Can Digital Service Restore Public Faith in the MBTA?
A Boston Reddit user, EmperorMark, recently posted the above picture of what the T Map would look like if all proposed expansions and extensions since as early as the 1970s were operational. As a very short term Boston resident, even I know that this is wishful thinking. Yet at the same time it is not impossible to envision a future Boston where these lines are all operational. I have this admittedly optimistic view because I recently learned of the MBTA’s shift towards a digital mindset. I believe that this change to focusing on near-term successes and the customer experience is the right step for the MBTA to improve holistically.
Ultimately this organizational shift came about due to ripe conditions for change. Similar to healthcare.gov, there was a crisis to be solved and an elite team of folks arose to address it. After the “Long Winter of 2015” damaged the core service delivery of the MBTA (providing public transportation), the agency took action and established a Fiscal Management Control Board (FMCB) with the goals of rebuilding the system and the public’s faith in the system. According to its third annual report released in December of 2017, the board effectively expanded construction contracts, reduced the MBTA’s deficit, and overhauled its capacity for developing and managing capital projects. It effectively utilized digital governance to accomplish its first goal. But anyone who knows a Bostonian knows that the second goal of restoring faith is the more challenging one.
In a visit to the Harvard Kennedy School last week, the CTO of the MBTA, David Block-Schachter, noted that he feels the MBTA is unique in how much people in the city care about it. The Boston Globe constantly writes about the T, there are countless parody websites along the lines of “Is the [Color] line effed?” and in my limited research on Boston’s Reddit I have found evidence of extreme opinions towards the agency. There are daily threads about the Red Line, with users noting how its services are bad only if it’s a day that ends in “Y”, and others sarcastically noting that the Red Line was not designed for today’s “severe” weather of 60 degrees and sunny. With this kind of negative energy, it is clear that public faith in the system is still on the mend. Even the FMCB noted in its annual report that “the claim that the T is already undergoing a turnaround may seem a stretch” to its users, and that the “day-to-day realities of may T riders do not necessarily align” with its own view of progress. So how can a digital service so effectively succeed and yet fail in improving its public image? It is not because Bostonians are particularly sensitive about the T and their daily commute, but rather because the average consumer has not seen any improvements.
Digital service can certainly restore public faith in the MBTA, but it has not yet. The agency claims to focus on the user, but its actions are not aligning with that principle. My one recommendation to the MBTA is to avoid being seduced by technology. Digital service is about improving the services of government with the help of technology, not about using technology to improve services. There is a subtle difference, and the MBTA has fallen into the latter bucket.
The MBTA’s top four stated priorities of its Digital Service Initiative are to transform the disruption experience, reinvent green line operations, improve the experience of riding buses, and maintain access for people. These four priorities feel appropriate. Riders for the most part understand delays, but are in need of more and better communication than the simple “We should be moving shortly” line. Furthermore, any T rider knows how hard it is to simply get heavy luggage into the T and cannot imagine navigating with a wheelchair. And buses and the green line are just generally accepted as awful experiences.
But 18 months into the job and David’s biggest wins are procuring a vendor for digital fare collection (to the tune of 723 million), revamping the website, and rebuilding the API to connect better to third party apps and Google Maps. While this is all well and good, there are really just a few things people care about and digital fare is not one of them. Customers want more reliability, and, even though we gripe about the T all the time, we want more of it.
The four priorities have yet to be addressed, and other than improving the Green Line, resources are yet to be allocated for them. The theory of change around the Green Line reinvention is “providing staff with real-time situational awareness and fast, high-bandwidth communications” to improve Green Line operations. I am woefully ignorant on how the T operates, but this seems like technological jargon for “we’re going to give our staff better headsets.” Regardless, solutions are planned to be delivered to the field in 3 months once the project kicks off in October. And while I am confident that services will improve from technological solutions, will customers really feel the difference? It feels as though the agency has thus far pushed forward on software solutions to hardware problems.
“Transforming the disruption experience,” perhaps the crucial priority to restore faith in the MBTA, is pending resource allocation. The plan here is exciting and genuinely has the customer experience at the core of the project. The T explicitly states that it wants to help “riders know and feel like we care,” help them “understand where and when their journey will be impacted,” and to “better connect riders to the future vision of a better system.” The strategy around this initiative is strong too, with plans to partner with a premiere design firm with iterative solutions delivered within 3 months. If only this could get off the ground.
The FMCB notes that its near-term capital improvements fund has spent 2.4 mil towards customer real-time tracking tools, and only 4.9 mil towards bus service plan implementation. Again here is evidence of the allure of “big data” and on technological solutions. The bus experience priority, one of the named four, barely doubles the real-time tracking allocation.
Overall I believe that the shift from traditional operating practices into a more digital shift with a focus on near-term solutions and focus on the consumer experience was the correct move for the MBTA to improve its services and image. But its actions thus far show that the customer is not actually at the core of the MBTA’s recent initiatives. Digital fares will launch by the turn of the decade. Meanwhile, thousands of Bostonians taking the T will still shuffle into overfull cars, experience vague delays, and sit through long Green Line commutes. The agency is being sucked into the glamour of modernization and technology solutions that do not address the actual needs of customers. Moving forward, the MBTA needs to proceed more cautiously and ensure that its projects align with its four priorities if it wants to restore its public image.
The agency should keep in mind that customers need evidence of improvement, and they need evidence that their voices are being head. Services must actually have the consumer experience at its core. As long as the agency keeps pushing forward on its digital path while ensuring actual alignment with customer priorities, I am sure that Bostonians will one day get to grumble about the Navy Yard to JFK Yellow Line.
