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February 3, 2010
Howard Permut, President
MTA/Metro North Railroad
Re: Seat Checking Procedures
Dear Howard,
The new seat checking and ticket collection process
Ron Yee's group experimented with this past week was a
terrible idea. It has already led to confrontation
onboard train 1542, with passengers quite upset and
insulted at being asked to show their tickets twice. We
were advised this practice exists on the LIRR, however,
it does so with the help of another class of employees
(over 100 Ticket Punchers). That craft does not exist
here at Metro North.
We fully understand the need to collect 100 percent
of all revenue on board our trains. The revenue that
seems to always be in jeopardy are intermediate fares.
Our crews fully understand they should always be
efficient when seat checking and patrolling their
trains. But if Metro North is really serious about
intermediate fare collection, then the only true
resolution is adding the correct number of assistants to
get the job done. Metro North has never staffed our
trains to collect all intermediate fares. By the
Planning Departments own admission and economic studies,
it was not worth the expense of adding the required
number of people to get the job done.
Hopefully, those who were in charge of this
experiment will speak up and advise you of the terrible
response it received and how unproductive it really was.
It served no purpose other than to alienate our
customers. Yesterday was a good indication of why we
have higher customer satisfaction ratings and better
revenue collection numbers than the LIRR and any other
railroad for that matter.
Should you have any questions please don't hesitate
to call my office.
Sincerely,
Anthony Bottalico
General Chairman
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