After the whirlwind created by the previous director’s hurry-up-offense style of management, UCAT has taken a deep breath and reset the tone at the top with the choice of deputy director Toni Roser to serve as interim head of the agency until a permanent director is chosen.
Roser has near two decades of experience to recommend her for the countywide responsibility. She served as interim director from October to February last winter, during which time her name was also in consideration as permanent UCAT director.
While new routes were implemented to serve the ridership better over the last month, the results were uneven. What has been referred to as “operational challenges” by the county executive’s office affected the rollout and distressed a ridership dependent upon consistency.
“Thank you for bearing with us as we work hard to make UCAT a better public transportation experience,” the UCAT website now says.
Noting that UCAT riders depend upon accurate, up-to-date communications to plan their trips on fixed-route buses, legislators Laura Petit and Phil Erner have sponsored a resolution requiring public notification of planned route or schedule changes, stop locations no less than 30 days in advance. That resolution is still working its way through committees.
Reorganizing UCAT
Since Roser took the helm, she has been working with deputy budget director Don Quesnell and deputy innovations director Victoria Read to reorganize the UCAT into two distinct areas, finances and operations. The finance segment will get its own deputy director.
Also under consideration is a communications person to handle UCAT business, to be created by repurposing a presently vacant staff position.
“Except for the Yellow and the Blue routes, we’ve rolled back to what we were prior,” said Roser at a November 7 legislative department budget meeting in the county office building in Kingston. “Every loop of every route is now covered.”
A silver lining alongside the rocky rollout was the implementation of a fare-less ridership model which could account for the increased ridership numbers for this October over last year. Acting county executive Johanna Contreras has cautioned that it’s still too early to draw conclusions.
Over 26,000 individuals rode the buses in October, None of them paid even a dime.
Route optimization
While route optimization is the goal of any public transportation service, it is not easy to achieve. Determining the most cost-efficient route for even one bus must take into account a slew of variables not limited to but including the number of intersections, left-hand turns, traffic congestion, time of day and anticipated wait time at each stop. Access to persons with disabilities must also be considered.
Transfers to other buses on different routes with route optimizations of their own play into the planning process.
The resulting possibilities are referred to as super polynomial: big numbers.
“UCAT has 39 vehicles …. Right now we operate 23 routes daily and ten routes on the weekend,” explained Roser. “Our routes go throughout the county. We hit Saugerties, City of Kingston, Ellenville, Phoenicia, Woodstock. And they run from 4:45 in the morning until 11 p.m.”
The process is so complicated that it’s largely handed over to computer algorithms to solve. The 2023 estimated UCAT budget asks for $100,000 to help choreograph all these moving parts.
Deputy county executive Chris Kelly spoke on the subject. “So this will involve having a consultant come in and look at our system holistically,” said Kelly, “in terms of assessing community and rider need and efficiency of routes in the system .… So a lot of the comments that we’ve been collecting, at least during my tenure over the last year, has to do with filling gaps and addressing transit needs in the southern end of the county. Whether it’s Cragsmoor or Shawangunk, connecting those into Orange County is going to certainly be hard.”
Staff hiring problems
“In terms of hiring staff,” said deputy county executive Kelly, “there’s discussions with different legislators about doing a great increase for drivers from their current Grade Eight, which is very low in terms of marketability for the role, but also to be competitive with the other bus services, increasing that potential will help. So we’re hoping that that will make a difference in terms of staffing overall.”
There was a hiccup in the hiring abilities of UCAT within the past year. The agency stopped working with the third-party company which had conducted the specialized background checks thought required by the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). There was a hiring freeze for several months.
“We did go through a company before,” recalled Roser. “After some further investigation, we found out that New York State doesn’t require that. But we are able to use our county’s own system now to hire bus drivers.”
The freeze is off. The hiring push has begun, Anyone with a valid NYS CDL Class B driver’s license can apply.
There’s even talk among legislators of having the county bear the cost of permit certifications for promising applicants. That cost can run above $600.
“Private carriers in the region, they are able to offer more in terms of compensation overall,” said Kelly. “But I think with our benefits and our pension, that we will be competitive.”
The transportation agency was short seven positions at last count.
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