FITCHBURG — Under new leadership, a transformation has begun at the Montachusett Regional Transit Authority.
Since it was founded in 1978, MART has capably served the communities of Fitchburg, Gardner, Leominster and beyond. However, despite that dedicated service, certain areas of MART’s operation have required serious improvement for quite some time.
Fortunately, according to Assistant Administrator Scott Rich, improvement has come to MART en masse since the appointment of new Administrator Bruno Fisher.
“It’s almost been like a rebirth of the transit authority,” MART Assistant Administrator Scott Rich said. “We’re trying to serve the people of our communities today, rather than of yesteryear.”
“We’re building a transit authority for the future. We’re completely doing this place over, in terms of how we’re going to serve the public and how we’re going to get our message out. We’re going to let those that need our services know that we are here for them,” he said.
According to Rich, MART had stagnated in some of the operation’s essential areas. While the transit authority served its communities as best it could, there was a severe lack of growth in its rider base.
Rich said that lack of growth stemmed from MART’s lack of advertising and community outreach.
“We previously had an administrator that had been with MART almost since it began,” Rich said. “And consistent leadership is good, but I think it led us into some bad habits.”
“We just weren’t promoting ourselves the way we should have been,” he said.
Everything changed with the ascension of Fisher, who was appointed to the position by the MART Advisory Board last September. MART has since made a dedicated effort to market itself to the public through digital and physical means, increasing its presence in the advertising space and on social media while promoting services that Rich said were “vital” to MART’s communities.
“(Fisher’s) goal is to get us out and serve the community like we are and should be capable of,” Rich said. “As a transit authority, we have an obligation to do that, to help people get to where they need to go as quickly and safely and as best we can.”
While its advertising practices and online presence have been the primary focus, Fisher, Rich and those at MART have looked to improve the transit authority across the board.
A new, “modern” logo was designed and is expected to replace the current logo on most vehicles by the end of next year. A similarly modernized website has brought MART’s internet presence into the 21st century.
Rich stressed that the biggest improvement, arguably, has been the simplification of MART’s promotional materials to further emphasize the purpose of certain services and better communicate those purposes to the public. The primary example of those changes was MART’s Evening Ride Service, formerly known as the Job Access Reverse Commute program.
Through the ERS program, residents of Fitchburg, Gardner, Lancaster, Leominster, Lunenburg and Westminster can schedule a ride Monday through Saturday to take them anywhere in their respective communities between the hours of 8 p.m. and midnight for only $2.
Rich said the service’s previous name caused confusion with riders as to its purpose.
“With a name like that, it’s not hard to assume it can only be used to get someone home from work,” Rich said. “But, really, it can be used for any purpose, so we renamed it the ‘Evening Ride Service’ — and we just knew that the new name, in and of itself, was going to lead to a spike in users.”
“We’re almost like our own best-kept secret, or our own worst enemy. We can serve the public so much better, but we haven’t put ourselves out there enough, haven’t made it clear to people that these services are here for them and that they should be utilized,” he said.
The transit authority has also tried to increase the customization of its services so it can better adapt to the needs of each individual rider.
“It’s a modified way of how we’ve done business in the past — before, we used to have fixed routes, people would have to go to a certain place to grab a ride,” Rich said. “So we’re doing what we can to customize our services to best meet the public’s needs,” he said.
“We just need to get out there and let these communities know that we exist, that we’re here to serve them and we can customize our services to meet whatever needs they might have,” Rich said.
Going forward, Rich hoped to see further outreach by MART, both to its current rider base and in newer communities where the transit authority has yet to establish a presence. In return, Rich hoped to see greater feedback from MART’s rider base, so it could continue to improve.
“Give us feedback, we’d love that,” Rich said. “We have an obligation to listen to the public — and we want to do the best job that we possibly can to serve them, so that would be a great help.”
Given the country’s current economic state, Rich said the transit authority — and public transportation in general — was going to be more important than ever. With increased inflation, rising gas prices and a recession likely on the way, utilizing cheap and effective public transportation could become a necessity for many.
Rich stressed that a new-and-ever-improving MART would be ready to meet that increased need.
“(The United States) is a driving-based culture, but between the cost of gasoline and the significant inflation that we’re dealing with, it’s becoming prohibitive for a lot of people to get to work,” Rich said. “So we’re doing a lot of work to help those people, to get them to work and wherever else they need to be so they can continue leading their lives.”
“We’re, unfortunately, likely headed for a major recessionary period in the United States. People are going to need our services more than ever — and we’re going to be ready to deliver because of the changes we’re making right now,” he said.
