GREYHOUND TO OPEN TEMPORARILY

 With an extreme storm headed our way, EMTA and the county have made arrangements to open the  Greyhound terminal temporarily. The county will provide security while it is open.

Greyhound's new management shut down the terminal earlier this year and since they are still paying on the lease EMTA (which owns the property) has been unable to access the lobby. 

Below is the press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Chris Carroll December 22, 2022 Phone: (814) -860-0794 Email: ccarroll@eriecountypa.gov

 

ERIE COUNTY EXECUTIVE AND EMTA STRIKE DEAL TO TEMPORARILY REOPEN GREYHOUND BUS TICKET OFFICE 

ERIE, PA – Erie County Executive Brenton Davis and EMTA CEO Jeremy Peterson have reached an agreement that will temporarily reopen the Greyhound bus ticket office.

 Ahead of the winter storms and the holiday season, neither the County nor EMTA wanted to see anyone stuck out in inclement weather waiting for a bus. The County has offered to lend its security service from the Blasco Memorial Library to provide regular security patrols during business hours. 

Greyhound's local office has remained locked and closed because Greyhound no longer has a ticket agent in the office. Greyhound Lines is currently a tenant in the Intermodal Transportation Center.

 “This is something we needed to get done. We simply cannot have our residents sitting outside in below freezing temperatures with no access to facilities. I commend EMTA for their efforts in helping to solve this problem,” said Erie County Executive Brenton Davis. 

“Due to the unfortunate condition that Greyhound has left us, EMTA and Erie County Executive Davis have collaborated on an idea that will help Greyhound customers utilize the existing Greyhound station and it’s facility starting Friday morning. Facility hours will be announced today,” said EMTA CEO Jeremy Peterson. 

The agreement is currently only temporary and there is no timeframe as to how long this will last. Talks are still ongoing about how to solve this problem permanently.

 Any questions regarding the material in the release can be directed to Chris Carroll at ccarroll@eriecoutypa.gov or Sarah Morrison at smorrison@ride-the-e.com

Text/Email alerts from peer agencies

Text and email alerts provide one of the best methods to reach transit riders concerning changes in service. And yet there are still many agencies that aren't using them. More mystifying is why some of those who have the alerts do not use them to go directly to riders' devices, even when they have alerts posted on their homepage and/or tracking app. 

I decided to look over the text/email alerts performance of peer agencies of Erie Metropolitan Transit Authority (EMTA) (When PennDOT is doing evaluations of PA transit agencies, it uses peer agencies for comparison. PennDOT and EMTA agree on peer agencies used for this comparison). 

The most recent EMTA evaluation I'm aware of is from 2020. That means the pandemic could have changed things after the evaluation. I'm going with what I have available to me.

 
There were 14 EMTA peer agencies listed in the 2020 evaluation of EMTA. Of those, I found six that offer rider alerts via text and/or email.

 
I subscribed to alerts offered by all six of those agencies that offered them. I was surprised to find such variation in quality. Obviously, I cannot evaluate them as accurately as if I were a rider living in any of these locales. This is what I observed from my subscriptions to these agencies' alerts: 

 

Chatham Area Transit Authority (CAT) Text alerts. Savannah GA area. 

Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA) Text alerts Doesn't seem very active except for system-wide alerts. Chattanooga TN.

Duluth Transit Authority (DTA) Email alerts Duluth MN.They seem to keep up with their alerts

Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) Text alerts. Knoxville TN Seems to have stopped maintaining the alerts, but their format is still worth checking out. Especially like that previous alerts are archived so that you can pull them up in the event they caused a problem. They apparently have an ongoing workforce shortage, so that may be why text alerts are not being maintained? Worth finding out why.

 

Municipality of Anchorage - Public Transportation Department (People Mover)    Text alerts Anchorage AK. I've only started receiving these, so I don't know how well-maintained they are

Rock Island County Metropolitan Mass Transit District (MetroLINK) Text alerts and email alerts Serves Illinois Quad Cities region. Seems to be very well-maintained.

Below: Recent screenshots of text and email alerts from transit agencies that PennDOT considers "peers" of EMTA. 

Chatham (CAT)

Chattanooga TN (CARTA)

Duluth (DTA)

Knoxville TN (KAT)

Anchorage (People Mover) 

Quad Cities (MetroLINK)