies are having to plan their service around their vehicles and we’re lucky that

17:42 Shelley Strimaitis: our vehicles are just able to provide what we already provide service wise.

17:48 Levi McCollum: And those are in depot charging rather than en route.

17:52 Levi McCollum: That’s what I’m assuming.

17:55 Shelley Strimaitis: Yep, yep. They’re just only charged overnight.

17:58 Shelley Strimaitis: You know, luckily we have a full seven or eight hours where the buses are here overnight they can get

18:02 Shelley Strimaitis: up to a full charge. With our new expansion building, you know, we’ve kind of looked at potentially doing convenience

18:12 Shelley Strimaitis: charging or whatever that is called when the buses are laying over and getting charged.

18:17 Shelley Strimaitis: But really right now. Yeah, opportunity charging.

18:19 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, thank you. But luckily right now with these buses, it’s looking like they won’t, they won’t need like that

18:25 Shelley Strimaitis: midday boost that some do.

18:27 Christian Londono: That sounds good. That sounds good.

18:29 Christian Londono: And what I like is the expansion that’s also very exciting when you’re looking to increase your footprint.

18:38 Christian Londono: Because when you run a bigger or, you know, your system is growing into a bigger transit system, one of

18:45 Christian Londono: the main things you need is parking.

18:46 Christian Londono: At least you have to have additional parking.

18:49 Christian Londono: And know, of course, grow your different departments, especially the planning department.

18:54 Christian Londono: A lot of the times as agencies are growing, they grow bus operations, they grow, you know, all the frontline

19:01 Christian Londono: employees that are needed to deliver the, the service.

19:04 Christian Londono: But sometimes we forget about, you know, adding some additional planners to help, you know, make it happen.

19:12 Christian Londono: But hopefully that won’t be the case as we’re growing at Blue Blue Meaton Transit will, will add more resources,

19:18 Christian Londono: even in planning. So let me ask you one question.

19:23 Christian Londono: When you are going about your planning process at Bloomington Transit, you know, of course you’re taking input from different

19:32 Christian Londono: sources. You’re running reports which allow you to also, you know, get some insight into the service and identify some

19:39 Christian Londono: opportunities. But how’s your involvement from, from the community, particularly from the university when it comes to providing feedback to

19:50 Christian Londono: the service or maybe asking for directing specific changes.

19:55 Christian Londono: So how does that work for you guys?

19:57 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah. Yes. The Indiana University is our, the university that’s in town here.

20:02 Shelley Strimaitis: And they are just a huge portion of Bloomington transit ridership and engagement and everything.

20:08 Shelley Strimaitis: Because they are. Over 80% of our riders are somehow university affiliated, either students, faculty or staff at the university.

20:18 Shelley Strimaitis: So they are very, they are very important to us.

20:23 Shelley Strimaitis: And I’d say there is the.

20:26 Shelley Strimaitis: Always the, the focus for us is fulfilling the ridership needs of the student population.

20:33 Shelley Strimaitis: So especially in university towns that do not have enough on campus housing for all their students, which is going

20:38 Shelley Strimaitis: to be any of these, like larger universities, student populations are getting pushed kind of further and further away from

20:46 Shelley Strimaitis: campus to find their housing. And that’s really, I think that’s becoming the trend nationwide.

20:53 Shelley Strimaitis: So now student housing is no longer within walking radius.

20:55 Shelley Strimaitis: Sometimes it’s miles away. And the role of public transit, as I really see it, is to get these students

21:02 Shelley Strimaitis: to and from their housing, and I should say to the campus to their housing.

21:08 Shelley Strimaitis: And then we also have here, Indiana University has their own campus bus program which really focuses on getting students

21:16 Shelley Strimaitis: around the campus once they’re there.

21:19 Shelley Strimaitis: So we really work in tandem and we don’t tend to compete with each other or cannibalize each other’s service,

21:24 Shelley Strimaitis: which I think is a real blessing for our service.

21:27 Shelley Strimaitis: It works great for us. I know a lot of other university towns are sometimes juggling whether their service is

21:33 Shelley Strimaitis: going to compete against the university service or if the university service doesn’t even have their bus service, then the

21:40 Shelley Strimaitis: public transit agency sometimes has to step in and provide both to and from campus service as well as within

21:46 Shelley Strimaitis: campus. And we’re. I think we’re in a great place here to kind of have our own segmented service that

21:55 Shelley Strimaitis: we provide. And then of course, along with that becomes the, I don’t know, challenges and opportunities of engaging with

22:04 Shelley Strimaitis: our student population when we have route changes, when we have new technology, new ways to pay, and that’s been

22:12 Shelley Strimaitis: over the past year and a half.

22:15 Shelley Strimaitis: It’s been a huge hurdle that I am working on getting over.

22:18 Shelley Strimaitis: So just for one example, when we had ETA come on as the new bus tracking app, we did a

22:26 Shelley Strimaitis: big campaign on all of our campus buses to notify people that, hey, the old tracking app you used to

22:32 Shelley Strimaitis: use is going away. Here’s this new one.

22:33 Shelley Strimaitis: Here’s where to download it. I think we’re very fortunate that student populations are very Tech savvy.

22:40 Shelley Strimaitis: And you know, someone will get on Reddit or Facebook or Twitter and they’ll share a post of ours and

22:46 Shelley Strimaitis: word tends to get around campus very quickly.

22:49 Shelley Strimaitis: So we’ve not had to do the same high intensity public outreach to our student population that we sometimes have

22:55 Shelley Strimaitis: to do with the public because the public tends to be more offline.

23:01 Shelley Strimaitis: So that’s been. It’s made my job a lot easier that everyone’s just on their phones these days.

23:06 Levi McCollum: Yeah, I could see that for sure.

23:10 Levi McCollum: Like you said, the good part is that students are really quick to pick up on those new technologies and

23:16 Levi McCollum: pretty embrace it, I would say.

23:19 Levi McCollum: In my experience, I haven’t worked in a university town quite like that, but of course had been their planning

23:27 Levi McCollum: manager, planning director in a couple of places.

23:29 Levi McCollum: With universities you usually don’t have to worry too much about the students and their ability to be able to

23:36 Levi McCollum: pick up on, you know, route redesigns or technology.

23:42 Levi McCollum: Have you, have you had any experience with, you know, working with the university for, you know, talent or in

23:50 Levi McCollum: a human resources capacity? Is, is that something that Bloomington Transit does?

23:55 Shelley Strimaitis: It’s not. We have a very interesting relationship with university in that our building, we, we share a building with

24:02 Shelley Strimaitis: Indiana University Campus Bus. They own the land that the building is on.

24:06 Shelley Strimaitis: We technically own the. And then all of the maintenance and administration offices here are split between the two.

24:13 Shelley Strimaitis: So for how closely we are physically next to each other all day long, we have quite a unattached day

24:23 Shelley Strimaitis: to day operations. So we have totally separate like driver pools, totally separate vehicle maintenance staff and really everything is

24:34 Shelley Strimaitis: completely done by them and by us here.

24:39 Shelley Strimaitis: And I, we’ve. Bloomington Transit I think would be interested in combining some resources.

24:45 Shelley Strimaitis: I think there’s some duplication of work there, but I know Indiana University has the ability to.

24:53 Shelley Strimaitis: Because they’re not FTA funded, there’s some leeway and things that they get to do that we do not have

24:59 Shelley Strimaitis: the privilege of doing it I think really makes it best for them to stay separate.

25:07 Levi McCollum: Yeah, that’s understandable. You know, as much as the funding can benefit the agency, there are some constraints to it

25:16 Levi McCollum: as well.

25:17 Shelley Strimaitis: Right.

25:17 Levi McCollum: You have to be able to check certain boxes and your compliance and of course you in the end have

25:25 Levi McCollum: to answer to the FTA because that’s where a lot of the money is coming from.

25:28 Levi McCollum: So, you know, having that freedom and autonomy is something that, you know, it sounds like Blue mentioned transit and

25:34 Levi McCollum: other agencies that receive FDA funding might not have.

25:37 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, well, and I should say I don’t know where this fits in here.

25:40 Shelley Strimaitis: But we had a big kind of shock.

25:43 Shelley Strimaitis: Shocking news from our city bus friends over in Lafayette, Indiana.

25:48 Shelley Strimaitis: They provided for, I don’t know, decades, they provided the on campus bus transportation for Purdue University there.

25:56 Shelley Strimaitis: And then they, Purdue just this year went out for like an RFP to provide this service, which they’ve done

26:03 Shelley Strimaitis: in the past. And then City Bus is always selected as the agency to provide that.

26:07 Shelley Strimaitis: But then this year the university went with a different vendor.

26:13 Shelley Strimaitis: So I think that just, that’s a.

26:14 Shelley Strimaitis: So City Bus as a, as a public transit agency just lost a huge portion of its revenue and service

26:21 Shelley Strimaitis: that it tends that it’s always kind of provided before.

26:25 Shelley Strimaitis: So I think that’s just. It kind of highlights the, the need for public transit agencies and universities to have

26:32 Shelley Strimaitis: a very strong and like, happy relationship.

26:36 Shelley Strimaitis: Because I think if there’s any kind of contention, there’s a possibility that that one can just pull funding from

26:42 Shelley Strimaitis: the other and kind of make a very sudden impact.

26:47 Christian Londono: Yeah. And I think that the transportation goals are mutual goals.

26:51 Christian Londono: Right. Like at the end of the day, most of the riders today for Bloomington Transit are students from the

26:57 Christian Londono: university. And then the university, in order to provide their services, they have to have, you know, rely on good

27:05 Christian Londono: transportation so students can get to the university.

27:09 Christian Londono: And one of the things you mentioned earlier about, you know, housing, you know, at campus not being enough or

27:18 Christian Londono: maybe not being as affordable as it might be for, you know, or students to, you know, live outside of

27:25 Christian Londono: the campus, it just still presents that challenge of transportation.

27:31 Christian Londono: But let me, let me ask you, you mentioned the importance of that partnership.

27:34 Christian Londono: So could you tell us a little bit more about that relationship? And do you have any kind of service

27:41 Christian Londono: board, you know, where you have stakeholders that ride the system maybe, and they come in, you know, share their

27:49 Christian Londono: experiences or, or share their demands? How does that work?

27:56 Shelley Strimaitis: I wish the answer was yes.

27:58 Shelley Strimaitis: I think that would be super useful.

28:00 Shelley Strimaitis: I know in a lot of, like a lot of transit agencies have a ridership kind of committee that comes

28:05 Shelley Strimaitis: to together to make choices. We do a lot of planning and decision making with, for university routes in general,

28:13 Shelley Strimaitis: just by analyzing data, listening to, I mean we, we do receive like a lot of student feedback just through

28:22 Shelley Strimaitis: our customer service kind of contact methods.

28:28 Shelley Strimaitis: But, but the, the data is really what drives any changes that we do, which I think that there’s obviously

28:35 Shelley Strimaitis: a lot of value in soliciting feedback from the public.

28:38 Shelley Strimaitis: But I think you have to make sure that you’re not just hearing perhaps like all the complaints from a

28:44 Shelley Strimaitis: system which is what tends to happen, I think, and I think data is a great way to kind of

28:49 Shelley Strimaitis: evaluate the feedback that you’re getting, making sure that it’s not one sided, what’s really best for the whole system

28:56 Shelley Strimaitis: and not just a select number of riders.

28:59 Christian Londono: And so when it comes to the relationship with the school, how does the different events they might have or

29:09 Christian Londono: programs impact your service? Meaning, you know, they start, I don’t know, they expand classes during the summer or, you

29:16 Christian Londono: know, things that they’re doing on their side.

29:20 Christian Londono: How does it impact the service or, you know, where you have to take that information and then maybe make

29:25 Christian Londono: changes to routes. Is there any example of that?

29:29 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, well, I guess kind of.

29:31 Shelley Strimaitis: This feeds into just our regular schedule throughout the year is highly dependent on the university schedule.

29:37 Shelley Strimaitis: So we reduce the service hours and the routage when IU is on summer break and anytime that they’re on,

29:45 Shelley Strimaitis: you know, fall or winter break, we reduce service to kind of match the demands of the student population that’s

29:52 Shelley Strimaitis: gone home or is still remaining.

29:55 Shelley Strimaitis: So we do coordination, we do a lot of, I should say like calendar based coordination.

30:01 Shelley Strimaitis: So when, when are you guys, when are your students going to be here? When are they gone? And then

30:06 Shelley Strimaitis: also with, with the university, there’s a lot of coordination on kind of big sporting events.

30:11 Shelley Strimaitis: The university does a lot of things on campus that are going to end up, you know, impacting our routes.

30:16 Shelley Strimaitis: So we have a good line of communication on, okay, what, you know, what’s taking place this weekend, what routes

30:22 Shelley Strimaitis: didn’t need to be changed and where can we distribute that information to student riders?

30:29 Levi McCollum: Yeah. And is that something, as the planning manager that you’re directly responsible for or are you able to, you

30:38 Levi McCollum: know, give that to one of your staff members?

30:42 Shelley Strimaitis: I am usually the person through which the communication flows to, if it’s from outside of.

30:48 Shelley Strimaitis: So if it’s from the university or if it’s from the city or different channels, kind of the main contact

30:53 Shelley Strimaitis: person. And then from there I work with our dispatch operations team and our marketing manager to get that information

31:04 Shelley Strimaitis: out to both the drivers and then our passengers on the ETA platform, our social media outlets, our website, things

31:13 Shelley Strimaitis: like that.

31:19 Levi McCollum: So, you know, based on your experience working at Bloomington Transit and that collaboration that you have with Indiana University,

31:28 Levi McCollum: what are some kind of key takeaways that you might be able to share with our audience? So if they’re

31:34 Levi McCollum: working in a similar situation or they’re striving to have that type of collaborative environment, do you have any pieces

31:40 Levi McCollum: of advice for them?

31:42 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, I think there’s a tendency for agencies to view university affiliated writers as captive writers because these are kids

31:51 Shelley Strimaitis: that they live off campus and they’re trying to get onto campus.

31:55 Shelley Strimaitis: How else would they, would they do this if there wasn’t a bus system? And I think that thinking tends

32:00 Shelley Strimaitis: to lead to planning decisions that can have kind of worse outcomes for the people who are actually ride the

32:09 Shelley Strimaitis: bus. And I think it’s really important for transit agencies to remember that oftentimes these are not captured riders.

32:14 Shelley Strimaitis: These are choice riders. These are kids who have their own vehicle a lot of the time.

32:21 Shelley Strimaitis: These are kids who are very comfortable using Uber.

32:24 Shelley Strimaitis: They have friends in there where they live that can give them a ride.

32:28 Shelley Strimaitis: There are actually a lot of options that students have to get to and from campus.

32:34 Shelley Strimaitis: And so I think transit agencies important to really prioritize the rider experience for these campus routes.

32:42 Shelley Strimaitis: So making sure that you know your, your headways are if at all possible, lined up with class times, making

32:48 Shelley Strimaitis: sure that you have enough vehicles out there and large enough vehicles out there to accommodate the capacity that these

32:56 Shelley Strimaitis: routes really need. Because I think there’s a tendency to like, well, we could scale back our service and we’re

33:05 Shelley Strimaitis: still going to have the same number of riders.

33:06 Shelley Strimaitis: And I, I don’t think that’s the case.

33:09 Shelley Strimaitis: I think if you look at the data, that’s not the case.

33:12 Shelley Strimaitis: And then also if you talk to folks who, who ride the bus, you know, they ride it because it’s

33:15 Shelley Strimaitis: convenient and because they, they prefer it to other transportation modes.

33:20 Shelley Strimaitis: And if you try to change too much, will absolutely find another, another way to get there.

33:26 Shelley Strimaitis: And I’ll, I’ll talk about just from my own experience.

33:29 Shelley Strimaitis: When I was a college student at William Mary, I rode the bus every single day to and from campus.

33:34 Shelley Strimaitis: I actually didn’t even have a car at the time.

33:37 Shelley Strimaitis: But someone proposed to me the hypothetical situation of what if it wasn’t free? It was, it was free for

33:42 Shelley Strimaitis: me to take the bus because I was a student and let’s say I had to pay, you know, dollar

33:47 Shelley Strimaitis: or two every time I took the bus.

33:49 Shelley Strimaitis: Would I still take it as often? And it was a very easy answer for me, which is no, I

33:54 Shelley Strimaitis: would, I had other options. I could carpool with a friend.

33:57 Shelley Strimaitis: I could even walk to campus.

33:58 Shelley Strimaitis: It wasn’t that far. There’s the exact way that the bus system was set up that made it ideal for

34:05 Shelley Strimaitis: me. And if you changed almost anything about it, I probably would have not taken it.

34:10 Shelley Strimaitis: So I think that’s just an important mindset to keep in mind for trans agencies that are planning around a

34:15 Shelley Strimaitis: student population.

34:17 Christian Londono: Yeah, that’s a good point. And I think what’s key there and what I’ve seen in some communities is that

34:25 Christian Londono: the students access to transit is built in, into, into their tuition.

34:32 Christian Londono: So either they get automatically like a smart card or, you know, they, they get a pass that would allow

34:40 Christian Londono: them to write the system. And then it kind of feels that it’s free.

34:44 Christian Londono: Right? Like, it feels that you’re not paying, you’re not coming up, you’re not coming up with like hard cash

34:48 Christian Londono: every time that you ride the system.

34:51 Christian Londono: And it also feels that because you’re entitled to it, like you, it’s, it’s paid with your tuition, that you

34:58 Christian Londono: should take advantage of it and use it.

35:00 Christian Londono: So I think that’s kind of like, you know, the other side of what you were saying is, you know,

35:06 Christian Londono: when you start charging and then people start feeling, you know, how it’s affecting, it’s going to have an impact

35:13 Christian Londono: on ridership and how much people will be willing to take it.

35:17 Christian Londono: But, you know, when you have that relationship or you’re able to develop that program with the university, then you

35:23 Christian Londono: know, you’re able to get the positive side of that relationship.

35:28 Christian Londono: On that note, how does it work for Bloomington? The students have to pay every time they ride the transit

35:35 Christian Londono: system or is there any kind of discount or advantage for the students?

35:40 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, so Indiana University students ride fare free, so they don’t pay when they board the bus.

35:46 Shelley Strimaitis: But Indiana University pays Bloomington Transit a lump sum every year contracted amount for that service to allow their students

35:55 Shelley Strimaitis: to, to ride for free on the buses.

35:58 Shelley Strimaitis: And that fee, my understanding is that fee is brought out of a student activities transportation kind of general fund

36:05 Shelley Strimaitis: that, so students are paying for it.

36:07 Shelley Strimaitis: I think it’s also a really important distinction to say that they’re not riding for free.

36:10 Shelley Strimaitis: They’re riding fare free at the time of boarding.

36:13 Shelley Strimaitis: But you’re right, they have, they’ve already purchased that.

36:15 Shelley Strimaitis: The right to use the system like that.

36:19 Christian Londono: Yes. And it’s good that they feel that it’s also their, their system, like the way they get around and

36:25 Christian Londono: get that endorsement from the school.

36:27 Christian Londono: Even though they have their own campus transportation, the school, I think it helps a big degree with communication to

36:35 Christian Londono: the students so you’re able to, you know, make them aware of service changes and, and so on in advance.

36:40 Christian Londono: So that’s definitely something to, to keep in mind.

36:43 Christian Londono: So it seems, you know, there’s a lot of nuances when it comes to Public transit, especially when you have

36:50 Christian Londono: to coordinate with a university or your operation and your ridership is mostly from, you know, a university.

37:01 Christian Londono: So, you know, I wanted to also thank you Shelly, for a joining us today.

37:08 Christian Londono: I want to just wrap up with, you know, what are two or one or two recommendations that you can

37:14 Christian Londono: give. I think you already shared some, but some that you could share with, you know, any transit planners that

37:21 Christian Londono: work in communities where they have college towns.

37:25 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, well, yeah, I’d say my, my recommendation to any planner at any agency is to go out and, and

37:32 Shelley Strimaitis: be familiar with your routes. Ride the bus if you can, you know, once a week at least write it

37:37 Shelley Strimaitis: in your personal life and be really familiar with what the user experience is.

37:43 Shelley Strimaitis: I think that just provides such an insight into what’s best for, for the users, whether they be university or

37:49 Shelley Strimaitis: city, city folks. And then yeah, I would also say I’m a big proponent of just data analysis as well.

37:59 Shelley Strimaitis: Use the, the resources that you have to evaluate the routes that you have and then listen to both, you

38:09 Shelley Strimaitis: know, get the data and then also get the feedback from your writers to kind of figure out what’s best.

38:15 Shelley Strimaitis: And then university specific, I would say try as much as possible to get plugged into the ways that the

38:24 Shelley Strimaitis: university communicates to their students. So I think sometimes universities kind of have a lockdown on sending information to their

38:31 Shelley Strimaitis: students and if at all possible develop relationships with those folks at the university to say, hey, can we, can

38:38 Shelley Strimaitis: we get during orientation week? Can we come do travel training so students come become more familiar with the bus

38:44 Shelley Strimaitis: or can we get into different on campus activities so that students become more familiar with who the transit agency

38:51 Shelley Strimaitis: is, the best ways to use it.

38:53 Shelley Strimaitis: I think ultimately that’ll grow your ridership and it would also improve rider experience.

38:59 Christian Londono: Wow. Well, thank you, Shelly. Those are definitely two great pieces of recommendation.

39:04 Christian Londono: I think. You know, something you mentioned it applies to transit planners and all of us, you know, Levi, myself

39:11 Christian Londono: included as transit planners is a must to write your system, you know, before you start doing changes or you

39:21 Christian Londono: know, to, to actually start impacting the service if you don’t, if you don’t know it firsthand, like, if you

39:26 Christian Londono: don’t see it firsthand, it’s going to be very difficult to be able to sometimes couple that with what you

39:34 Christian Londono: see behind the computer with the data.

39:35 Christian Londono: Right. The data is very important also.

39:38 Christian Londono: But you coupling those two together, it’s what helps you make better decisions.

39:43 Christian Londono: So Shelly, again I want to thank you for your time with us today.

39:47 Christian Londono: Joining us and stop requested sharing some, some highlights of your career in public transit and also for, you know,

39:55 Christian Londono: sharing your insights and recommendations on how is operating transit for, you know, college town.

40:04 Christian Londono: So thank you for that.

40:06 Shelley Strimaitis: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys for having me.

40:08 Shelley Strimaitis: I’m always happy to have a conversation about transit with anyone who will listen.

40:14 Christian Londono: That’s right. Thank you. So just want to wrap it up there and also thank all of our listeners for

40:20 Christian Londono: tuning in and to remind them that we have an episode coming every Monday.

40:25 Christian Londono: So thank you for listening and I hope we’ll see you during the next one.

40:30 Christian Londono: Thank you. Thank you, Levi.