Good morning, everyone. I would like to call to order the marketing, service planning and business development committee meeting of the North County Transit San Diego Railroad for October 28th, 2025.
Before we begin, I would like to inform members of the public who may be viewing the meeting on the district's YouTube page that in order to make public comment during the meeting, you must connect to the meeting by using the Zoom link provided on the agenda.
You must also register with the Clerk by sending an email to clerk at NCTD.org with the name
or phone number and which item you would like to speak on.
Now I'd like to ask our deputy clerk, Taylor Seawee, to call the roll, please.
Board Member Martinez?
Here. Board Member Garcia?
Board Member O'Hara?
Here. Board Member Joyce?
Present.
This completes the role.
Board member Garcia absent.
Thank you, Taylor.
Now will you provide a safety brief and review
the evacuation procedures?
Yes.
In case of an emergency, I will dial 911.
In case of an evacuation, please take the stairs.
Do not use the elevators.
Once cleared of the building, do not
reenter unless cleared to do so by emergency personnel.
There are fire extinguishers and first aid kits
on each floor of the building.
There is a portable defibrillator on the first floor
and staff on hand trained on CPR procedures if needed.
This concludes my safety brief.
Thank you, Taylor.
Do we have any general public comments today?
No, we do not.
Okay, thank you.
Before we get into specific items
on the agenda for this meeting,
I would like to outline the meeting protocols
to make this meeting as efficient as possible.
First, please hold your comments and or questions
until after the agenda item has been presented.
Second, when the time comes for the board members'
comments or questions, please raise your hand
and I will call on you in the order they were raised.
The first item on the agenda, item number one today,
is an update on the status of safety and security
on NCTD's modes and facilities.
Karen Chukulski, thank you, senior legal counsel,
regulatory compliance, and Chris Carrillo,
director of security, will present this item.
Karen and Chris, you have our attention.
Thank you very much.
Good morning.
I'm gonna go ahead and start things off
with an update on our safety program.
So just want to share a little bit of background
on the safety and risk management department staffing,
as you all may be aware already.
Safety and risk management functions
do report into Lori Winfrey,
our deputy CEO and chief general counsel,
who also serves as NCTD safety management system executive
in accordance with FTA requirements.
On the legal and risk management side,
We have our Deputy General Counsel,
our Enterprise Risk Manager,
and myself, Senior Regulatory Compliance.
On the safety team, we have three specialists,
one for bus, one for rail, and a field specialist
who primarily covers facilities
and a lot of our construction projects
that are out along the right-of-way.
We have a management analyst
who is overseeing our safety internal audit program
and a safety trainer who also provides program support.
In terms of the overall program responsibilities,
Obviously, on both teams, we are heavily focused
on regulatory compliance and oversight
with all of our different agencies.
And you see the alphabet soup up here,
those are the primary ones,
though there certainly are more as well.
I do want to call out our safety team
who spends a lot of time out in the field
working very closely with our folks in operations,
with facilities, with DSD,
and overseeing the construction projects,
really making sure that they are having
that one-to-one firsthand contact
where you really can make the most difference
in making sure that we're in compliance
with the safety requirements.
We also do spend a fair amount of effort
making sure that we are working collaboratively
with operations for any of the required manuals and plans.
The FRA and the FTA both have
their fair share of requirements.
I know from time to time, we bring a few of them forward
to you all at the board for approval.
That's just a small subset of them.
But the documentation is also a very important part
of what we do for program compliance.
We are also responsible for reporting
National Transit Database Safety and Security incidents.
That is the responsibility of our safety trainer.
The NTD has various requirements
for different types of incidents
that rise to certain levels and thresholds,
and we do have to report those in
within a specified time period after they occur.
So it's another reason that making sure that having that close contact with folks
out in the field is important, not only preventing, but in the cases
where we do have any incidents, they're very quickly informed
and we're making sure we're getting all the right information up to the NTD.
As far as our internal safety audits, those are also a very important component
of our safety oversight program.
Our management analyst, as you can see here, does 45 audits over a 36-month period.
Some of these audits are actually required
as part of our program from the CPUC.
They do require that you do certain internal audits,
but we go above and beyond that.
And we are very focused on making sure
that we're applying things neutrally across all the modes,
not just rail, which the CPUC oversees.
That way we're always being certain
that we are in the best proactive status
so that if we do have any sort of inspections come up,
we're probably already ahead of the game
of making sure that we're in compliance
and that we may have caught and or corrected
any potential opportunities for improvement
out in the operations.
And of course, safety training, extremely important.
Want to make sure that from day one,
we are providing all our employees with the information
they need to be safe in their jobs.
Not only compliance with regulations,
which is general best safety practices.
We do also provide training to some contractors as well.
Those are really more related to individuals,
so we're gonna be working out along the right-of-way,
because as we know, that's a very dangerous area
and does have special needs
that not only we need to comply with,
but again, just generally people need to be aware of
to make sure that they are conducting themselves
in the safest manner possible.
So I wanna talk a little bit about our data,
And this is comparative data from calendar year 2024
as compared to calendar year 2025 year to date.
So this is the San Diego subdivision
where we have Coaster, Amtrak, BNSF,
and Metrolink operating.
And I'm gonna go through some statistics
and just wanna brief over some terms.
So when we say trespasser,
we are talking about an individual and or a vehicle
who's on our railroad right of way.
When we say near miss,
talking about any incident that requires the train operator to take some sort of proactive
action to avoid or mitigate contact with a trespasser.
So typically that's going to be either applying normal braking or applying emergency braking.
Those are the two typical responses that someone would have to initiate.
And then trespasser strike, unfortunately I think we all know what that is.
That is, any time the train makes contact with an individual or a vehicle.
So as you look at our data here on the San Diego subdivision, you can see as far as trespasser
incidences, and these are basically the incidences that are reported by trains and or other personnel
working out along the right of way.
So a train may be, you know, on its run and it passes a particular spot along the right
of way and it sees some people trespassing.
We'll call that in to our operations control center and that's how we track a lot of this
data or it could be people working out on the right of way and maintenance of way they
see trespassers and report them in.
Are these, because we're not through 2025, is this up until now?
Yes.
Okay.
This is current as of last, I would say end of last week when we pulled this data together.
All right, but the 24 numbers are all of 24?
Correct.
OK.
Yes, January through December.
Yes.
So as you can see, we're tracking slightly,
with my marginal math skills, slightly lower
on trespasser incidences and near misses, kind of year
to date than we were in 2024.
So hopefully, during the last two months of the year,
that will continue.
And we will end up finishing our year a little bit lower.
As far as trespasser strikes in San Diego, those who were on our board last year probably recall
that was a very difficult year for all of us in all of our carriers.
We had 32 trespasser incidences on the San Diego subdivision alone.
And this year, fortunately, we've only had 11.
Obviously, we'd like it to always be zero, but definitely glad to see
that those numbers are tracking well below.
So just thought it would be helpful to provide
a little bit of extra context to you all
on the trespasser incident data.
So during calendar year 2024, of the 32 incidences,
14 were Amtrak, 15 were Coaster, and three were BNSF.
Out of all of those incidents together,
we had 23 fatal incidents.
This year, year to date, Amtrak has four incidents
and Coaster has six and Metrolink has one.
We have nine fatalities, so for a year to date.
So that's just a little bit of context on that data
that I thought might be helpful to you all.
As far as our Escondido subdivision,
we have our Sprinter running during our daylight hours
and then BNSF does run at night.
But the incidences that you see here are primarily,
if not almost the majority,
all related to sprinter-reported incidences.
So again, we have our same definitions.
And you can see that our trespassing incidences
are about 100 behind year-to-date.
So again, we're hoping those will continue
to stay on a lower trend this year.
Near misses, we're probably kind of running even.
I would say we had 53 last year and we're at 50 this year.
on the trespasser incidences themselves,
you'll see we had three last year and six this year.
So again, I did want to provide a little context on that.
So last year we had two fatalities
and one non-fatal incident on Sprinter,
and these were all Sprinter.
This year we have three fatalities.
Of those six incidences,
three are actually vehicle strikes,
one of which unfortunately was the fatality
with an individual inside.
One of the things that I will say
we are seeing slightly more this year
as it relates to the near misses
and the trespasser incidences is individuals
and vehicles kind of trying to run the crossing
and then kind of getting trapped by the gate
on the other side or they're assisting on,
I'm gonna get through and I'm gonna get
to that traffic light on the other side
and there's several cars in front of them
and the cars in front of them get stopped by the gate
and then the back end of their car, for example,
may be hanging over our tracks
is obviously there's nowhere for them to go.
And so that does account, unfortunately,
for what seems to be a little bit of the higher trend.
We are actually working closely with the CPUC
and looking at the intersections
where we seem to see more of these incidences occurring
and trying to work as well with the cities
on looking at things just like,
let's keep the markings a little as clear as we can,
make sure that they're painted clearly
or maybe put improved markings in.
We're also talking with some of the cities
about putting in some cue cutters
to help make sure that as cars are having to cross through
these, you know, our tracks and getting through to,
you know, to turn signals and those types of things
that we're having a little bit, you know,
better path and making sure that that clears out.
So those are some things that we are working on,
you know, really trying to look at some of these areas
where we're having the most incidences.
Overall, I also want to say that as far as general communication and education,
the safety team and CTD as a whole I think has worked very hard on education
out to the community, really trying to stress the importance of safety around the tracks
and that includes not just, you know, pedestrians walking but also individuals driving.
So we have really pushed forward a good outreach communication program and I'll talk a little bit
more about that on the next slide.
And then the other thing I do wanna call out as well
is the work of my colleague's security department.
So their team has been doing great work
and I know Chris has some really good information
in the next portion of the presentation
so I will not steal her thunder.
And I'll let her share a little bit more with you
about what her team's doing to really help us
make an impact in this area.
So I wanna talk a little bit about the safety initiatives.
Earlier this year, we had our realignment
of our safety and risk management staffing,
and we viewed it a little bit earlier in the presentation.
What I really want to call out about this
is that under the current model,
our safety specialists report into LORI,
but they are embedded within the operations functions.
So day-to-day, they are out there side-by-side
with our teams and bus, with rail, facilities,
DSD, wherever it is, and that gives them
that one-to-one linkage in communication,
so that really does help build and foster
a much stronger and more proactive safety culture
here within NCTD.
We've gotten really great feedback
from the individuals in operations.
How nice it is, they can just kinda go down the hall
and grab the someone in safety and ask them a question
and hey, can you go out in the field
and look at this with me?
Or hey, I have a question on this.
So it's been really, really positive
and we've gotten good feedback throughout the organization
on that effort.
So kudos to Lori for leading that charge for us.
Rail Safety Month in September,
as you probably all recall,
we do recognize Rail Safety Month every year.
We did a lot of activities, significant outreach.
We were at many stations on both Coaster and Sprinter,
and we also did a nice outreach event
down at Old Town Station with MTS.
took a nice picture up there, you know, and really showing again that this is a
regional effort to promote rail safety all year round. So working as well with
our folks in marketing communications, we do continue to have a lot of different
outreach campaigns throughout the whole calendar year. You know rail safety is
not just a one-time activity, so we do a lot of different activities throughout
the calendar year, but we do, you know, kind of ramp it up a little in September
to really recognize Rails Safety Month.
Operation Lifesaver is a critical partner for us
in a lot of these efforts.
They do support a lot of our outreach
and they have a lot of great tools and resources
that we take advantage of.
We do have a handful of our employees who are certified
as Operation Lifesaver presenters slash trainers
and they do spend a fair amount of their time
going out into schools and doing education
to our youth, you know, catching them, you know,
early on even in, you know, in the early phases
of elementary school, really impressing upon them
the importance of safety around the tracks.
So we have schools that will reach out to us
from time to time, and then we also have other schools
will reach out to proactively as well, you know,
particularly looking at ones that are close
to, you know, some of our rail stations, you know,
where you might have, you know, more likelihood
of the children and the youth being around the tracks.
So really a great program, and again,
I've gotten some great feedback from all the schools
we've participated in with that.
We also have a hazard reporting QR code,
which allows individuals anywhere with an NCTD
to click on that code, and they can report
any sort of safety hazard.
It can be anonymous or not anonymous in their choice,
but it goes through our document management system,
and it immediately comes to everybody in safety,
and then quickly review it and then we sign it out
to figure out what we need to do to assess it
and take any sort of necessary remediate of action.
We do closely link with our safety committees on this
as well, they're also very involved
in tracking these hazards.
We're ramping up some defensive driving training,
we have all of our modes in house right now
and I think as we all know, particularly out on the roads,
you can never be too safe and too defensive of a driver
with all the activities going out out here
on the streets in California.
So we are really working on ramping up
the defensive driving training,
and while we think of it as being on the roads,
we are also looking at doing this
for our train operators and engineers,
because there are still kind of defensive driving techniques
that as a train operator engineer,
you actually still need to employ.
So we're making sure that we cover off
all of those elements.
And then another big initiative
is our Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force.
I know we've come to the board before
with some information on this very serious crime.
As we shared before, San Diego is one of the top regions
in the country due to our proximity to international borders
as well as the amount of money in Southern California
that makes it attractive.
So working with our director of rail operations,
Patrick Kola, who has extensive experience
in this back at Metra.
He's brought in collaboration with an organization
called Replane 13.
And we're really looking at ramping up a large task force
and bringing in other transit agencies
in Southern California.
So it wouldn't just be a standalone effort.
We're looking at reaching out into Los Angeles,
Riverside, San Bernardino areas,
really emphasizing training to our employees
so that they can recognize potential indicators
of somebody who's being trafficked
and understand what to do about it
and how to really productively engage
to see what they can accomplish and maybe intervene
a little without, of course, creating
any additional potential security issues.
So very excited about that opportunity
to really make a difference, because unfortunately,
transit is a mode that's used by traffickers frequently.
And I believe that concludes my portion of the presentation.
I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Carrillo.
Good morning, everyone.
I'll be presenting the security program and overview.
Very proud, we are finally fully staffed
across all boards here.
Currently, we have 17 employees
with an NCTD security team.
This includes the nine control center technicians
as well as the six code compliance inspectors
who have all passed their PCA32 certification course
as of two weeks ago.
so I've got six fully staffed code compliance inspectors,
as well as the administrative staff,
which includes myself, the director of security,
as well as my security manager, Mark Webb.
Our contract with San Diego County Sheriff's, TSU,
they are fully staffed with a new sergeant,
Sergeant Burke, who was recognized
during our board meeting last week.
He was with the team previously as a deputy,
promoted out as a sergeant,
and is now back to run the team.
So we're super excited to have him back.
I know he's ready to get some programs
and get some details running with this team,
although they've been doing a great job
with Corporal Abraham and Corporal Agramon
kind of holding down the fort since Sergeant King
was set to retire.
He had some issues with regards to retirement,
but we wish him well.
I'm hoping to recognize him somewhere in the future
for his service.
And then we are about a year and a half in
with our contract with Intercon Security,
which started a year and a half ago.
They are staffed at Oceanside and Escondido 24-7,
seven days a week.
We put them there because those were the two largest stations
where we saw the most issues.
It's kind of a bookend for the Sprinter,
but it also allows us to monitor Metro Lincoln Amtrak
as they're coming through Oceanside as well.
They provide that security.
I have three shifts, a day shift,
swing shift, and overnight graveyard shift.
Two officers monitoring those stations,
like I said, 24 hours.
They also help us with padre game trains.
Unfortunately, the padres didn't make it to the playoffs.
But nonetheless, they do help us out
with staffing those trains as well,
as well as special events such as the Holiday Express,
and obviously these board meetings
that we have throughout the year.
And then one of the things that we
have hit the ground running, when I first started in 2020,
there really was not a whole lot of reach out
from agencies, first responders,
with regards to familiarization,
and exercises just due to staffing.
Something happened within the last year.
I am getting inundated almost on a weekly basis,
but we've done exercises for familiarization
with every single agency up here,
including San Diego PD and San Diego Fire,
which hasn't happened in quite some time.
So we've got the new buses,
and so a lot of the agencies in North County
are really reaching out,
wanting to take a look at our new buses
and understand in the event they have to respond
how to take care of those situations.
Monitoring center activities, as I said before,
we have nine control center technicians.
They are staffed 24-7, 365 days a year.
Their primary duties really is monitoring the cameras,
incident reporting and documentation,
being that first responder and notifying first responder
to key stakeholders when we have incidences
that are happening throughout the system.
They also assist.
Primarily, this falls mainly on MARC now
because I really wanted to allow my control center technicians
to be fully vetted and proactive without having to be bogged down with video review, so my
security manager Mark Webb does primarily all of the investigations and follow-ups with the
cameras. Again, my biggest thing is really having our staff vigilant and watching our cameras
24-7 and not being bogged down with reviewing a whole lot of videos, although they do from time
to time get assigned those assignments. And of course, anything that comes through the security
department gets documented in our data vector solutions, tracking software, and this is
where I come in and basically look at the data that's being presented day in and day
out and figure out where our resources need to be focused on.
And then again, they support law enforcement from time to time.
We've had to speak with several of the agencies who would come in and basically commandeer
my CCTs and explaining to them, unless the incident's happening right then and there,
We prefer them to really forward that information
to Mark and I so my team can stay proactive
as much as possible.
The good news is CCTV, CIP project.
It's just started last this month.
We're super excited about this contractor coming out
and adding 29 new cameras throughout the system
in areas that we innately have seen blind spots and issues.
Escondido is a perfect example.
It's an older station and I felt like
there were opportunities for us to put cameras in places
that we just never had them before,
and these are high-end cameras
that give us great views of what's happening.
Some of our older cameras are difficult,
even though they are showing us there's an incident,
it doesn't always give us the greatest details.
So I'm super excited about that.
In addition, we're also replacing 50 of the older cameras
throughout the system, a lot of those being
in the parking lots that innately
don't give us a great view, so.
Code compliance program, as I mentioned before,
we have six full-vetted public officers,
and they're responsible for ordinance compliance
throughout the system.
They earn their money.
I have two that are in the morning.
They start at 4 a.m. in the morning until 12,
and then I have another team of two
that starts at noon and goes to 8 p.m.
We had to do a change in schedule,
which was great for me because we had some cutbacks,
and so one of the responsibility was for my CCIs
to do the opening of the restrooms,
which we come to found out
because they were being opened way too early,
unhoused folks were really occupying these spaces
and staying and causing issues for our general ridership.
So we kind of own that now,
and we've been able to have folks move along
or find other places to hang out
instead of our stations overnight.
And then during the evening hours
before the CCIs would usually end at three,
we now have them to 8 p.m.
And this also allows for issues that we were seeing
that were getting reported after we went home.
And a lot of that is on the bus side.
Really unhoused folks occupying bus stops
or bus stations that we just don't have cameras
as an example of the Plaza Camino Real
and Town Center North.
So they are hitting those particular locations daily,
which we have never seen in quite some time.
Like I said before, we are trying to get working
with the deputies as well to do more fare checks,
inspections and validations both on the sprinter side
and on the coaster side.
and that's one of the things that Sergeant Burke and I
have sat down and really wanting to start some details
where we can conjunctionally working with Intercon,
the CCIs and the Deputies to really address
some of our fair evasion,
predominantly on the coaster and the sprinter side.
Let's sit on that.
As far as the sheriff's deputy,
the MOU was effective at 22 and it'll expire in 27.
These folks earn their money as well.
They're worth every penny that we pay them.
and then some.
They provide general response throughout
the entire system, properties and facilities and our modes.
They are the lead agency for our rail incidents,
response investigations.
They conduct roving patrols, like I said,
because the CCIs and Intercon Security have been able
to provide our quality of life issue enforcement,
it allows the deputies to do some heavy lifting
predominantly on the right of way
with our homeless encampments,
which is in conjunction with our trespassing,
which I'll talk about a little bit further.
They will, from time to time,
depending on where their locations,
will respond to disruptive passengers on buses and trains.
They are being very proactive with regards
to addressing fare evasion,
both at Oceanside and Escondido and along the corridor.
From time to time, at Melrose specifically,
will they be able to get on a train,
conduct those inspections,
find people who don't have fare, pull them off,
it leads to a lot of arrests,
particularly warrants and whatnot.
And then of course they do present some during special
events, the Padre games, we always get great compliance
when they're on the train.
You know, when this intercon officers are trying to explain
to people we don't allow alcohol and they kind of get
brushed off and then their follows up with a big huge
deputy to kind of take the note that we don't allow
alcohol, so it's great to see them on our trains.
They also conduct special details patrol assignments.
They work in conjunction with the maintenance of way
as well as my CCIs, to address homeless encampments early.
And when I started in 2020,
homeless encampments obviously were very prevalent.
Average one encampment could take up to two weeks,
sometimes three weeks to clean up, get people to move out.
We're now down to 72 hours.
And it's making it very difficult
for some of our unhoused people.
They're really realizing,
well, what's the point of setting up?
If I'm just gonna get all my stuff taken away and moved.
It also presents some great partnerships down with MTS.
We've met with them and their homeless outreach team
as well, and come to find out we realized
we were just doing kind of like the whack-a-mole.
We would move them off our property.
They'd move over to MTS aside,
and then they'd kick them out,
and they'd go to the Caltrans side.
So we have a quarterly meeting with Caltrans and MTS
to ensure that from the San Diego subdivision,
specifically down in the San Diego area,
that we're working together and not against each other.
And I'm just gonna provide some data from year over year.
This is fiscal year, like the safety, it's calendar year.
Law enforcement and contact activity
has decreased year over year, 23%.
And it's not that law enforcement
isn't out there doing their job.
What's come to fruition as an example
in one of our quarterly meetings with the SDSO is Prop 36
and realizing people who are being arrested
for narcotics charges, that they have an option.
They have an option to either go to jail and go to jail for a lot longer, or they can
get a treatment.
It's their option.
And so people are realizing if they're not taking the treatment option, they're going
to be spending quite a few days, if not weeks, in jail.
And this has helped with, you know, the contacts that they're making on a day-to-day basis.
Unloitering.
It's a bit of a roller coaster, has always been a little bit of a closer.
And just for definition purposes, someone that we contact and identify as loitering
is somebody who's clearly not riding our modes.
It could be someone who just got off a train or bus and is just going to hang out in our
stations and really with no intentions.
What we realized when Karen was at the helm early on, specifically in Oceanside, we had
that driveway where we call it the wall, and a lot of our unhoused and people who were
up to no good criminal activity were using that wall as a means to really have criminal
activity.
restrooms to do narcotics and whatnot.
And so we worked diligently with the city of Oceanside
and to address this particular incident.
And what we realized is it was about three or four people
who were the main culprits,
who were bringing all of these people to our stations
and committing crimes.
So the deputies in conjunction with the city of Oceanside
and their contract security worked really hard
to get these people to move along.
They're here to ride a bus or a train.
If not, you gotta keep moving.
You're not gonna be able to sit for hours on end
and having people come to you
to do all kinds of criminal activity.
So it's worked quite well.
And if you see in February of 25, there's that peak.
And that was due to two people individually
who came back to the station
who had been incarcerated for several months.
And you saw that peak
because it started to bring people back to the station.
The deputies made contact with these two individuals
and basically told them,
if you're gonna be hanging out at our stations
in creating criminal activity,
they will do everything they can to make sure
that you're held accountable.
So the good news is we've gone down,
thus this fiscal year,
we are averaging about 200 a month of lawyers
documented through our system.
That's it for me.
Any questions?
Thank you both Karen and Chris for the presentation.
Do we have any public comments Taylor?
No, we do not.
Okay.
there any questions or comments from our committee members? Appreciate the
vigilance on both reports and obviously the staff working hard. Quick
question, this is more for my own edification, under the management
analysis and the audit report, where we include incident reports. I know just as
As an example, in Encinitas, we deal with cycling.
It comes up a lot, motorist cycling accidents.
And it's kind of coming to light that our reports only
reflect incidents where either the sheriff's department
or the fire department were called,
and not other incidents where they drove themself to the ER,
things like that.
Azira, and I was just, again, for edification.
I think this is a great report.
Is there parameters around that or criteria that for those incidents that we report or
collect?
So we collect and track for ourselves any incidents on our system, whether an individual
gets transported for medical or not.
Anytime there is any contact with an individual, whether it's a bus and maybe a mirror gets
clipped or something, we track all of those incidents.
So everything gets reported in through our dispatch centers,
and then tracked in through our safety.
As far as reporting up to the NTD,
they have thresholds that are kind of more major accidents,
medical, those types of things.
But we track any incident that we are aware of on our system,
and we can group them through our reporting
with the different parameters.
But it doesn't just apply if there was medical,
or if the person was taken away, or if the police came
or anything like that, it's any incident that we're aware of.
Does that answer your question?
Yeah, that's really helpful.
Just kind of wrapping my head around what we're actually
looking at in the scope of it.
And I'm just curious on the, we talked about vehicles
and I'm going specific to vehicles.
We have an intersection in our city where I always,
I get there and I know that three vehicles fit
on the, in this case, it's the east side of the road
before the next intersection.
Is there a way to kind of create a methodology
where we inform the public like,
hey, if there's three vehicles there,
you're not gonna fit, for lack of a better way to put it.
Is there a way to do that, or is that just,
I know people are relating some-
I mean, I'll let Sean or Lori answer after me,
but I guess I would say probably not,
because it's one thing if the three vehicles
are teeny tiny little cars versus a semi truck.
So I think that probably puts a little bit more risk
upon the districts and the cities
if we try to put that level of specificity.
But I would defer to Sean and Lori
for a probably a better answer.
I can answer both of your questions
with a little bit more information.
So as it relates to cycling,
we had a very serious incident that happened
a few years back where there was a cycling accident
on Camp Pendleton.
I don't know if you're aware of that one.
And what resulted from that was a settlement agreement
where NCTD agreed to participate
in some cycling initiatives
with some local community organizations.
And so we're part of those organizations.
And I think now that it was really in the,
at that time, that was part of the organizations.
And now that we've taken bus in-house,
we're starting to ramp up our NCTD participation
in those organizations.
So as leading the safety team, now the bus is in-house,
That's something that we're looking at
to try to get awareness out there in the bus community,
or excuse me, in the biking community.
So that's one thing.
In terms of the statistics with cycling versus bus,
for example, I think that's something,
we certainly do track it.
And I think it's something that we could perhaps
have a little bit more transparency with the board.
And I think it could be helpful in the safety statistics
so that people know this is a thing.
Like you need to be super careful
when you're biking around buses
because the visibility is very limited sometimes
with the bus versus bike.
So I think that's something that we can definitely work on.
On the other issue as it relates
to some of these grade crossings
and how can we improve signage and things like that.
I was thinking of one example.
This is at college, for example.
And then also at the Five Freeway at Oceanside Boulevard.
There's these little pockets.
It's like there's the parking lot there.
We're right at the Five Freeway at Oceanside Boulevard.
There's the Starbucks there and the McDonald's.
And there's the little pocket between the tracks.
And there's signage there that shows
there's, you shouldn't be there at all in that pocket.
Like you should stay back, but I see people all the time
like trying to get, you know, pushing up, pushing up
to get so that they can make that right hand turn
and then they, you know, get stuck in there.
I think, I don't know if there's other signage
that, you know, is used in the industry.
I know we have the industry standard signage there,
but certainly something that we can look at
to see if there's anything additional that we can do.
like Karen said, you know, the more specificity that you create, the more
liability that you perhaps create on the district. So we have to be mindful of
that as well. Sure, I'm putting my wife on this one. The other idea we had was
kind of like, we use RFBs for crosswalks and when you back in your garage, if you
have an automatic door, when it hits a certain sensor, your door stops. Similarly,
having an RFB where, hey, when there's only eight feet left,
this RFB goes off.
And so on the other side of the track,
like, hey, if you know this light's going,
like, you can't, you're not going to fit.
I don't know if anybody's explored that, but just
curious.
Like I said, those were questions for edification.
It was a great report, and I really appreciate it.
Briefly, for the Sprinter car strikes,
I'm really curious which intersections they are,
And also historically, if we could get maybe the last 10
years of strikes, just so we can know what's the...
I mean, college, you bring up, and that immediately
makes me think it's probably the number one,
but I'm curious if that's actually worn out by the data.
College is one of the intersections
that has more incidents overall,
whether it's near misses or vehicle strikes.
the other intersection that kind of jumps out.
And we can't really look back over a period
and provide more detail,
but just looking at this past year is the one on Santa Fe
or Woodland Crosses, and I think folks in VISTA
may know what it's kind of a five-way star intersection,
and it's got kind of a confusing left turn lane.
It's just, I feel bad for folks,
it's just not the greatest intersection.
So we are working with VISTA to try to improve
some of the signage and the markings in those areas,
because particularly folks who are trying to get
to that left turn lane on Santa Fe,
yep, butt right up against the track,
and this individual just didn't realize it
and went past the gate, and then at that point,
there they were by the tracks and the gate behind was down,
so it was not a great spot.
But we'll be happy to pull the data
and provide some additional detail on intersections.
Those two jump out at me for this year.
I think I would just state that we're making an assumption
that they didn't realize it as counsel for NCTD.
I would say, too, we've had an interesting year as it relates
to people driving down the track.
One that we had this year that was crazy odd
was down off of Cleveland.
They just made a right turn onto the track
and pulled literally up to the Metrolinx station
drop somebody off at the platform and then got stuck. Wow. Yeah I think we've
had what four or five of those this year there was one on San Marcos a couple on
Oceanside and yeah it's been been a fun year as can be done been a fun year with
people just turn it onto the tracks. Any other questions? Yeah I would just add on the college one we are
building 200 homes right there at that intersection too so I think that's
probably something that we need to focus on figuring out. Thank you for the
presentation. I just had a couple questions that I think you answered. So
all of the near misses, you know exactly where those are, you track them, you see
trends or where the? Correct. Okay. And then on the strikes, which is probably the
you know most awful, you you investigate what those issues were that led to that
strike, whether it was fatal or not, correct? Okay. Yes. And then I just a
mostly clarifying question on the post circuit TV.
So are those being monitored live
and then they can be responded to live?
Yes.
Okay, 24-7.
24-7.
Go ahead.
No, I mean, it's, yeah, it's five,
by the time this program is done,
we're talking about 550 cameras.
I'd have to have 550 people to watch every single camera,
but ideally we do our best to monitor
and depending on the reports that are coming through,
We'll jump on that camera real quick and see what's going on.
And then dispatch accordingly.
That's impressive.
That's good.
Sure.
Is our data being housed in California?
Do we contract with a company in California to keep our data?
Or is it in-house?
I don't know if we have that.
Our data is tracked on Vector Solutions Database,
and that is actually housed on our servers, I believe.
Yeah.
Oh, the video, sorry.
Yeah, no, the video is on our servers.
Thank you.
Do you compare how we do to other jurisdictions?
I think that would probably be a challenge.
But is there any way to compare that?
Compare?
We do.
It's not always an apples to apples comparison.
Things that we typically try to sort of compare are,
we have a reporting responsibility to NTD
anytime we have our national transportation database.
And we have certain things that pop up like a fatality
or what we deem a critical accident.
Assaults on employees.
So what we try to do is we try to,
aside from the generalized categorization,
we pull that data off to the side
and we talk to other transit agencies about,
not always apples to apples,
but tell me where your number one issues
are kind of coming up.
Is it signalization?
Is it relationships with the cities
on how the intersections are set up?
And so we get a little bit of that 50,000 foot data,
but it does help us look at trends that are happening.
And if someone else is having that same issue,
I think it's scale in some cases.
When we try to benchmark our data against LA Metro,
it just doesn't correlate.
If we benchmark our data against some of the stuff
that MTS is experiencing on trolley,
especially outside of the downtown area, it does correlate.
So I think there are a lot of comparatives there.
And so while the comparison isn't direct,
what it really does is sort of guide us
on what things we need to focus on for the year ahead.
Thank you both.
That was a great presentation, much appreciated.
Okay, our second item on the agenda, we'll do next.
This is an update on the NCTD
and micro transit service and its implementation.
Mary Dover, Chief of Staff, will present this item.
Mary, you have our attention.
Good morning, committee members.
The full board of directors receives a monthly update
on the ridership performance and some other operational
statistics on the NCTD Plus program.
But we thought it would be good to bring this committee
a more in-depth overview of how the NCTD Plus microtransit
program has been performing in San Marcos and Vista.
So as you're aware, NCTD launched the NCTD Plus
microtransit on-demand shared ride service
San Marcos last June. It was very successful and so we launched a vista
zone this year in May. Riders can reserve NCTD Plus rides on demand either
through our mobile app or by calling the reservation call center and this is for
same-day trips only. It's intended to be a very on-demand flexible service. The
service hours for both the San Marcos and vista zone are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on
weekdays and then eight to eight on weekends. When NCTD initially launched
the NCTD Plus service in San Marcos, we had a $5 fare for anywhere within the
zone, any point to point, if you are connecting to or from a Sprinter
station or if you had an additional rider on your booking, you got a 50%
discount, which was $2.50 at the time. We determined through the first few months
of the NCTD Plus service that was a little high, so we lowered the anywhere
and the zone fare to $3 and then maintained the half off and lowered the
two from a Sprinter Station fare as well as the additional rider fare to 150. We
also wanted to make sure that the service was consistent with the youth
opportunity pass and so we provided free fares for youth 18 and under. So NCTD
Plus operates within a defined zone in San Marcos and Vista. In the San Marcos
zone it's the main core of the city of San Marcos and in Vista it's the downtown
area and some surrounding communities.
NCTD has always maintained an iterative process with the NCTD plus microtransit zones themselves.
Initially, when we launched San Marcos in June 2024, it was this zone here.
It had the main core of the city, as well as three Sprinter stations, through some public
feedback, which we've maintained throughout the implementation of the service.
we determined that there were a few ridership drivers
that weren't captured in the zone,
the Costco and Walmart on Nordall,
the Target on San Marcos Boulevard,
right as it becomes Palomar Airport,
and then some housing and parks.
So in September, 2024, we expanded the zone to include those.
Again, through more community feedback,
we realized that the North County Food Bank
was just outside the zone.
So then in February of this year,
we expanded it just a little bit to the west
to include the North County Food Bank.
So throughout the San Marcos pilot,
and we're doing so with Vista as well,
we're making sure that we maintain that community connection
to receive feedback about the zones
and make minor modifications where we're able.
For NCTD Plus ridership, since it started in San Marcos,
it's been an incredibly successful service.
Since it launched in June of last year,
we have over 25,000 boardings,
and the majority of those are through the app, 98%.
We also see a lot of repeat riders, which is a great sign.
people are having a good experience on the service,
and so they're coming back.
The average number of requests per rider is 25
since it started.
And then just to give you more of a recent picture,
the first six months of this year, January to June 2025,
on average, we saw a little over 2,000 boardings per month.
A good amount of those, just over half, 54% were pooled,
which is great.
We always wanna encourage multiple people
to take the service.
That's how we can maintain efficiency.
We also are doing a pretty good job with the service.
Our average review is at 94% in the San Marcos zone.
We've also seen great ridership growth since its inception.
In August, 2024, we had 460 boardings,
and this past August, we had just shy of 2,000,
which is a little over a 300% growth in ridership.
This provides a comparison
between the San Marcos and the Vista Zone.
Vista Zone has only been up for a little over five months.
As you'll see, June and July,
we had strong ridership in San Marcos,
and as the VISTA zone has continued,
more people are hearing about it
and being able to utilize the service,
we see the VISTA zone
slowly surpassing the San Marcos zone.
A few ridership generators in the San Marcos zone,
the Sprinter at Palomar College is a huge ridership driver.
We see a lot of people
going to and from the college with the service.
There's also a collection of businesses
on the corner of Rancho Santa Fe and San Marcos Boulevard,
including the CVS and the Aldi,
that's a big ridership driver as well,
as well as the Boys and Girls Club,
the Walmart off Nordl, and then Cal State San Marcos.
In Vista, we see a similar picture.
The Sprinter Vista Transit Center
is a huge ridership driver for this service.
People are connecting within the zone to the Sprinter,
and they're also coming to Vista on the Sprinter
and then connecting further into the city.
Similarly, we have a lot of grocery stores
that are high ridership drivers,
Stater Brothers in Northgate as well as the Vista Community Clinic and then some
schools as well. NCTD Plus works best when it's a compliment to our fixed
route services so this map just provides an overview of how NCTD Plus interacts
with our fixed route whether it be Breeze or the Sprinter within the city.
For some folks that maybe are too far of a walk to a Breeze route or the Sprinter
they can hop on NCTD Plus and make their connection. Similarly in Vista we did see
the board will remember that NCTD Plus we viewed was duplicative for one of the
breeze routes but for the other breeze routes that are going further distances
and exit the city NCTD Plus provides a great connection to those breeze routes
for folks that maybe are taking a longer journey outside of the city.
Throughout the operation of the San Marco service and in this first few
months of the VISTA service we want to make sure that we're measuring the
success and the efficiency of NCTD Plus. One of the ways that we do that is by
looking at ridership of NCTD Plus in comparison to our other modes how
they're interacting and which use cases they might be best suited to. Through
that we're also looking at how we can improve mobility and access for as many
people as we can. What's the right solution for them? Is it a breeze route?
Is it NCTD Plus? And we're using the data from NCTD Plus to inform some of those
decisions. We also want to make sure that the quality of service for NCTD Plus is
maintained. If you request a ride we want to make sure that it's it's there
and able to provide it for you and we're also making sure that the wait times
aren't too long. The service doesn't really work if people are waiting more
than 30 minutes for their ride. Efficiency also is a major driver. Those
pooled trips and the shared rate. If we have three or more like you see in the
picture, that's a really good use of our resources. We're not, we're really trying
to minimize the amount of one-ride trips on NCTD+. And then we're also
looking at the financial performance, making sure that we're as efficient as
possible with the operations costs, and that factors into some of the decisions
with how we operate the service. NCTD+, provides a lot of benefits and it's
definitely a key piece of NCTD's service network, but there are some challenges.
Cost efficiency is one, because it's an on-demand service
and it's intended to be nimble.
An NCTD plus trip costs about two times
what a breeze trip costs.
Service quality also is something that I mentioned
we want to make sure we're maintaining.
In order to keep the wait times down
and to make sure that riders have a good experience
on the zone, we're hamstrung in how much we can expand it.
So although we would love to serve every single community
San Marcos and Vista we have to make sure that the zone is geared in a way
that won't increase those wait times significantly. On the cost efficiency
you're talking about the cost to us right? Not the cost to the rider. Yes. Thank
you for clarifying. So the future of NCTD Plus we have seen great support from the
cities of San Marcos and Vista. The riders seem to love it. It seems to be a
very integral part of our network. In order to make sure that we're continuing
to operate the service in the best way possible, we're maintaining those
connections, as I mentioned, with city staff, community members. That'll help
inform our service planning for the existing zones, and any future zones that
we have, and any improvements we might be able to make with the service. We're
also leveraging data insights. If we see in the VISTA zone, for example, that 90%
of people are going from point A to point B, we can look at that data and see,
Does it make sense for a fixed route in this area?
It's a really effective tool at gathering data.
Last year, the board was provided
with an overview of 12 zones that we analyzed for NCD-plus
service.
And they were ranked based off of points of interest, equity
metrics, and things like that.
So in tier one, we're San Marcos Vista,
and then Fallbrook, Paula, and the Oceanside Eastern
Corps around the crouch station.
and just east of the five freeway
around Oceanside Boulevard.
NCTD does have plans to launch those
pending additional funding.
We're looking at a variety of funding strategies
to make sure that we can continue to operate
this service that's very well-liked in the community.
We've started conversations with the city of San Marcos
to see if there's an opportunity to partner there.
NCTD Plus and San Marcos and Vista are funded in FY26,
But an FY27 is when we start to see a challenge.
So we're looking at Sandex Flexible Fleets grant program
to potentially launch Fallbrook-Paula and,
or the Oceanside Corps.
And then we're looking at any partnerships
that we can have to maintain those San Marcos and Vista zones.
But it will be a challenge come FY27.
And with that, I'll take any questions.
Thank you, Mary, for the presentation.
Taylor, do we have any public comment on this item?
No, we do not.
Okay, thank you.
All right, so comments, questions from the council?
Another great presentation.
I'm a huge fan of microtransit.
Just to start off, we have microtransitize going on
with a number of our cities outside of San Marcos Vista.
Where are we at with those?
And how many cities outside of Vista
and obviously San Marcos are we doing that with right now?
Yeah, so as I mentioned, we did rank them
and I can, for any board members that weren't here last year
when we received the microtransit suitability analysis,
I can certainly send that your way.
Next up in the queue is the Fallbrook zone.
So it kind of captures the downtown area of Fallbrook,
but then it also extends out to Paula as well.
Those are, were ranked very high
because it's not a suitable environment
for fixed route transit.
It's very far from our yards.
It's definitely a better solution for microtransit.
So that is next in the queue.
and then that eastern core of Oceanside.
So, you know, if you think of Oceanside Boulevard
where it meets the Five Freeway in that general area,
those are pending of additional funding.
We do plan to seek funding for those,
but we don't have the resources right now to launch them.
And then you touched on combos very quickly in that.
And I feel like as a board,
we always talk about NCTD+, breeze, the train.
We don't talk combo very often.
and it seems like that is kind of a key to this.
And so I wasn't sure if we were focusing on that
and what our direction was with that.
And obviously we're constantly trying to put
the jigsaw puzzle together with those pieces.
But is that kind of, how do we,
I guess, how are we communicating that to our public?
Yeah, so we have it in a variety of ways.
One way that we try to incentivize combining NCD-Plus
with some of our fixed route is by a discount and fare
if you're connecting to a Sprinter station.
One of the reasons why microtransit is a feasible service
is because it closes that first last mile gap.
So a lot of the reason why people might not be able
to take a train or a bus is that it doesn't get them
exactly where they need to go.
So this is kind of, when we talk about NCTD Plus,
we talk about the connection with our fixed route services.
Similarly, just because you mentioned rail and bus,
sometimes when we do a particular campaign
about, you know, go to a front wave or go to the Padres, we can talk about how multiple
of our services interact with each other.
Take the Sprinter and then hop on the bus and it'll get you to front wave.
So we talk about our service network as a whole instead of just focusing on one mode.
So I downloaded NCDPlus, I read the report.
I didn't get to deep dive as much as I wanted to, so I apologize for some of these questions.
But using the app, it wasn't clear to me if I saw that I could plan my trip.
And I know that I know that Uber wants to catch up with us in their pursuit of this micro transit aspect
Ride share, but are we able to real-time look at it and plan our trip as far as not?
What's the closest transportation? Obviously people using the breeze to do this and the centers
Are we able to look at and say okay? If I look in this map the next three buses are coming in this area
in the moment, where is the NCD-Plus platform
that's closest to me so I can put all that together?
Yeah, so if you were in one of the zones,
it would be a little bit more workable,
so next time you're in San Marcos, pull it up
and it'll show you the zone.
You can type in your origin and destination
and it'll tell you if it's within the zone.
We do, unfortunately, one of the challenges
is our pronto fair system is not integrated
with NCTD Plus, it is a separate platform.
Our customer service assistants are very good
at planning your whole trip.
If somebody calls in or if they're on their website,
it'll actually be able to, I'm in Encinitas
and I need to get to San Marcos.
It'll tell you, okay, take the 304 probably would be best.
Take the 304 up to San Marcos and then get an NCTD Plus.
So we do have, right now they are separate apps.
I think we're working on how we might be able
to mesh them, but it is a challenge
because they're separate platforms.
Yeah, we utilize Spare for the NCTD Plus,
which is common in microtransit.
They've not been able to sort of bridge the gap
between our GTFS real-time data from the GPS
that we put into, this is public information,
so anybody can pull that information
and make their own apps they do all the time.
The one that we typically partner with
is one called Transit.
That's pretty well known throughout the industry.
They pull every transit agency's GTFS data.
And so typically what someone would have to do
is just know the schedule at the station from the transit app
and then build their trip for NCTD Plus
accordingly to get to that network.
The other app does, from front to back,
tell you exactly what buses you need to connect to
for trip planning and maps it out
by each mode you need to take.
We're trying to integrate that into the NCTD Plus piece,
but because it's sort of a proprietary software,
it's been a little bit difficult for us
to integrate that in there.
So yeah, I've just, because in my head I had this,
one of the challenges in this space seems to be
your plan versus your spontaneous use of it, right?
And we want to have all users,
not just people who have the time to plan.
And I mean, that's really what Uber,
I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.
That's what Uber does really well in cities,
is I open up my Uber and, okay, right away I can call it
and here it comes and we're off we go.
And it's spontaneous
so within that
have we played around with the concept of
Before we try other zones just this concept of flooding a zone in other words
our best advertising is the van right driving around picking up and dropping it off and have we tried saying okay instead of
taking our resources and
going to Encinitas and putting a bunch of NCE plus vehicles out. Let's see if we can increase it by going to this VISTA
zone that we've got created. And instead of putting the two vans down in Encinitas,
let's put both of those vans in there, and now we've doubled. We have, I don't know what the numbers are,
but we have four vans versus two. And all of a sudden we are, presence in that zone, people see us.
Obviously, I know it's a balance of demand
for that, but
The idea is to try to divide, obviously use that for a time to increase the demand by presence.
Yeah, one of the things, I mentioned SANDAC's Flexible Fleets grant program.
We had gone back and forth with SANDAC about whether we could seek funds from that program
for existing services and that would have been one of the things that we were looking
for.
If we could have applied for funding for San Marcos and Vista, then we could have maybe
even expanded the zone, added more vans and drivers to the zone to make it more
efficient. As it stands now, existing projects are not eligible for the
program. So we do see a need for Fallbrook, so at this time we'll probably
do the Fallbrook zone and then possibly depending on the amount of funding, but
it is something that we're looking at pending additional funding. And then I'll
yield the floor in a second, but since I've got your ear, we've been talking a
lot about, and I know NCD has joined us at NCSC at the school liaison meeting
school busing, and to me this seems like one of the opportunities of this program
is either to aggressively connect that last mile so we can make school busing a
thing, or act as in some cases in communities an opportunity to be the
school bus. Is that something we've explored? Yeah, so we actually, we had a
a lot of requests particularly out of Encinitas. We were working with assembly
member Berner on what a micro transit for schools would look like. We've
actually found through the NCTD plus particularly in San Marcos the college
environment is very good for NCTD plus because it's not a fixed start and end
time. When we have a fixed start and end time fixed route really does provide a
better solution because it can carry that many more people. A bus can carry 60
I'm probably messing up that number,
but whereas an NCT plus ban can only carry 12.
So that's only 12 students that we can get
right before the bell or 24, if we have two vehicles out,
but we do our school tripper routes
and some of the breeze fixed routes
that do serve the schools see incredibly high ridership
at the school bell times.
So at this point, we see breeze routes
as the best solution for providing school trips,
but we certainly do see some folks utilize NCT plus
for getting to and from school.
can't send Marcos actually in the morning we have a little bit of a conflict over the
students between Palomar CSUSM and San Marcos High School, so quite a few bookings overnight
for San Marcos High School students to and occasionally they've been pretty close to
the bell because we're kind of running around between Palomar and Cal State so the good
problem to have I think I think to Mary's earlier point that does make it a little difficult
times where we like we put two vans over there and we get a lot of rides for
an hour and then we don't have a ride for a couple hours but I think they do a
really good job of managing it. We really haven't had too many issues with
customers calling in and being upset about that and it really is a good
problem to have. You know so we'll see how that kind of goes. San Marcos is
kind of interesting because there's a lot of schools right in a real super tight
area and so it's interesting to see kind of how those mornings go. And I ride to
the Sprinter Station a lot on NCTD Plus,
and I'm usually in there with some kids going to the college
or some folks going to high school,
so it's kinda nice to chat them up
and see what they got going on.
Thank you.
You're the poor, I've asked a lot of questions in there.
So can you talk a little bit about,
there was a lot of great information there,
and it's super interesting, I have a thousand questions,
I will attempt not to ask them all.
So you talked about expanding zones
and the drop in efficiency, that seemed like an interesting.
So, are you keeping the expanded zone then in San Marcos,
I think is where you just expanded it
to include like those neighborhoods?
Because you think like the additional time
it takes to get out there is now,
you know, some other rider down here
is not getting an efficient ride.
So how are you managing that?
Yeah, absolutely.
Anytime we get a request or a flood of public feedback
to expand the zone,
We do have to look at how that would impact wait times.
The expanded zone that we have now is manageable.
We're keeping it under that 30-minute kind of benchmark
for wait times and rides, but yes, it is a challenge.
How we could fix that is by adding additional drivers
and vans to the zone to make sure that there's more supply
for the demand that we're getting,
but that's additional resources
that we don't have the funding for at this moment.
Yeah, kind of the piece that we're working on on that is we work off of two different
systems for paratransit and for microtransit.
When we report that data to the national transit database, they're listed as two different
things, they're not in the same category.
So what we really like to get to at some point is a system that we can use internally where
if we have an NCTD plus overload in a certain area at a certain time, we can divert paratransit
operators over who are waiting for another ride to go over, pick somebody up, slide them over.
Managing that in the back office is insane right now. When we're able to, when we get a new software
system, when we're able to kind of manage the two together, and what mode are they operating as
paratransit, are they operating as NCTD plus, it'll be a lot easier for us to do that because
right now they're sort of branded differently. And I've, you know, I think that decision was made
before I got here. But historically, for me, what I've just said is like demand response is demand
response. We either operate as a paratransit vehicle or we operate as a demand response
like a microtransit. Whatever we need and wherever that person is in real time so we can kind of
speed up the process and I think to your point that'll help us out. You know if we expand the
area we've got more people that are floating around that can do these one or two trips while
we get heavy and then kind of break out of there and do paratransit trips for us. Now the paratransit
group is pretty busy. They're averaging about two and a half trips an hour which is way above the
the national average is right around 1.9, two trips an hour.
So our folks are doing good there, but I think it's just about utilizing that work.
I'll say for San Marcos, we've been asked to expand the zone to San Alejo Hills and
a few other places and we can't because we just don't have the, like once you start
getting that far out into the neighborhoods, it really has a five, ten minute impact on
some of the trips that are inside the grid.
And so, you know, hopefully we can do that one day when we get a new system, we can manage
it a little differently.
now that's that's a difficult choice that we have to make some time okay so
do we know about our NCTD Plus riders are they new riders to our system
typically or are they typically ones that have been in our systems before do
we know if we know that yet yeah we have some anecdotal evidence as I mentioned
they're the pronto system and then CD plus system are separate so right now
we're not collecting Toronto data in the NCT plus app, which would be how we would cross-check if they're an existing rider
But we do have some anecdotal evidence that it's both we are getting a lot of new riders in the city of San Marcos
That had never taken transit before and so it's broadening their
view of the services that we could provide and then it's also existing riders that take the sprinter that are now utilizing NCT plus to
go farther and have we seen drops in the breeze routes that are
being heavily used now in NCTD plus like
Aligned routes are we seeing numbers that go down like that that would be very interesting to me if we looked at the
Breeze numbers at the same time that San Marcos has been ramping up
What does the ridership look like at that same time for those same similar routes? Yeah
We do still see strong breeze ridership and breeze ridership is still significantly higher in the city of San Marcos than NCTD plus
So we haven't seen a noticeable decrease in any breeze ridership, you know
We're not seeing evidence that people are taking away from breeze and using NCD plus instead. Okay
Yeah, it does seem like the like the data that we're getting from this really is another driver of like where we could put
rapid bus transit into
Yeah, thank you those very interesting
Thank you, Mary. I love this program. I think it's really key for people to start using
transportation, public transportation.
So there's been good growth in San Marcos that you've documented. Do you, what do you attribute that to?
I think
number one, in the very infancy of the San Marcos zone,
it was the first of its kind and so it did take a little bit of a, a little bit of time for us to
teach the community how to use it, get them familiar with the service, and so
just natural ridership growth that way. But as we've seen with the good reviews
that we've gotten, the repeat riders, I think that the community does see a see
it as a positive experience and so they're coming back to it. We do see
higher peaks throughout the school year for the colleges in particular. We do see
a little bit of a dip in San Marcos in the summer months, July, August, even a
in a little bit of September.
So we do see college students, there's some word of mouth.
We poured a decent amount of advertising dollars
into San Marcos and Vista.
So we are able to reach a lot of folks that way.
So I think it's a mesh of a lot of things
that are driving the ridership growth.
Yeah, the fair was a part of that too.
When I first came on board,
the planning team came to me and said,
hey, we're charging this like a premium service.
And that's, what do you think about that?
I think they were curious to know what my thought was on that.
And I said, that's not OK, because if we're really
trying to use that service to connect people either
within the city or to another mode that will leave the city,
charging $5 to get to a line that costs $3, it's not OK.
And so we really had to go back and just kind of slash it
in half.
I mean, we went from $5 to $3, and then we went to $1.50,
and then $2.50 from $2.50 to $1.50 on the additional.
And it was almost overnight when we dropped the fares,
the ridership almost doubled in the next month.
And so the thought process for me at least was
what are we really trying to gauge this service?
Are we trying to gauge it off its profitability
or are we trying to gauge it off of the ridership?
And we built this for ridership.
We didn't build it to make tons of money
through premium service.
And what we found was is we were making more money
at the lower rate because we were doubling
or tripling our ridership.
And it provided, I think, especially in San Marcos,
where we had Palomar, and CSUSM,
and some of these collegiate institutions
that didn't have a contract with us,
to put that on their student card.
So they were paying out of pocket for that,
to get to the Sprinter line,
to get to the other places.
And so I think the fair was a contributor to that also.
And I really appreciate the planning team coming to me
and saying, hey, what's your thought?
What do you think about this?
Like, we're not okay with where we're at,
and I think we need to change it.
and we were in a pilot stage,
so it's easy for us in a pilot to just say,
okay, fine, we're gonna change it tomorrow.
It's a done deal.
We didn't have to go through any process,
and that worked out well for us
because we almost instantly saw
some pretty interesting ridership.
Now we did mailers to Invista and San Marcos,
so we sent mailers out to everybody
and invited them to come to the website or the app or learn,
and we made trips to council,
and actually a lot of the folks that were on our board
in both of those cities helped us out quite a bit,
getting the message out,
And so it was a good run of show.
Did you say you sent flyers to everyone
in that jurisdiction?
Anybody that was in the zone.
Wow.
Yes.
Anybody that was in the original zone,
we sent flyers to at their houses.
And we went to council meetings quite a few times.
Went to a couple of council meetings
and really got the word out.
And I give credit to the board, too,
like Karina and when Sharon Jenkins was on the board.
They were very supportive of these pilots.
And they went out on their own and helped us drum up
some of that information with our teams.
We were at the San Marcos Farmers Market as well.
We were at Vista, you know, the market's there.
I mean, wherever we can get in
and kind of spread that information, we try to-
Did you ever try free advertisement,
like the papers there or local news or anything like that?
So we did.
So we tailored our advertising, you know,
we use a lot of the same strategies for Vista and San Marcos,
but we did tailor it a little bit
based on the communities that we're intending to serve.
In VISTA, we had a flyer in the Get One Free booklet
that everybody gets.
In the postcard that we sent out,
we did give a free ride for the first time,
so we used a lot of the similar strategies in both zones.
So when you talked about,
it sounds like you'd like to have in time of arrival
less than 30 minutes or less.
Do you know how you're doing on that goal?
yes, the, it's in one of my, for the San Marco zone,
the mean wait time is around 21 minutes,
and in VISTA it's around 17 minutes.
Great, that's great.
And then lastly, do you collect any demographics
so you know, just for instance, age groups or employment,
if they're going to employment or places like that?
Yeah, we do definitely.
All of the data, start point and end point
is captured by the NCDPlus app.
We do have some demographic data,
especially if it's a youth rider,
because that would trigger the free fare.
I don't have it in front of me,
but I can certainly get that to you.
Do you think most of the folks
that are going to the sprinter station
are going to the sprinter?
Because I know our,
because I was just thinking like we have,
if I was riding it to their transit centers,
like I'm going downtown,
like that's where I'm riding it too.
I would say in San Marcos, yes.
In Vista, that's a great question.
San Marcos is really not a lot around the Sprinter Stations
unless you're trying to go to the college.
Like if you're going to Palomar or something like that.
Vista's kind of a different one
because where those stations are is kind of prime time.
That's a great question.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, not a real way to track
if they're actually getting on the Sprinter
for its intended purpose in the area.
We'll use those 584 cameras that Chris was talking about.
But yeah, Shawn makes a great point.
there's a lot around the VISTA Transit Center
that people could be connecting to.
San Marcos, it's a different case.