(The following article by Jere Downs appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on June 15. Brother Tom Dorricott is the Legislative Representative of BLE Division 71 in Philadelphia.)
PHILADELPHIA — For the last decade, SEPTA riders whose trains and subways arrive more than 15 minutes late have been able to get fare refunds in the form of vouchers – a low-cost customer courtesy when the system runs like clockwork, and a budget-buster when it doesn’t.
In fiscal 1999, with the regional rail lines on schedule 91 percent of the time, 67,000 chits worth $253,282 were dispensed through the Service Guarantee Program.
In the first 10 months of fiscal 2003, as on-time performance has sunk to an average of 84 percent, voucher applications have shot to more than 127,000, and the payout to $403,000.
SEPTA officials now are considering a surefire strategy to contain those soaring costs: Kill the Service Guarantee Program. By June 30, the transit agency must balance its $888 million budget for fiscal 2004, which requires erasing a $55 million deficit. SEPTA has proposed extensive service reductions to save $25 million and fare increases to raise $15 million.
With little more than two weeks to go, however, the search is still on for the remaining $15 million in cuts that SEPTA said it would make internally. A senior manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that, at most, 60 percent of that sum has been identified.
“There is a lot of scrambling,” the official said. “You can always get the low-hanging fruit. As you climb the tree, it’s tougher and tougher.”
Among the options: Do away with the college tuition reimbursement benefit for employees (a $300,000 annual savings), and require nonunion employees to pay part of their monthly health insurance.
Dollar-wise, the Service Guarantee is an enticing pick, according to management sources. But there is one critical difference between it and other administrative targets in that its discontinuation, they say, would risk further alienating riders. Although the program is used primarily by regional rail riders, the guarantee also covers the Broad Street Subway, the Market-Frankford Elevated, the Norristown High Speed Line, and the Routes 101 and 102 trolleys. They carry 300,000 people daily.
SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney declined to comment on any internal cost-cutting proposals. “Those decisions simply haven’t been made,” he said.
The creators of the Service Guarantee did not envision it morphing into a cash-eating monster. As the 1990s began, at least 93 percent of SEPTA trains were on time – defined as running within six minutes of their scheduled arrival.
The voucher program, nicknamed “On Time or On Us” by the SEPTA board that initiated it, was the first of its kind in the nation. Its purpose was “to hold management to the fire,” said Richard Voith, a former board member and now director of the Greater Philadelphia Transportation Initiative, an advocacy group. “We thought the system was getting good enough. [The Service Guarantee] could raise confidence. It didn’t cost very much.”
Since last June, however, on-time performance has slid to its lowest level in more than a decade. Voucher applications have mounted, even though the process of filing borders on exasperating. The form is available at the Market East and Suburban Station service counters. It must be submitted within five days of the tardy arrival, and include the train’s three- or four-digit code, listed only on the timetable.
Nonetheless, Ellen McDowell, a National Labor Relations Board investigator who rides the R3 West Trenton line from Langhorne to Center City, has filed a claim every two weeks since January – 12 in all. In the regional rail system, the R3 West Trenton line is one of the two least reliable lines; it and the R6 Cynwyd line have an on-time average of only 79 percent. Getting a refund “appeases my anger slightly,” said McDowell, who carries application forms in her briefcase.
Maloney, the SEPTA spokesman, puts most of the blame for the system’s delays on Mother Nature.
Old power lines were snapped by the cold and stretched by last summer’s heat, he said. In the fall, “our slippery rail season was the worst in our recorded history.”
Around New York City, however, the Long Island Railroad and Metro North Service also endured a harsh winter. So far this fiscal year, the on-time performances of both systems have not dipped below 90 percent and have reached highs of 95 and 98 percent.
SEPTA’s problems cannot be pinned entirely on weather, said Tom Dorricott, a spokesman for the Philadelphia area chapter of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.
Since a new regional rail dispatching system debuted in September, he said, engineers have grappled with slow signal changes and confused traffic control.
Sending the Service Guarantee down the tubes will do more than frustrate riders, warned Steph Rosenfeld, who had been SEPTA’s marketing manager in the early years of the voucher program.
“We put it into effect because we needed to restore passenger confidence in the railroad, [and] we had to do something dramatic to show we were serious,” he said. “If you kill the program, you chill the relationship with your passenger [who is] struggling to decide between driving and continuing to [take the] train.
“It might be the added push.”