Overcoming Transit’s Information Silos with Walter Jenkins, Transit Chat Founder

Stop Requested. Welcome to Stop Requested: the podcast where we discuss everything transit. I’m your co-host, Levi McCollum, Director of Operations at ETA Transit. And I’m your co-host, Christian Londono,

Senior Customer Success Manager at ETA Transit. Welcome back to Stop Requested.

Christian, how are you doing? Hey, Levi, doing great. Uh, how’s it going? It’s going pretty well. We’ve got another exciting e- episode in store for our listeners. We’re going to be speaking with Walter Jenkins, the founder of Transit Chat.

Walter, how are you doing? I’m doing great, man. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. This is, uh, really exciting because you, you have your own product that you’ve, you’ve dreamt up over the years and been able to, uh, you know, roll it out to some agencies who, I, I believe, as w- we’ll get to, to know in our conversations, who are doing pilots. I, I’d really love to learn more about that and also get your insights on, uh, on communication, on knowledge transfer inside the agency. I think you have a, a lot to say and a lot to contribute to the conversation there.

Uh, but before we get into that, can you give us a brief background of yourself? Like how did you get to, you know, work on Transit Chat?

Oh, gosh. Uh, well, I started in transit, uh, in college when I, uh, was really interested in, uh, sustainable transportation. And, um,

I started working in transit right out of college in 2011, and I worked for Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation, um, as a planner, and then I transferred over to the City of Charlotte as a, a GIS analyst, uh, for the CATS system, and then I, um, was a senior GIS, uh, analyst over at

Metro St. Louis at Bi-State Development. Um, and yeah, so I have a, a really long interdisciplinary, uh, experience with, with transit. So planning, a little bit of scheduling, reporting, um, you know, customer research as well as mapping and analytics.

So I, I’ve touched a lot. Um, and so I was really solving something that I saw at a, a very low level for transit agencies which is how do you communicate across departments? I see.

And, and w- why do you think that communication is so important for transit agencies? Communicating is so important for transit agencies, uh, because it’s all about the riders.

It’s… Every day it’s all about the riders and listening to the riders, and when you have a fire hose of information coming at you, it is nearly impossible to sift through all of those…

issues that come back that are not t- neat and tidy and you don’t know where it happened or when it happened or who did it or who’s lying or, or what have you.

Um, and the chain of command is so long in transit, that it… everything just gets distorted the further it goes away from, uh, the rider or the, the origin of the issue. And, and I think, um, just to follow up on that, uh, Walter, which is some of the challenges, uh, that agencies have with that communication, effective communication and, uh… The larger the transit agency is, so it’s midsize and, and large agencies, they have several departments, each department made up of different layers and, you know, of several employees, so it just gets harder to get a whole picture of what’s happening and, and where the information is coming from and, and what’s being said.

Uh, so just following up on that a little bit, what have you, uh, encountered, uh, or what do you think are the most common communication breakdowns you see at transit agencies? Yeah.

Well, you know, it, it… are, There uh, a lot of older solutions out there, um, that w- we’ve talked to, uh, probably about a dozen different agencies. Right now we’re working with KCATA, out of Kansas City, as our, uh, uh, design partner, and what we’re hearing from them is…

I w- I… When we were on the first call with them, it was noon, and my guy Tyler over there told us he had 65 emails already, and

I can’t even imagine getting 65 emails in a week, and he got it by noon.

And so, we’ve, w- we’ve really done a lot of, of prep work and understanding and writing, uh, to kind of put together the different scenarios and, uh, a lot of what we’re seeing is when departments communicate together, they communicate in replies or reply all emails, and then when they want to communicate to a different department, they have to go through that entire process all over again, either in a meeting or they forward that email to the next department.

And I don’t know if you’ve tried to read a two-month-old thread of an email but it’s really difficult to, um, sift through all of that information and get the context.So, what we’re trying to do is try and develop a system that integrates with email.

So, at Transit Chat, you can actually send anything to inbox at Transit Chat, and it ingests it into our system. So that’s, uh, an email with files, and we have, um, our new feature, uh, intelligent email, uh, which allows you to tag channels and departments and routes, and we’re working on stops at the moment.

So that way, you can know exactly what asset it’s talking about, what route it’s talking about, um, without even logging into the platform. Wow, that, that sounds very interesting, and actually, that, you’re speaking a little bit of the next question, uh, that I was gonna ask, which is, how can technology help agencies move beyond these legacy challenges?

Uh, and yes, I’ve been guilty of replying to all and just- Oh, man. … creating different threads. Uh, but, uh, you know, you mentioned Transit Chat and some of the things you, you, you guys are doing with that. So, could you kind of like, uh, you know, for our listeners, explain what Transit Chat is, and then, you know, how this technology can help address some of those challenges? Yeah. You know, uh, when we designed Transit Chat, we thought more about design than we did technology.

And I think that was on purpose. Uh, I think a lot of people think that fancy technology can solve all the problems, um, but if your call center agent doesn’t wanna use it or has a hard time using it and just defaults to email, they’re just gonna default to email.

And, um, we wanted to say that’s okay at Transit Chat. The important part is being able to log the issue.

If you need to tag it later on, if you need to at someone, if you need to assign something that’s associated with it, we wanna be able to capture it nonetheless.

Good data… Our data is all good. Um, and being able to capture it and build on it is the name of the game.

Because, as we all know, when you work at a transit agency, it doesn’t stop at the call center, it doesn’t stop at planning, it doesn’t stop at scheduling. It goes through communications and marketing and the CEO wants to know why we’re doing X, Y, and Z.

And then three years down the line, you got triennial review, and you gotta tell the federal government why you did that for the past three years. And so you have to have answers to why. And so that’s what we’re trying to build. We’re trying to build something where you’re documenting as you’re communicating, and we’re trying to help agencies build out that documentation and that institutional knowledge so it’s not walking out the front door. Uh, so, as, as you know,

Walter, and of course, Christian, you, you do as well, that communication extends beyond just communicating internally, uh, to your fellow colleagues.

Um, it also is, and a big part of it is communicating to the riders, uh, when that bus stop is moving, uh, when there’s going to be a detour, when the service change date is.

It, it’s a lot of pushing information out, and I think we mentioned this on our last episo- episode with Evan Henderson.

Uh, but have you seen any strategies that work best for keeping riders informed? Just asking you maybe to put your hat back on for, from your, your days at, at the public side.

Uh, any advice there? Um, yeah. So I’ve, I’ve done, I’ve done charrettes. gone out and talked to communities. I’ve built web applications.

I’ve And again, going back, it’s not about the technology. You gotta meet your customer where they’re at. You gotta meet whoever you’re talking to, you have to get on their level.

And probably the smartest thing that I have ever seen is the city of Charlotte will print off… Every time there’s a schedule change, instead of just putting flyers in that little cubby, like as they walk in the bus, they get door hangers, print them out, and attach them to the grab bars.

And so what they’re doing is they’re putting it in front of their customers’ faces. They’re meeting them exactly where they are.

They don’t have to walk up to the front of the bus to get a flyer. They can just pull one down, and they know it’s c- they know what it is. They see it, and they can put it in their bag and take it with them. And then that way, they know the actual change is gonna be. And, and to that point, what the, uh, how do you ensure that the transit agency is, uh, you know, responding when there are concerns? For example, if there’s a, a broken, uh, bench at a bus stop or you have some issue that’s happening out on the road, it, you know, it’s, it’s easy to say, “Well, you know, that’s, that’s not our shelter,” or, uh, that particular…

you know, that, … bus bay is on private property. Eh, and it, sometimes it can get, you know, you get the sense we’re n- that as a transit agency, we’re not really listening to what the customers’ concerns are.

Uh, so do you have any advice on, on that front? Like, how, how do you really take that feedback and make it actionable? Yeah. You know, um, what we try and say at Transit Chat is, uh, we don’t want you to deal with your riders, we want you to listen to them.

Um, and I, I don’t think riders really care whether or not, like, that bus shelter is in the right of way, or of the agency, or it’s not their, you know, uh, bus bench.

It, the rider really just cares about the experience and the design of the system. So, uh, i- being able to, it’s, it stinks but agencies regardless of responsibility have to respond to all these issues.

And, you know, I think that’s, that’s where great technology, uh, can really shine is being able to have these issues and this infrastructure and these questions documented in a way that is accessible, um, from customer-facing to C-level executives.

Um, we’re trying to make things… We, we like to call it flattening the communication.

So no matter where you are in the agency, you can get to the source of truth of what is actually going on at that particular stop, route, or particular assignment. Yeah. The, and, and that communication is, is critical for those decision-makers. Sometimes in transit agencies, uh, they tend to have, you know, different, uh, executive directors. They typically come in and they’re part of the agency maybe three, four years and, and they might move on to, you know, a different assignment. And then now you new leadership, uh, that comes into the organization and have they’re, you know, coming in sometimes with no knowledge or they’re trying to make their own assessments and, and that they don’t have any, um, information related to before they came into the agency and, and what the riders were saying or what was discussed internally. And, and just focusing more on that internal communication and talking about staff, um, turnover, uh, which a lot of times is institu- institutional knowledge walking outside of the door.

Um, what would you say, you know, or, or how would you say that tuno- turnover affect the agency internal communication?

Uh, you know, uh, eh, a lot of, a lot of what we say i- that we’re doing is we’re documenting things that these institutional employees are just the encyclopedia of knowledge of.

We, we wanna know where stops used to be, why they used to be there, who’s done st- uh, safety assessments at a particular location, um, because we wanna reduce that amount of duplication of work.

And the turnover is, is really difficult because these people aren’t just falling into these roles a lot of times. They are people who used to drive a bus for

10, 20 years. And so they became a planner because they had the institutional knowledge that you can’t, you literally cannot train someone for this job.

it is about being It is, a part of the transit community. It is about talking to riders every single day.

It’s about knowing who the union representatives are. It’s about knowing what it’s like to be behind the wheel of a bus.

Something I’ve never done, um, but listening to people talk about how hard this job is and the i- how complex it is to interact with this community is just truly humbling. So, and, you know, as a follow-up to that, and, and I think the bus operators is a little difficult, uh, to capture their experience and, and, you know, all that institutional knowledge.

And I know transit planners in general and, and me as a, you know, former transit planner and, and almost every transit planner that I’ve known, uh, they tap into the bus operator’s knowledge for making, you know, route changes, service changes and, and the drivers can say a lot. Like, “Oh, there’s this big group of, you know, elderly folks that go to Bells in this plaza and they go on this phase-” Oh, yeah. “… because this is the days when they’re running a sale-” Yeah. “… and this is why this is important to them.” And, and, you know, behind the computer as a planner, you see certain things and maybe you, you are looking at some ridership numbers, but then you don’t see what happens behind it. You know, they might share something like, “That’s when, you know, sometimes we are passing wheelchairs because there’s a lot of, you know, elderly folks come in and, you know, we, uh, maximize our wheelchair capacity on the bus and then, you know, we have to pass them.” And now you’re, you’re unearthing, um, these findings. But a lot of the times that information or that knowledge from the drivers is not easily captured. It, it’s not something you guys at Transit Chat have discussed to try to be able to capture that as well. I know you mentioned emails and maybe, you know, customer service and planners.Um, you know, capturing information related to bus stops, but ha- have you thought about maybe how that will work with bus operators?

One day at a time. I mean, really, really and truly, like, there’s, there is no easy way to just go about capturing everything.

Um, I, I, I, like… Designing this software has been a, a, a complete labor of love.

I have loved every single minute of this process, and talking to people and understanding what it’s gonna take to fix this problem.

And well, I’ve talked to planners, I’ve talked to call center agents, I’ve talked to, um, schedulers, I’ve talked to…

You name it, I’ve talked to them. And there is no form to fill out.

And if you could fill out a form, it would take too long. So, I think a, a lot of, a lot of the, the issues that we’re coming across are, you know, how do we make this as… Like I said, like I keep saying, how do we make this as simple as possible?

Because the more information that we can have, the better. The more ways that we can tag it with routes and stops and locations and categories and channels and people and assignments, the better, um, because it’s, it’s really hard. It’s really hard. And, um, we’re, we’re really close to an amazing solution for transit. Yeah. It, it is challenging and there’s, um, large amounts of data that are to be captured in, um, the larger the organization, the more, uh, players in this ecosystem, you know, from the riders and maybe capturing some rider’s information and all the attributes related to that rider, right? Which route were they referring to? Is this a suggestion? Is this a complaint? You know, what are they complaining or suggesting about, you know?

Mm-hmm. It has to do with a specific service or, or not. So, you know, I wanna ask you another question kind of like tagging along to that, which is about the documentation. So, what would you say the role, um, the role does good commutation… Uh, good documentation play in keeping things running smoothly? What, what’s the role of good documentation? As I was talking about earlier, good documentation is something that you can pick up and, and send to someone. It’s not, here’s a, a, a, an email thread we’ve, we’ve had going for about two months now.

And that’s a lot of what we, we’ve seen, um, because either things aren’t built properly or they don’t… Like, they’re Salesforce and they don’t have any of the GTFS information, um, and that’s where we’re kind of like differentiating ourselves is, is having that information already baked in.

Um, but what role does good documentation play in keeping things running smoothly?

On a daily basis, it’s, it’s all about having to have one less meeting. On a quarterly basis, it’s about not having to re-explain for the umpteenth time to planning what, or to marketing, what the schedule is actually gonna look like.

Uh, on a, you know, every three year basis, it’s, you know, what did we do for the past three years? Did we do analysis on all of these r- major route changes?

And did we do any disparate impacts? Like, that’s what good documentation plays into so you don’t get caught up, um, in these, uh, these issues from the federal government, so you don’t get caught up in these issues explaining to the last chain of command and to just have one less meeting every single week. Yeah. You bring up a really good point there, Walter.

Uh, s- and it’s regarding the information that’s coming in, um, and how you’re processing it related to this geographic data. Uh, it, it’s inherently geographical, right? It’s, it’s existing in space. It happens at the corner of

Maine and First. that’s difficult to communicate when it’s just black and white text in an email thread. Uh, Um, but if you’re, uh, giving that some geographical representation on a map and then allowing that conversation to take place around it, uh, I could see how different that is than, how, you know, the current way of doing things.

I recall being at, you know, LeadTran and a PalmTran, I, and, you know, we would have our GIS file which was um, only maybe a couple of us who e- even knew how to use it. Mm-hmm. And we would put in comments and export the file for a service change and say, “Okay, well, we have this timestamp of this is what the service looked like then.”

And, you know, we might leave comments at, in- at a bus stop like, “We move this bus stop so many feet.” it’s not living, right? You, you kind of timestamp it and then you move on. It’s like, okay, now we

Mm-hmm. But got the next thing. Well, see, see, that’s, that’s… So, the X and the Y are just the start, right? You, I was, I was waiting, I was waiting for you to say it. You’re gonna say it.

It’s the time.We’re trying to map a four-dimensional concept on a two-dimensional plane.

You have the X and Y coordinates of a particular stop, but when was that stop there?

Why was it moved? And when did that happen? And that’s really the hard part, because you can… We’ve all seen geographically accurate maps of bus routes, and when marketing gets a hold of it, what they want is, uh, you know, the quintessential, like, MTA subway map. They wanna, they wanna see, like, not lines that are overlapping.

And, you know, if, if I could, if I could solve that problem, I think I’d be a millionaire, but I can’t. I, I have tr- I have tried so hard as a former GIS tech.

Um, but yeah, like, being able to communicate is just… It’s so imperative. And, and it really is difficult when you have the X, the Y, the Z, and then all of the institutional knowledge building on top of all of this hard data.

Like, there is, uh, there are some great pieces of software on the market that do a great job of measuring KPIs and on-time performance and ridership, and that’s not what we’re doing. We are not interested in measuring all of that.

We would love to tie into those, uh, pieces of software, but what we’re trying to do is really just organize it better.

We say we wanna be the singular centralized place where you look for your files, messages, and assignments, and we wanna be the source of truth to, to help communications run smoothly.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, and I’m glad you boiled it down that way. And, and you’re right. It is largely associated, or maybe not largely, but at least in part associated to time.

Uh, I love what you’re- How many times have you been using email as a cloud-based drive? I mean, it’s, it’s everything. Every email is a, is your own little, your own little place to store the file that’s gonna make this next service change run smoothly, and that’s, that’s literally what we’re fighting against right now.

Uh, a lot of what you’re describing sounds like it can be boiled down to trust and building a c- a culture of, of trust. Not only internally, right? You, you definitely want to build that collaborative style of, um, that relationship with maybe your bus operators and the planning department, uh, you know, even with the administrative staff or the executive staff and, uh, you know, perhaps the lower level staff, but also with the folks who are using the system, right? Interacting with it. You have your advocates as well.

Um, can you, can you speak to how Transit Chat can help build that trust, not only with the community you’re in, but, you know, just internally? You know, I’m old enough to remember when we first got GPS on the buses at my transit agency back in North Carolina. We were using a product called

Transloc, and Transloc was, um, a great little company, and they, uh, w- were one of the first people that were able to just put a tablet on a bus and sync up to our GTFS system and show where buses were on the map.

And that openness, um, caused friction in the culture.

Um, it… Bus drivers were concerned that this was a spying device for our bus drivers.

And while, yes, it is true that, like, bus drivers, their performance is tied to, you know, them keeping their jobs, and that is a really hard job.

Um, this but kind of prevalence of data being openly shared, uh, can definitely rub people the wrong way.

Um, uh, I try and not be evil use technology in evil ways, but there’s not always necessarily a, a cut and dry, like, and, uh, way of, of, of, um, knowing what everyone’s definition of evil is.

so I don’t know. It’s, it’s really hard. It’s really hard, but being able to Um, be transparent, being able to, um, you know, lead with empathy, and, um, being able to understand where people come from is the best thing for everyone. You know, that makes me think of all this technology, uh, that we’re adding to the bus, um, you know, of course

CAT/AVL systems and, uh, all the cameras on board. I-You know, I can understand from an operator’s point of view if you’re, um, you know, anti some of the technology in the sense that you’re in the fishbowl and it almost seems like people are, are spying on you.

Mm-hmm. Um, what, what do you think of, you know, fostering a, a culture that’s transparent but not, uh, in a big brother way, right? Not, you’re, you’re not, uh, looking in on them, uh, maybe on their onboard system and, and trying to see every move and, uh, right turn, left turn that they make, right? It’s not really about that. It, it’s more about holding people accountable.

would you agree with that or Um, am I way off base here? Listen, they go off route, that’s not gonna be good. But, um, you know, keeping the buses running smoothly is, is a difficult balance because, you know, people, people are relying on that bus to go down the street and, and get people to work on time.

Um, so it’s, it’s a extremely important job, um, and it’s, it’s, you know, it’s not easy.

But yeah, like, uh, to your point, just being able to lead with openness and, and, and, you know, not have technology, um, you know, come in the way.

I think people and, and drivers in particular have just become accustomed to it. Um, you know, I think there is, there’s a lot of resistance to change, um, particularly in this industry.

Um, I think, um, people have gotten burned, uh, in the past, um, due to some technologies, and, um,

I think we’re becoming more open to it. Um, but I, I think as we, we, we talked about earlier, the, these people who, who work as bus drivers and planners and schedulers and, like, make that transition from, you know, uh, rider-facing to, um, administrative staff, like, they’re not high-tech workers.

And so they, they, they might have just some assumptions about how something is gonna be used, and being transparent about how it’s being used with everyone is, is probably the best case scenario.

Um, so maybe, maybe that’s the answer. Just being open and honest about how you’re gonna be using something, that’s the answer. Yeah, and, and I think I wanna add something to that because, you know, you’re talking about frontline employees, right? They, they, there’s more frontline employees in our organization in, you know, like kinda like in the bottom piece of the organizational chart than the top one.

And there’s a lot of- Mm-hmm. … information there that, that, you know, the institutional knowledge and any information that typically doesn’t make it to that top portion of the organizational chart. Mm-hmm. And I think being open and transparent is, uh, critical, uh, you know, that they know how the technology’s gonna be used and, and how that’s impacting them. Mm-hmm. You know, every employee’s looking at their own particular situation. Mm-hmm. What I would add to that, um, is the inclusion, right? Like, just like with the bus operators, every time that their service changes or there are decisions being made about the organization and particularly about the service, you know, I hear very often in agencies, uh, bus operators saying, “We’re not being involved. We’re not at the table.” Mm-hmm. “Our, our, uh, input is not being, uh, taken in.” And the same thing not just with bus operators. It could be customer service, it could you know, different personnel, different levels of the organization. It could be the maintenance, be, uh, staff in, in being able to show them that they’re also being included into, um, you know, what’s being put in place and, and what’s being discussed or, or even in terms of communication

I think is also critical to drive that trust. Um, you know, this has, this has been a- So to, to kinda ex- Mm-hmm. Sorry. To, to kinda expand on that, um,

I, there was this time that I was, I was actually in an Uber and I was on my way to the airport and, you know, I, I was just, you know, taking my ride and the, the driver just started talking to me. And so I’ll, I’ll talk to a driver. I, I’m not shy.

I’m not a shy guy. And, um, uh, you know, we got to talking and, you know, she told me, “Oh yeah, like, my other job is, uh, I’m a bus driver for Metro.”

And I said, “Oh my gosh, that’s crazy. You work for Metro? I used to work for Metro.” She’s like, “Oh, where did, where did you use to work?”

And I s- you know, I told her I used to work in the research and development department and, um, you know, she asked me, um, “Do you know, do you know, uh, Jessica Medford Miller?”

And I said, “Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know Jessica.” Uh, she used to be our, um, uh, operations lead over, uh, well, I mean, she used to be executive director of Metro and, uh, I think that was her title, but now she’s CEO over at, um,

Valley Transit in, in Phoenix. Um, but I had never really had a conversation with a bus driver so wholesome and full of trust and…Just like we were talking about how there’s no, there is no substitution for being a part of the transit community, there’s no substitution for having face time with your customer-facing people.

The thing that she, I took away from that conversation is the reason why she loved Jessica Medford-Miller and that she was sad, she was sad that she had left, she came to the facilities. She came to was that these bus operations depots and saw the conditions that bus drivers were working in and talked with bus drivers.

She didn’t turn her nose up against them. She talked with them, she interfaced with them, she learned about what they were struggling with, and that, there is no substitution for that.

Oh, that, that’s very powerful and, and it’s, it’s truthful and it’s back, back to what you were just talking about, inclusion and, and being at the table, being heard.

Uh, there’s nothing that makes you feel that you’re valued in an organization, uh, than, you know, being heard, and, and being asked, right? Like, you know, you have the CEO, the top person, looking at you and straight at your face, looking into your eyes and asking you, “What do you think?” Or, you know, “What do you have to say about this and that?”

And then just hearing your opinion. Now all of a sudden you’ve become important, right? Like, you’re talking- Yeah. … to the top person in the agency, and you’re a front line employee. Uh, that’s, that’s definitely, uh, highly recommended for all those transit leaders out there and anybody listening, uh, to always remember, uh, going back to those front line employees and, and to what you said, a- any employee that is kind of like customer-facing, uh, they, they, they’re bridging, they’re bridging that gap between external and internal, right? Mm-hmm. Like those people that we serve in the now, the people that we serve internally, and bringing that, that information, and, it, it, it’s, it’s really powerful. And, you know, uh, Walter, I, I wanted to ask you a question, uh, as we’re coming to the conclusion of this episode.

What’s your top advice for agencies? You know, based on our conversation today, uh, what would be your top advice to leave agencies with? Yeah, I mean, uh, man, I, I, I feel like I’ve gotten to know myself better just by saying all these things out loud. Like, I’ve, I’ve known, I’ve known that- …

these skip level meetings are, are, are so important and, like, this institutional knowl- there is no substitution for institutional knowledge.

Um, I think and one of the things we have to be okay with is, we’re not gonna be able to capture institutional knowledge all at once, uh, but if you don’t start capturing it, um, it’s gonna be gone.

Um, and every single agency that we’ve talked to has talked about, um, you know, the person who’s worked here for 20 years is, you know, thinking about retiring and we don’t know what we’re gonna do when that happens. And so starting today is, it’s the best day start documenting, to um, but also at the same time, you know, you talked about it’s, how important it is, um, to, like, do that skip level and have the CEO go down to the bus depot, but to the CEO who’s listening, it’s, maybe you’re afraid to, to talk to the, the bus driver. Maybe you’re afraid that they won’t accept you on some level.

But if you really listen and you really talk to them, they’re gonna respect you.

Wow. That, that, that’s a powerful advice for those CEOs. A- and I do think that there’s a little bit of that, uh, a mix of that, uh, with a lot of folks on, um, you know, leadership level, uh, when it comes to interacting with their front line employees.

Um- Yeah, I mean, you wa- you wanna think like they’re not turning their nose up, but it, it, it, maybe it comes off that way.

I always try and give people the benefit of the doubt. Like, the, uh, the CEO may just be like, “Well, it’s, it’s, it’s out of my comfort zone. It’s, it’s not who I typically interact with. I have people who interact with them.”

But you should try. You should try it. You’ll learn, you know, I guarantee you you’ll learn something. So Walter, what would be your, um, uh, final thoughts that you can share with us about Transit Chat and resources? So we discussed Transit Chat, uh, the solution to help with internal communication, capturing a lot of this institutional knowledge.

Uh, what would be the last thing you can share related to Transit Chat with our listeners? Yeah. Um, well, thank you. Uh, so right now, um, we are still looking for design partners. Uh, so we’re interested in mid-size agencies here in, uh, the United States. You can go to transit.chat or you can email me at walter@transit.chat.

Um, and yeah, Transit Chat is the centralized platform for communications, files and assignments.

We wanna help agencies quickly document issues and get things done today.

All right. So, uh, that’s an invitation open for transit agencies that are interested about, um, you know, internal communication and formalizing their process, and anybody that is curious about Transit Chat,

I would, uh, highly suggest to reach out to Walter. Uh, Walter, it has been a pleasure to have you on today’s episode of Stuff Requested. Thank you for joining us. All right. Thanks, y’all.

And, uh, to our listeners, thank you for, uh, tuning in. Uh, we’ll have, uh, new episodes coming every Monday, so stay tuned.

Thank you for listening.