Tri-Rail: Miami, FL

In early 2007, Veolia Transportation was awarded the contract to operate South Florida Regional Transportation Authority’s (SFRTA) Tri-Rail commuter system. We are responsible for all transportation functions on board trains, as well as communications to customers via station signs and announcements.

The Tri-Rail system serves a 72-mile corridor running parallel to Interstate 95 between West Palm Beach in the North to Miami in the South. It serves three major airports: West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami. There are 18 stations en route which provide ticket vending services for customers as well as electronic train information signs. The service is designed to integrate with local bus routes at every station to ensure excellent connections and seamless passenger service. Veolia Transportation employs 85 people who operate 50 trains each weekday, carrying 16,000 passengers everyday.

SFTRA vision is to provide greater mobility in South Florida, thereby improving the economic viability and the quality of the community, region and state. Veolia Transportation’s goals are to:

• Drive continuous improvement to exceed safety benchmarks
• Ensure consistent, high quality customer service
• Improve on-time performance in a sustainable manner
• Increase ridership

Our solutions to our client include a much greater management presence (to staff and customers), enhanced training in safety and customer service, and management training on communication and sensitivity to diversity. We redesigned schedules to provide better connections to existing bus services, and planned a bus “bridging” service to get passengers to their destinations during times when service interruptions occur. We have also provided enhanced comprehensive safety training for our operators.

The results of these efforts have been that ridership has increased from 11,000 to 16,000 per weekday and on-time performance from 35% to 80% in the first year that Veolia Transportation has been operating the service. There have been no personal injury accidents in the first year of operation. We have also received very positive feedback from our client on the behavior of our crews, since they received our customer service training.