First, about half of the complaints and inquiries to CTA customer service (1-888-968-7282) are related to account management for Chicago Card/Chicago Card Plus. These include questions about the cards as well as complaints. (ie., replacing expiring cards).
Next highest complaints and calls regard fares, such as requests for refunds or reporting cards that were caught in equipment.
So, leaving those out of the mix, here are the top five complaints for all of 2008, and the first six months of 2009. (I asked for comparative figures with the first six months of 2008, but the CTA did not provide those.)
|
Category |
2008 |
% |
|
Service Delays |
2,418 |
13.12% |
|
Pass Ups |
2,189 |
11.88% |
|
Rude Operators |
1,882 |
10.22% |
|
Failure to Assist Customers |
1,499 |
8.14% |
|
Reckless Driving |
1,182 |
6.42% |
|
Category |
2009 (Jan-Jun) |
% |
|
Pass Ups |
906 |
10.84% |
|
Rude Operators |
882 |
10.56% |
|
Service Delays |
677 |
8.10% |
|
Reckless Driving |
653 |
7.81% |
|
Failure to Assist Customers |
567 |
6.79% |
So what are we to make of this? Some observations:
- On an annualized basis, complaints in general are down. There were a total of 9,170 complaints in these categories in 2008, and 3,685 for the first six months of 2009. Double that number and we would get 7,370 complaints. That would be about a 20% drop this year in these top complaints if this holds for the rest of the year. Time will tell if complaints do drop by that much.
- Service delay complaints are way down, no doubt thanks to the end of three-tracking on North Side, and the full rollout of Bus Tracker this year.
- Pass-ups complaints (buses passing riders) have drifted to the top this year, though there appear to be fewer than last year.
- There continue to be about the same number of complaints about rude operators, though just a bit fewer this year.
7 Comments
KevinB said:
And then this could actually be showing that people have just stopped complaining because they know it won't do any good.
KevinB
sargas said:
To be fair, you'd have that affect every year.
KevinB said:
Really?
I emailed and called for about 3 years and then gave up. Is it a statistical likelyhood that someone came in at the same rate to pick up my slack?
Bob S. said:
Statistics isn't about you, KevinB. You have no effect on whether anyone else calls or when.
Cheryl said:
I'd be interested in knowing what the definition of 'pass up' is. I've been steps from the bus stop and had them go by--I wouldn't count that as being passed up, but I would guess some people call to complain when they weren't actually at the bus stop.
decourl said:
A bus passup is when a bus cannot stop to accept waiting riders because it is full.
MK said:
I would guess that most of the "pass-ups" that people complain about were the fault of the customer. I was once on a bus that passed-up a woman who was seated comletely inside of a bus shelter and wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to whether a bus was coming. She was not anywhere where the driver could see her yet she got completely annoyed when the bus rolled by her. This was on Ashland Avenue on the north side during a time of day when the bus isn't very busy. If the drivers were to slow down at every shelter to see whether someone who wishes to board bus may be tucked inside then the travel time would probably almost double. Not to mention, this woman had around six grocery bags so the fact that she was not ready to board when the bus arrived would have delayed everyone for around 20 seconds while she gathered her stuff. Some people don't have the slightest bit of sense of courtesy to realize that if they are not ready to board a bus in the quickest way possible then they are inconveincing many riders. Another time, a woman started screaming at a bus driver because he passed her up at a stop that has at least five routes. Apparently she either expected the driver to be psychic or that every bus should stop and ask her if she wanted to board since she had done nothing to indicate to the driver that she wanted to get on. These probably are the type of people who are making these complaints.
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