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Transit Enterprise Fund Review — Council Meeting June 1, 201 0
Councilman Carter has asked staff questions regarding the Transit Enterprise Fund revie w
currently scheduled for Tuesday's Council meeting . Here are responses from staff on th e
questions .
DATE :
TO :
VIA :
Katie Lichtig, City Manage r
FROM :
SUBJECT :
May 28, 201 0
City Counci l
Councilman Carter's Question s
Trolley
RED FIL E
MEETING AGENDA
PATE ////0 ITEM #
1)Has any thought been given to raising the trolley fare? Perhaps to 50c for adults/kids o r
50c adults/25c kids ?
Yes, staff considered recommending raising the trolley fare and also having some other revenu e
pay for the trolley service such as private partnerships or subscription service . Unfortunately ,
even with a $1 .00 or more fare and retention of our current annual riders will not bring in enoug h
revenue to cover the costs of the service . We should end FY 2010 with about 20,000 trolle y
riders . Even at $1 .00 per rider ($20,000) that is a little more than Y2 the mileage cost of th e
service and considerably less than the total costs once fuel and indirect costs are included .
If we doubled the current fare for adult passengers to $.50 and charged children $.25 we woul d
roughly double our current trolley farebox to approximately $10,000 annually . Again, thi s
amount is substantially below the cost of the services .
MTC considers the trolley a non-essential service and as such they recommend if subsidy fo r
transit service must be spent that they City focus on baseline services such as Sunday an d
evening service before continuing the trolly subsidy .
2)What sort of analysis has been done on trolley ridership by day/time? For instance,I
assume Sunday is slowest . Perhaps Sunday could be eliminated and in tandem with 1 )
a breakeven could be achieved . Or maybe the hours of service could be reduced if certai n
hours are particularly slow .
Table 5 of the staff report indicates Trolley ridership for days of the week for the year-to-date FY
2010 operations .
le S — Trolley Revenue Mile s
..
uly.09-PWCA 20AV AV
P6$$IMi FA11 RRu MNLC oolaT
'T0 MI
REV MILi3 ..,;932.9
s f 73 416
DAY S
43 THVR$,_,
...PASS
7 212
REY MI
1,953
1s4 HR
231 3 .76 31-2v s 82AS 73,
0A";.-;-MAT
_..{
GALLONS
40
FUtL GOST
S 412
0'03T
$4,289 5 ;45 '
FUEL 4'p 233 3Pq'i '
43 I~RI 8 .678 2941 3SJ 1,76 t S 381 71
.. _,
F3 )
734'
3 2I9 S 9,522 Cm"2.214 5
3T58!'43'Ai G S 6 9537_i3 .AT —4.706 .2
2
,942 34369 60 j?3Sa 43 $2 207 1 9,691 S 2w3 04
TOTAL COST 30,4i.}.1 43 SUN t .363 ,006_3 _Oa .._
_-
5 035 06rYE 0 :3 906_`S 6 ;540 S 152 0 8,
177_16.966 9,792,1 .179 ,1 .73 1444 6
54.67$244314 1,844 1 31 .922 .$185.ea
Day of wee k
ridership
Sunday is indeed the lowest at about 19% of Thursday ridership however even Saturday is onl y
65% of the Thursday ridership amount . We did not investigate (or calculate) a breakeven poin t
on this since the ridership amounts are low (Sunday is under 40 riders/day) and it would take a
$3-5 fare to recover full cost .
Cal Poly
Where do things stand with not accepting invalid Cal Poly cards? As I recall from last
year's presentation, there are lots of invalid cards . To me, this seems like a lost revenu e
opportunity . Switching riders from invalid cards to pay is entirely net extra revenue eve n
if their ridership drops .
There is positive news on this front although fully not yet resolved . When we upgraded ou r
farebox in September 2009 (AVI system) it dramatically reduced the invalid card issue . We went
from over 140,000 invalids in 2008-09 FY to 6,596 from July 2009-April 30, 2010 . Now, when
an invalid card registers in our farebox the driver hits a manual key that still captures the Ca l
Poly rider albeit and records it as invalid . Invalid cards do not represent lost revenue as there i s
no "Bad List" issued by Cal Poly and the university continues to request that we honor thes e
cards until they can troubleshoot them from their end . This will likely be an issue as we mov e
into our subsidy agreement renegotiation if numbers begin to rise again .
Ideally, we would eventually be able to close the gap between questions of inoperative Cal Pol y
cards versus expired cards that would fully resolve the issue . We are not yet there but hav e
substantially reduced the number of invalid recordings .
Evening Servic e
1) What is assumed fall-off in evening service if $1 surcharge is added? I would think fall -
off would be significant, therefore net revenue gain would be in question .
For budgeting purposes we assumed a "best case" scenario with no assumed fall-off in Cal Pol y
related fares . In a "worst case" scenario a 25%-50% initial drop in ridership could occur but w e
believe the lost riders will likely grow back in time as riders reacquaint themselves with th e
service . It is important to note that even if a low end amount of $15,000 (50% fall-off) is the ne t
result of the fare establishment, this total amount is additional revenue to help pay for service b y
those currently riding for free .
2) What is Cal Poly admin and ASI response to this idea ?
The Cal Poly representative on MTC, Susan Rains (MTC Chair) voted in favor of the propose d
recommendations . ASI has not yet been asked to comment on the proposal but will be include d
in the noticing for public hearings on the fare changes . ASI does not contribute to the subsid y
agreement for student riders at this time . In consulting members of the MTC and studen t
population, there was overwhelming consensus that rather than lose service levels for evenin g
service they would rather pay something for it as farebox to keep the service in place . This led to
the staff recommendations for the proposed fare change .
Free Transfers,
1)Is the idea to eliminate all free transfers from one route to another ?
Yes, the proposal is to eliminate transfers which are currently no charge and are good betwee n
all SLO Transit routes . (SLORTA eliminated transfers in 2008). If the passenger were payin g
cash they will be paying full fare for the additional ride or take advantage of the full day pas s
which is currently $3 .00 . Under todays structure a two-way trip with transfers would be $2 .5 0
while removing the free transfer and taking advantage of the full day pass would be a margina l
increase of 50 cents . We anticipate passengers who are affected would be purchasing the pass .
2)What would be the planned transfer fee ?
They would pay the full fare for the transfer or more likely purchase the Full Day pass for $3 .00 .
3)What % of riders currently transfer ?
Approximately 2% (17,074 transfers issued out of 856,284 riders from July 1, 2009 thru Apri l
30, 2010 )
Overall
I'd like for you to show more data and analysis for the recommendations under
consideration . The numbers you show make it clear why you've honed in on Evenin g
Service and Trolley . But after that, there's little to go on.
Staff will be ready to discuss the MTC recommendations and other issues in more detail if th e
Council desires on Tuesday night .