A month's worth of EMTA email rider alerts

I have been trying out the EMTA email rider alerts that you can sign up for in MyStop. 

The alerts are the same as those posted on the MyStop site, except they come to your email.

There is a text option but it was not working in the three times I signed up. I'm not sure what the problem is, but if it is available, EMTA needs to activate it, since a lot of riders would find it more useful than the emails.

I tried it out in three different email accounts. The screenshot below was from an account I signed up for January 26, 2023, and I stopped it at February 26. As far as I can I received them all, though it seemed like there was a curious gap for a couple weeks, maybe everything was running smoothly. 

Delivery issues

Alerts coming to each of the three email accounts had delivery issues. Outlook and Gmail sometimes delivered the alerts to another file. Yahoo Mail is still posting every single alert at 12:00 AM. ... every single one. None of them ended up in Spam so far. Again, having the text alert option might eliminate this goofiness.

Another advantage to alerts delivered to your device

Having an alert delivered to your device gives you a record of an issue that might have caused you a problem with getting somewhere. Your employer, instructor, doctor, etc., might accept your excuse a little more readily if you show them the alert that made you late. The alerts on the MyStop page disappear as soon as they are over, but you have the alert as a record. 

Click here for instructions on how to sign up for alerts

Click to enlarge  

Updates - May 6, 2021

Today I spoke with Ed Torres, Director of Fixed-Route Operations at EMTA . I asked him for updates, and also clarifications of issues.

LAID-OFF DRIVERS. Are they being called back? Ed said "nothing is set in stone but once we need them we'll be calling people back." They won't know specifics till after drivers take their scheduled vacations, which are coming up soon. They may also need drivers for the school year

WILL SUNDAY SERVICE RETURN? Ed said even before the pandemic that ridership was low. Sounds like this remains up in the air for now.

ROUTES

• Presque Isle Express is returning
• Route Upgrades coming around June 12. Routes 25/30 and 21/28 will each have an additional trip added on Saturday.

Pandemic Layoffs at EMTA

This is an update on driver layoffs. The EMTA employees already know about this, so I’m directing at riders and others.

▪️On Monday July 27 the drivers union and EMTA reached an agreement about pandemic-related layoffs.
▪️Service wont be affected by the layoffs, though some drivers livelihoods definitely will be.
▪️22 drivers will be on layoff.
▪️The decision about who gets to stay appears to be completely about seniority.
▪️In March of this year, largely because of the pandemic, ridership dropped by 85%. Service had to be cut and 39 drivers were laid off.
▪️Company has called back approximately 17.
▪️The agreement was hammered out and arrived at between union and company.
▪️Although the rider support and concern were appreciated by affected drivers, it is hard to imagine that in this particular issue they could have made a difference, because of what the parties had to work with.
▪️As I understand it, the drivers who are laid off may still be called back within 24 months?
▪️Very sorry for those who are among the laid off at this time. Hopefully this whole situation that caused this will be turned around soon. 🙏
~deb

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Note: The agreement between ATU Local 568 and EMTA is a bit more detailed than this. However, as I said, this was written for riders, and I wrote it for ease of understanding what was going on. Also, I know the company and union describe the agreement a little differently than the other, and I tried to stay as basic as I could. ~deb