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TTC to Assemble a New Customer Liaison Panel
The Commission hopes to provide a new venue for rider input.
Chris Upfold and Karen Stintz speak to reporters, earlier today.
Earlier today, at Bathurst Station, TTC Chair Karen Stintz and Chief Customer Service Officer Chris Upfold announced the creation of a new customer liaison panel, whose function will be to hear, and help the TTC act upon, customer concerns. There were also some other announcements, with implications for fare collection and the request stop program. Here they are, in summary.
According to Stintz and Upfold, the TTC will:
Do a customer-focused review of fare collection. “This is not about changing the price of our fares, this is about removing some of the nuisance things that bother our customers and inevitably lead to less satisfaction,” Upfold told reporters. One “nuisance thing” he identified as being ripe for change were the TTC’s “emergency transfers,” which are little pieces of paper, good for a period of time after a customer receives them, that the Commission gives out in place of refunds in cases when people pay fares but can’t get on transit because of some problem that happens to be the TTC’s fault.
Expand hours at the TTC’s customer service centre. The TTC has a call centre where they take customer feedback, but right now it’s only open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Upfold says it will soon be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Extend the “request stop” program to anyone who feels threatened. At the moment, between the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., women who feel that their safety is at risk can ask TTC bus drivers to let them off closer to their destinations, even if doing so means letting them off between stops. Upfold told reporters that the TTC will be extending this courtesy to all riders, regardless of their gender.
As for that customer liaison panel, it will include six to eight members of the public, as well several members of the TTC’s administration. Anyone interested in snagging a citizen appointment to the panel should write a 250-word essay “describing the insight they will bring to the TTC regarding customers and assisting the TTC in the development of a customer-centric organization” (we’re quoting from the panel’s terms of reference). Completed essays can be sent to this email address and must be submitted before November 25.
The new panel will in some sense continue the work of the now-defunct Customer Service Advisory Panel, which completed its mandate in August of last year.
As part of its new push for customer consultation, the TTC will also be holding regular town hall meetings, starting on November 24, at City Hall. Upfold told reporters that customers who attend these meetings will be able to ask staff and commissioners anything they want to. “There’s something dangerous about meeting with customers en masse,” he added, “because you never know what they’re going to say, but it’s an important part of engaging with them.”