The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) gets more than 223,000 bus riders to where they want to go every day. We take great pride in our ability to provide quality service to this many commuters, and we do it by using the systems we have in place.

But with an eye on tomorrow, we are making needed investments to modernize our infrastructure to carry us and our customers into the future.

That said, we also take seriously when we fall short of our riders’ expectations.

We are aware of the issues mentioned in an email by a reader to the Baltimore Brew published as “New to MTA bus commuting, shocked by the poor service” (Monday, October 27) regarding the #13 Local Bus line, and we have a plan in place to address them. Moreover, our long-term mission addresses customer satisfaction issues throughout our service area.

The issue of late or overcrowded buses is one that affects every transit agency in the country, including ours. MTA buses are subject to the same traffic congestion that every driver in Maryland struggles with.

We do our best to anticipate and mitigate these issues, but when they affect us consistently, we redeploy our personnel and other resources to address them. That’s what we have done in this case.

While the Local Bus #13 line has one of the highest levels of frequency of service in our system – buses are scheduled to arrive every eight minutes during rush hour – the MTA has launched a Route Study to determine the source of problematic service issues which may exist.

These studies are just part of the protocol put into place when issues like these arise.

Regarding on-time bus performance, the MTA’s overall on-time rate has ranged in the low to mid-80s for most of 2014. To improve that performance, the MTA plans to roll out a real-time bus arrival passenger information system in the very near future.
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Here’s the original op-ed by Brian Levy, along with two follow-ups:

• New to MTA bus commuting, shocked by the poor service (10/27/14)
• MTA responds to bus rider complaints: It’s a big problem and we’re studying it (11/10/14)
• MTA apologizes to frustrated bus commuter (11/17/14)
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This follows on the heels of our successful deployment of the Light Rail vehicle arrival system late last year. And MTA has invested in additional state-of-the-art technology to track and improve on-time performance of buses.

That system will come online in the next few years.

Both of these technological investments are components of our Bus Network Improvement Project. It’s a long-term comprehensive plan to build a better bus system that includes a complete overhaul of current bus schedules to align them with today’s traffic and ridership patterns; improvements in our on-street monitoring; and improved use of technology to streamline our real-time management of the entire bus system.

We continue to modernize our transit system through these and many other technological and systems enhancements.

By improving our system on an on-going basis, our goal is to continue providing quality service to our ridership into the future.

– Robert L. Smith was appointed administrator and CEO of the MTA by Gov. Martin O’Malley in May 2013. He previously headed the agency under the administration of Gov. Parris Glendening. With more than 30 years of transportation experience, Smith has held the general manager post for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Suburban services in Dallas, Texas, as well as in Jefferson County, Ala., and Myrtle Beach, SC. He has served as vice president of bus operations for the Chicago Transit Authority and held various positions with Ryder/ATE, a firm that provides transit management services.