Participants will be seated at computer terminals and will answer questions about various road signs and about their commuting habits. The session will take up to 2 hours and participants will receive $75.

Sessions will be held on weekday evenings and weekends in June at Westat in Rockville.

Please call Diane at 240-314-7591 or reply by email to commutestudy@westat.com with your name, daytime phone number, and the best times to call.

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-hx

I cannot stress this enough: These are NOT the official fares.

The projected fares are, however, as close as can be reasonably calculated.

When I was working on this project, I reverse-engineered the current fares and found that not every fare adhered to hard-and-fast rules.  MOST fares were rounded up to the nearest 5 cents if they ended in 3,4,8 and 9 and down if they ended in 1,2,6 and 7.  SOME fares appeared to have other undetermined rules applied.

I found 2 current fares that were completely wrong – I corrected them in my dataset with information from The Trip Planner.  There may be other current fares that are inaccurate but these 2 were off by several dollars (and showed up in checking the difference between current and July 1 fares).

The FY13 Fare Estimator is now open and ready for business.

You can comment on this post or send me email (HellOnWHeelz@HellOnWheelz.org)  if you have any questions, comments or observations.

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-hn

Uhm.

Yes and No?

The Good News is: yes there will not be a 90 minute window where you will be charged more than some other fare.

In terms of pricing?

The (mostly) Bad News is:  just about everyone loses here.

Peak of the peak fare payers

Many of you will be paying more for the new Peak fares than you did for peak of the peak!

The average peak fare (by station combination) works out to a 10 cent increase over peak of the peak

57% of  the peak fare combinations  are  more than the peak of the peak combinations (up to 55 cents more).

21% of the peak fare combinations work out to be equal to  peak of the peak while another 22% are a nickle cheaper than peak of the peak fares.

Peak fare payers

If you were able to stay out of the peak of the peak commute time – the average increase in fares will be 30 cents. Some folks will be paying 75 cents more, some fares will only be 15 cents higher.

 So, did peak of the peak go away?  

The timing did.  1/5th of  the station combinations have fares that will break even on the new peak versus peak of the peak… and you have the same price ALL rush hour.

(and  ”The Church Lady” from SNL says “Isn’t that special?!”)

Another 1 in 5 station combinations will result in a nickle less than peak of the peak.

Everybody else: the majority of peak of the peak fare combinations AND ALL of the peak riders will pay more on July 1.

The online fare comparison tool will be available tomorrow.

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-gV

For those of you who have been paying attention – you know that the Board voted to increase bus and rail fares effective July 1, 2012.

What I don’t think has been properly put out in the mainstream media is how much that this is going to cost you: especially if you are an  off-peak rail rider.

I spent this past weekend pulling station mileage data from the wmata.com website. By Wednesday I’ll have an online tool that you can use to compare your fares now to the ones that will be in effect on July 1 (Both peak and off peak rail fares will be available).

In the meantime here is a peek at the data:

There are 240 station-to-station combinations that will see a $1.00 fare increase, 94 combinations that will be $1.05 higher on July 1, and 72 combinations with an increase of $1.10.

I’m including these 3 highest increases in tables below so you can see where these unlucky combinations are ^{(see note)}:

^note:  A couple of caveats here -

The information on new fare calculations:

• The new fares are calculated using the station mileage data available on the wmata website.
• The current fares are taken directly from the wmata website (by station)
• The increase is the difference between wmata’s current fares and fares calculated based on wmata’s posted station mileage
• WMATA rounds fares to the nearest nickle
• Based on checks run using last year’s per mileage fees for peak-not all of wmata’s rounding/pricing in current fares is consistent with the “official per mile charges”
• Rounding rules used for these calculations:
  • if the fare ends in 2 cents or less – round down to zero
  • if the fare ends in more than 2 cents to 5 cents – round up to 5
  • if the fare ends in more than 5 cents to 7 cents – round down to 5
  • if the fare ends in more than 7 cents to 10 cents – round up to 10
• These calculated fares are not the “official wmata fares” and are meant ONLY to give riders the ability to estimate the impact of the July 1 fare increases

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-gL

So I present to you the first in an infrequent series of pictures – which, out of deference to @Hell_On_Wheels and @FixWMATA, also shows that I don’t always add aliens and/or zombies to my art

Metro Orc Sayz ...

Permission is granted to use this image to educate users *however* WMATA can use it only if @WMATA tweets that Giger-esque aliens are really just misunderstood cute and cuddly creatures deserving of love and affection every day for a week.

Stay tuned for my next WMATA Public Service Announcement artwork

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-gt

When WMATA last launched a survey of riders – for the proposed GM’s budget – their online survey had many problems.  One of the biggest was a lack of accessible formats for disabled riders to be able to participate.  WMATA rectified this error after it was brought to their attention, so you’d think they’d have remembered to include the disabled community the next time they’d run a survey.

Unfortunately, it seems they don’t learn from their mistakes (or simply don’t care) – WMATA launched a new survey today, forms available to riders at Metro stations to be filled out and left in comments boxes.  This is a Twitter conversation I had with @The2030Group just after they started promtoting the survey on Twitter about the survey’s formats.

The2030Group

(The2030Group)

@StyxRiverGynoid If you're interested in the issues that affect the entire #DCregion, check out our website: http://t.co/ByxKnt8e

On 13-4-2012 17:11:53 from TweetDeck in reply to Styx River Gynoid

StyxRiverGynoid

(Styx River Gynoid)

@The2030Group But if your survey isn't accessible, as #wmata pulled last time, it's missing a demographic segment - is it accessible?

On 13-4-2012 17:18:10 from TweetDeck in reply to The2030Group

The2030Group

(The2030Group)

@StyxRiverGynoid The surveys will be handed out at all Metro stations starting today thru May 25.

On 13-4-2012 17:27:33 from TweetDeck in reply to Styx River Gynoid

StyxRiverGynoid

(Styx River Gynoid)

@The2030Group And that will be accessible to blind PAX how?

On 13-4-2012 17:28:21 from TweetDeck in reply to The2030Group

StyxRiverGynoid

(Styx River Gynoid)

@The2030Group Let me make it easier: Is the survey available in *any* accessible format for visually impaired PAX?

On 13-4-2012 17:51:52 from TweetDeck in reply to The2030Group

Since then, the sound of silence from @The2030Group has been deafening.

I spoke with Patrick Sheehan, the Chairman of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, who said this was the first he’d heard of the survey to begin with.

Once more, WMATA has shown it really doesn’t think about the disabled passengers or their opinions – which is doubly strange given that as part of “Demand Management” of MetroAccess, DC’s Paratransit system, WMATA is pushing as many riders as possible off MetroAccess and onto fixed-route transit.

WMATA wants disabled riders on fixed-route transit, but they’re only interested in the opinions of those disabled riders when it’s pointed out to them that they’ve shut us out of offering any opinions.  It’s very difficult to see this as anything other than WMATA’s philosophy towards disabled riders opinions being “Whoops, we should do this to look good” surveying, rather than any serious desire for our input on a system they claim is accessible for us.

I just wonder if WMATA is going to try and blame the “oversight” of accessible formats for this survey on some over-eager guy in customer service as they did last time.

I expect at some point shortly we’ll be hearing that the survey *is* accessible – but forever more we’ll have doubts if it *started out* accessible, or if they’re backtracking to cover their institutional ignorance of a demographic of their ridership.

UPDATED 04/14/2012 @ 0909

There were a few more messages yesterday evening from @The2030Group via Twitter on this topic following from my last tweet quoted above:

The2030Group

(The2030Group)

@StyxRiverGynoid Great question! Something #WMATA should address. Check out their contact pg: http://t.co/IGyKKwlN. Wish we could help more!

On 13-4-2012 20:35:41 from TweetDeck in reply to Styx River Gynoid

The2030Group

(The2030Group)

@StyxRiverGynoid To clarify, the Metro survey is a program run by WMATA and not us; we refer you to WMATA for any further Qs on that topic.

On 13-4-2012 20:56:15 from TweetDeck in reply to Styx River Gynoid

StyxRiverGynoid

(Styx River Gynoid)

@The2030Group one question - are you the data collection/research contractor, or connected any other way to the survey for clarity of role?

On 13-4-2012 21:42:25 from TweetCaster for Android in reply to The2030Group

The2030Group

(The2030Group)

@StyxRiverGynoid We are not affiliated with WMATA, nor are we affiliated with the survey they are distributing.

On 13-4-2012 21:46:30 from TweetDeck in reply to Styx River Gynoid

I’d like to thank @The2030Group for responding and clarifying their (non) involvement in the accessibility failure of this latest WMATA survey.

I’ve asked WMATA if they’d like to explain the situation, I’ll update if fortunate enough to actually get a reply.

Updated: 04/14/2012 @ 1534

@WMATA tweeted this esrlier this afternoon:

wmata

(@wmata)

Info gathered from 6 wks of surveying stations with the questionnaire will be used for operations analysis and planning. Be counted.

On 14-4-2012 18:35:07 from TweetDeck

It’s astonishing that WMATA broadcasts “Be counted” when they appear to not have even bothered to solicit or encourage the participation of one of their ridership demographics.  It’s hard to believe that WMATA’s intentions in taking riders from MetroAccess and putting them onto fixed-route is “enabling” in any way when they don’t even have the common courtesy to respond to concerns as to why this survey is not available to visually impaired riders (they didn’t even respond to acknowledge concerns raised in email at 9am today).

I believe their lack of response or concern is simply another indication of their attitude towards the disabled ridership full stop - inconvenient and not of sufficient numbers that they need to be worried enough to respond.  They certainly appear to have demonstrated that either they didn’t even bother to think about the input of disabled riders with this survey, or they simply don’t care what they have to say.

But it’s obvious that once more at least one part of Metro is NOT accessible – but hey, it’s just disabled riders, so no big deal, right?

I believe @wmata will, if they ever condescend to even acknowledge this issue to begin with, try to point to this as how they’ll claim the survey is “accessible”

wmata

(@wmata)

The questionnaire may be taken online using the code printed on the card received, dropped in designated boxes at stations, or mailed back.

On 14-4-2012 18:34:30 from TweetDeck

Which will, as is the norm for WMATA, sound perfectly plausible – except for a few minor issueds.  One of them being, not everyone who is disabled and rides Metro has a way to get online to begin with,  The second is, given the total failure of accessible online forms for the previous survey, it’s unlikely the current survey will be any more accessible than its predecessor was.  Thirdly – the URL for this online form they’re likely to trumpet is printed on the survey cards … is it printed on the cards in an accessible format?  I doubt it.

And of course, lastly, if the surveys are being handed out randomly, have the survey staff been given instructions to ensure they offer visually impaired riders the chance to participate, or will they look at the card in their hands, and assume that since it isn’t accessible there’s no point offering it to the visually impaired rider?

Updated: 04/14/2012 @ 2314

I actually received a reply to the email I sent this morning to WMATA, sent to me at 1625 (I was AFK this evening).

Metro receives an annual operating subsidy payment from each of the eight jurisdictions comprising the WMATA Compact area. The subsidy amount that each jurisdiction is required to contribute in support of Metrorail operations is calculated by a formula, one element of which is the proportion of the total ridership residing in each jurisdiction. In order to determine these proportions, WMATA conducts periodic surveys of Metrorail passengers. The last survey was conducted in 2007.

This effort is similar to the census, and the questions asked in the survey are limited to basic facts about the trip a customer is taking at the time the survey is given (origin, destination, purpose of trip, etc.). To be clear, this is *not* a customer service survey, and the data is collected by surveyors who distribute questionnaires at stations during time periods using a formula to achieve statistical accuracy. Some customers may be surveyed multiple times over the survey period. Others may not receive a survey at all.

There are 3 alternatives for passengers with vision impairment to participate in the survey:

1). Complete the survey online. The survey can be viewed in Metro’s recommended web application for the visually impaired, BrowseAloud. All of the questions are read correctly by the application.

2). Ask the survey distributor to help administrate the survey at the station. (During rush hours, there may be a brief wait if the distributor is handing out surveys.)

3). Complete the survey over the phone by calling 301-261-8806, from 9am to 4pm, Monday-Friday. The customer will need to provide the survey ID number at the bottom of survey form.

I still have problems seeing this as being accessible in any meaningful way.  Points one and three I covered in my prediction of their response in a previous update – they both still require the user have online access, and can even read the survey ID number from the survey form in the first place.

As for the screen reader software involved – ummm, the idea of accessibility is to make it accessible to people with standard software, not “recommend” software.  This is Washington DC, the number of JAWs screenreaders out there in Government-land alone should make that a part of any Section 508 compliance testing – something that wasn’t done with the previous survey in any respect at the beginning.

So of the three options WMATA believes qualifies this survey as “accessible”, the only one that doesn’t have a boat load of assumptions and dependencies involved is number two.  The idea behind the survey appears to have been that riders would get handed a survey card entering the system, fill it out while in transit, and drop it in a suggestion box on the way out.  WMATA’s solution for visually impaired is that they stand around and wait for a distributor to assist them, delaying their transit in the process.

I wonder how many riders, able bodied or disabled, would likely stand there to fill out a survey when they’re in a hurry to try and get home?

I’m not saying I have a solution – but I think WMATA has once more done itself a disservice by failing to even mention this to the Accessibility Advisory Committee to get feedback on how they could have ensured visually impaired riders were given effective and optimal methods to participate.

From the issues I note above with the answer WMATA gave, it’s very hard for me to not conclude that this survey is WMATA’s “Do the bare minimum to be able to say ‘accessible’ with a straight face” business as usual.  Unfortunately, we’ll never know just how many of the survey responses received will be from disabled riders to determine if they were able to participate in this survey, which from WMATA’s own response appears to be one of the critical metrics used in determining funding matters.

Updated: 04/16/2012 @ 1317

We’ve been able to see a copy of the survey, and it’s very peculiar.

The survey asks questions about the rider’s demographics – race, income, etc.  It also asks if you used a wheelchair to get to or leave from a station, or if you use an elderly/disabled pass.

That doesn’t however seem to be a very statistically viable way of determining how many riders in this survey are actually disabled – if anything, it seems to give the impression the only disability they’re going to track is wheelchair users.  Nothing for blind, visually or cognitively impaired, deaf etc.  These details may seem minor, but one could easily turn around and ask the relevance of  race or income.

If WMATA considers those metrics to be important in assembling the rider statistics they’re going to present to the jurisdictions (as per their response this weekend), then why not statistics that encompass “disabled riders” as a whole rather than a very limited subset (wheelchair users or those with a specific type of farecard, which won’t cover MetroAccess users who ride fixed-route, or those who have disabilities but for whatever reason don’t have disability discounted farecards).

Once more, it gives the impression that WMATA really isn’t all that interested in its disabled ridership – not even enough to be able to gather good statistics on them.  Your race and income is much more important to them for some obscure reason, I guess.

We also now know who is running the survey on WMATA’s behalf – WB and A Market Research (@WBandAMktRes) – whose Twitter profile proclaims they “[provide] meaningful information to enhance your organization’s performance.”  Statistically representative numbers of disabled riders appear to not be that meaningful.

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-g8

The challenge of showing this piece of slight of hand is a bit like the illusion of sawing a person (usually female) in two (Chris Angel did multiple pieces but he IS an over achiever).

So… rather than static pictures: today’s offering has movement and sound:

( for cell users: you tube)

So – to summarize:

• If you chop data up in small enough bits you can distort its information.
• If you don’t pay attention to SCALE you won’t notice that categories have been divided unequally.

Excluding the base and cap fares, categories  are as diverse as a single price point (like $6.30) all the way to a band $2.10 wide ($3.05-$5.15).

Comparison across unscaled groups where the grouping HAS NO MEANING is worthless and, worse, misleading

• If you don’t think critically you will miss the impact of your decisions.

I’ll have more entertainment tomorrow…….

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-fu

So.. more Magic Metro numbers to Mystify and Entertain!

Notice:  I’m not changing the numbers, the categories, the language … just where the magician’s hand is pointing.

And a reminder on  this magic trick: we’re only talking about the category of riders who pay or don’t pay the capped fare for their trips.  As a personal example – the majority of my fares ARE $7 (the ones for my commute to work) but not every fare is- some are only $5 or $6.

In my right hand is this Spiffy WMATA Pie Chart:

WMATA Pie Chart

Nothing up my sleeve…..

Magic Trick Unmasked

This trick has a trick within a trick.  The major trick, covered here, is to make you think that the capped fares are not a widespread issue as being born ALWAYS by an individual rider on every trip.

The trick “within” is the unspoken – if it isn’t cap then it must be BASE.

The truth is different.  The numbers are in the pdf.  I’ll show you tomorrow….

Other articles of interest:

Watch Me Pull A Rabbit Out of My …

Misdirection and Manipulation: Why WMATA Loves Phones and Email Comments

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-fc

One of the most important skills a person can possess is an active crap detector.  I’m not sure it is something that can be taught… but however you get it, mine hit 1000% at the AAC meeting last night.

It was a little like watching a magician’s slight of hand.  The important thing is in having the ability to watch the correct hand!

And here, before your eyes… I will give you a quick demonstration of WMATA magic:

Are you watching closely?  There’s a magic trick in what they show the Board:

WMATA Pie Chart

And here is the EXACT same data….  only the illusion is unmasked.  Can you see it now?

Magic Trick Unmasked

So… if you were voting on whether to raise a variable fare with a base and someone told you “Oh, the variable fare is  only going to affect a few people.”  If you had a picture of the numbers to base your decision on- which one would influence you to raise the variable fare?

The disabled community is hoping the Board is a good consumer of data with active crap detectors.  This is only one example out of FIFTEEN pages that I am still digesting.

I will be posting more ….

Other articles of interest:

Misdirection and Manipulation: Why WMATA Loves Phones and Email Comments

Shortlink for this post: http://wp.me/p2dq5F-eS

I contacted the authors and through their efforts,  SAGE has graciously waved fees for the pdf and have allowed me to place a copy of the document Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting-2011-Vredenburgh-584-8 for download on this site.

On behalf of the disability community who use the Metro system, I want to publicly thank  Lois Smith (Communications Director for Human Factors and Ergonomics Society) and Daniel Sawney (Editorial Assistant – Journals at SAGE Publications Inc) for their assistance in helping to make this material public. Our thanks extends to the authors of this case study who were also instrumental in allowing free distribution:  Alison G. Vredenburgh and Ilene B. Zackowitz (both of Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc.)

This is the article’s abstract:

Research in Motion

A Case Study Evaluating the Accessibility of Public Transit in our Nation’s Capital

Alison G. Vredenburgh
Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc. Carlsbad, California
Ilene B. Zackowitz
Vredenburgh & Associates, Inc. Carlsbad, California
alisonv@roadrunner.com
ilenez@me.com

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