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