“Unless we measure things better, we don’t even know if we’re doing a good job,” said David Block-Schachter, chief technology officer for the MBTA, after an event at Harvard’s Rappaport Institute. “Data is incredibly powerful in making the experience better. If we can measure things better, then we can improve things.”
Block-Schachter said part of his job will be to improve how the T collects and analyzes data. Right now, he said, there is no way of knowing where riders get off the T, or exactly how many riders pay to get on the Green Line because neither monthly pass holders nor fare dodgers show a ticket or tap a CharlieCard.
“We don’t really know — because of the way the interaction happens — how many people pay their fare and don’t pay their fare,” he said. “It’s somewhere between a very little and a very lot.”
Block-Schachter said a new fare collection system could be easily added at the back doors of Green Line trains and have an option for riders to tap on their way out of a station.
The T also will soon start a pilot program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to install bluetooth beacons on Silver Line buses that can identify when a rider is on the bus. An app will then ask questions such as how clean and how crowded the bus is.
The T is also shifting its on-time metric to focus on the percentage of riders who are on time, rather than percentage of trains.
“It’s not just about getting trains from here to there on time,” said Steve Poftak, a member of the MBTA Fiscal Control Board and executive director of the Rappaport Institute. “It’s how many customers are affected by it.”
©2016 the Boston Herald Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
