Various images of a TTC fares booth beneath Yonge Street at Yonge Street and streetcars on Yonge Street. Another fare hike is expected to be approved today. (Photo: Peter Power / The Globe and Mail)Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
The Toronto Transit Commission is turning to the private sector for advice on charming customers after a fare increase and last fall's token shortage helped spur nearly a 20-per-cent increase in complaints.
The TTC's board voted Wednesday to establish a blue-ribbon panel and retain a consultant to teach the transit agency how to better serve its riders.
"There have been other attempts [to improve service]in the past," said TTC chairman Adam Giambrone, who pitched the panel idea accompanied by TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster. "Clearly, though, I think those haven't worked. So at this point you have to say, 'Look, we've tried a number of initiatives, they haven't worked.' Now we're going to take the next step."
Early Wednesday, Mr. Giambrone suggested the panel might include advisers from the airline industry, a sector he admitted "people love to hate," but which he said frequently deals with customer-service challenges.
In two media scrums later in the day, he backed away from the idea, studiously refusing to say which private-sector industries he would draw on for the panel.
"We're going to draw on experiences locally, we'll draw on experiences from other [transit]properties, but at the end of the day people want to have a good quality network," he said.
The blue-ribbon panelists won't be paid, said Mr. Giambrone, who is expected to officially join the race for mayor before the end of the month. "I suppose we'll serve them coffee, maybe we'll even include a few cookies once in a while."
Complaints to the TTC have risen steadily over the past couple of years, in part because the Internet and mobile devices make is easier for riders to vent to TTC brass.
In the first 11 months of 2009 - statistics have not yet been compiled for December - the TTC received about 31,000 complaints, up from 26,000 in the first 11 months of 2008.
Spokesman Brad Ross called that an unusual spike. He said it occurred largely in November, when the TTC's decision to increase adult cash fares to $3, up from $2.75, caused a run on tokens. Thrifty riders bought and hoarded tokens, forcing the TTC to limit customers first to 10, then to five and finally to one token at a time.
Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong, a frequent critic of the TTC, said the transit agency should make some basic improvements to service now instead of waiting for a panel to report. "We're dragging out the process even longer when we should be moving the process along and doing some things to clean up the subway and provide better service," he said.
Mr. Minnan-Wong, who is mulling his own bid for mayor, called Wednesday for Mr. Giambrone and Mr. Webster to resign as chair and chief general manager over cost increases and delays with the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way - despite neither being in those jobs for the first few years of the controversial project.
Mr. Minnan-Wong also complained that the pair had let the costs of Union Station platform improvements spiral out of control. "I don't respond to Denzil's call," Mr. Giambrone said. "He can make any comment he wants."