Our Passengers
Our Passengers:
Growth
As the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the MBTA and KCS have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to influence on a large scale who uses our rail network and why. We must seize this opportunity to recover and grow ridership with a healthy mix of research, listening, creativity, and innovation. Passengers are the lifeblood of any public transportation network and ours is no different. By working together, we can make the MBTA’s rail network the mode of choice in the future.
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A foundational element to any type of market growth is understanding the customers. The Marketing team will expand its efforts to understand the travel and mobility patterns of people within our service area and anticipate areas of opportunity for ridership growth. In turn, this will allow our teams to engage in service planning exercises, develop investment proposals, and launch targeted revenue generation initiatives for the greatest passenger benefit.
The establishment of a data warehouse with proper analytical tools will enable KCS to improve its agility in response to shifts in ridership and to forecast (and implement) near-term service modifications. This warehouse will be populated with information from a variety of sources including aggregated mobile data, fare gate records, RailSales and mTicket information, passenger counts, and customer surveys. Once integrated and analyzed with Keolis’ Evolve tool, this data will give us a robust understanding as to who travels in the Greater Boston area, and why, so we can turn the pandemic into an opportunity to reset and grow the demographics of our core ridership base. Armed with this information, we will develop a roadmap of revenue generation initiatives to achieve a full recovery of ridership to pre-COVID levels within this business plan cycle.
The MBTA and KCS have already begun this journey through the implementation of a more frequent, all-day service pattern introduced in April 2021. By increasing the frequency of train service throughout the day, we have expanded the pool of potential passengers who can use the rail network for a variety of travel purposes. It is incumbent on KCS to further promote all-day travel habits and decisions through convenient service offerings, appropriate fare incentives, and support from the business community for flexible work hours.
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In 2017, KCS was proud to sign a first-of-its-kind revenue sharing agreement with the MBTA, designed to further align our partnership and incentivize ridership growth. With more than 300 operating contracts around the world, KCS will leverage the Keolis Group’s international expertise to optimize the benefits of our Revenue Share Agreement through the introduction of revenue growth ideas and initiatives. The Marketing team will draw from case studies, pilots, and Keolis Group cross-functional teams to inform its ideas and introduce best practices to our client.
One of the key tools available to attract new riders and influence travel patterns is through the introduction of innovative and dynamic fare products. The very popular $10 weekend fare developed by the MBTA-KCS Joint Sales and Marketing Board (JSMB) is an excellent example of how fares can drive ridership during a historically underutilized service period. Moving forward, KCS will survey the market to better understand the interests, desires, and needs of prospective customers and combine that data along with the information gleaned through the Understanding Our Passengers initiatives to develop a variety of creative, equitable fare products and promotions which can be piloted. Through stakeholder outreach already underway, we see a strong demand for such products from the business community and leisure travelers alike. We will also identify ways to harness the green decision-making of college students and younger riders as they make transportation choices.
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In addition to inviting prospective passengers to ride our trains, an important role of an innovative and solutions-driven mobility operator such as Keolis is to help individuals get to and from the station. This is often referred to as the “first/last mile challenge” and can serve as a limiting factor for wider adoption of rail as a mode of transport. As we conduct more sophisticated Keolis Evolve analyses and survey market desires, KCS intends to facilitate the introduction of appealing integrated multi-modal first/last mile solutions. This could take the form of an increased availability of bicycle storage, on-demand shuttles, or improved parking experiences.
In 2022, KCS was proud to have been selected by the MBTA through a competitive procurement process to operate and maintain all of the 102 parking lots and garages in the MBTA’s portfolio. These facilities serve not only the commuter rail, but also other modes of transportation the MBTA offers. Although this opportunity represents Keolis’ first North American parking contract, existing KCS staff and our sister companies in Europe have extensive parking management experience upon which we can draw to make this exciting new partnership successful. During the next three years, KCS looks forward to demonstrating the synergies that can be realized by combining commuter rail and parking operations and maintenance, streamlining and enhancing customer service, and integrating innovative parking and rail fare products for a seamless passenger travel experience.
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Finally, an important part of our obligation as custodian of the MBTA’s rail network is to effectively and comprehensively collect passenger revenue for the services we operate. As part of the Revenue Share Agreement, KCS committed to deploying and refining revenue collection and protection tools and activities. Within the last few years, KCS has enhanced the passenger experience by introducing the RailSales on-board ticketing system which, for the first time, allows passengers to purchase tickets on board by credit card.
In 2022–2023, KCS expects to introduce fare gates at North and South Stations that will capture fare revenue more consistently at the two stations through which most passengers travel. We plan to introduce the gates at Back Bay station in 2023–2024, at which point we will evaluate the feasibility of expanding deployment to other stations.
The introduction of fare gates will help reduce the volume of ticketless travel on the network, improve the consistency of the fare-paying experience for riders, and allow on-board staff to focus on improving the customer experience.
Customer Experience
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During the period of this business plan, KCS will take further steps to demonstrate to the MBTA that “thinking like a passenger” – the Keolis Group motto – is more than just words. The Keolis Signature Service program will be customized for our network based on the results of staff interviews, customers surveys, focus groups (customer only, staff only, and mixed groups), and working groups.
This will re-baseline our understanding of passenger expectations, particularly as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the restructuring of the KCS customer experience. This, in turn, will lead to an 18-month action plan ranging from new customer initiatives and adjustments to social media management to an overhaul of frontline staff customer service training. The journey will result in the inclusion of Customer Service as a core competency for all team members who engage with the public.
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For riders with mobility challenges, the public transportation customer experience can be a source of frustration. As stewards of the network, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that we are prepared to assist these passengers to the best of our ability. Our Mechanical team must ensure that our trains are properly equipped and maintained in a way that facilitates their on-board experience. The Engineering team must maintain our stations and platforms with accessibility in mind, and our Customer Service teams must ensure that signage and way-finding is clear and understandable to the diverse populations we serve.
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Leveraging the knowledge and experience of the Keolis Group, we will propose new ways of capturing customer feedback to the MBTA, including during events specifically designed for this purpose (e.g. Meet the Manager). The digitization of our business and data management through Power BI will enable us to proactively take meaningful action to improve the customer experience. In concert with enhanced passenger counting capability, this will improve our capacity to respond to increases in peak ridership in the near term and migrate toward an urban rail model in mid-term.
Annual Customer Service plans, while fulfilling our contractual obligation, will further serve as a cascading element to inform KCS’ overall customer strategy. The plans will increasingly be structured according to the customer feedback we receive, which will grow the trust between KCS and its passengers.
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Communication continues to be a critical element of the customer experience. Over the next three years, we will be designing and implementing significant enhancements to boost the dissemination of on-train and station-based passenger information.
By leveraging existing fiber optic infrastructure, we will explore opportunities to create “connected stations,” expanding the use of cameras, digital signage, and other forms of communication. These enhancements will improve safety, passenger communications, and real-time station monitoring.
Similarly, reducing the impact of planned and unplanned service disruption is central to improving the customer experience, and KCS remains committed to continuously improving its management of these events through enhanced communication, efficient disruption response, practical diversions, and where possible, smart timing of planned disruptive activities.
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Finally, as the long-awaited South Coast Rail service nears completion, KCS will continue to evaluate attractive schedule options that optimize the benefits of the new service with a robustness and frequency of service that our passengers deserve and expect.