Chaffey, Crafton Hills, and Valley Colleges

• IDs from students enrolled in the prior Spring semester are accepted for the month of July.
• Summer-only students are not included.
• IDs from students registered for Fall 2013 will be accepted beginning August 1^st    
• The list of accepted IDs is provided by the colleges.  Students must contact the college directly if there is a problem.

Art Institute of California-Inland Empire

• Student IDs are not considered passes – a separate pass must be obtained at the Campus Store.
• All passes from previous quarters need to be renewed by visiting the Campus Store.
• If your pass reads “error” or “invalid” when swiped, visit the Cage to get the card re-coded.
• Any questions about the GoSmart Program at The Art Institute – visit Student Affairs.

Omnitrans offices will be closed on Monday, May 27th  in observance of Memorial Day, and buses will not be in service. We will reopen on Tuesday, May 28th and buses will return to normal operating schedules.

We remember and honor the sacrifices of all  who have served, and our thoughts and prayers go out to those who are are still fighting. We thank you for your service.

On the APTA International Roadeo obstacle course

The annual APTA International Bus Roadeo took place May 3-7 this year in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sixty transit agencies from across North America participated in this prestigious competition designed to test the skills of both bus operators and mechanics. Awards are given in each area, and there is an overall grand prize for the transit system with the highest combined score for the bus operator and bus maintenance team. 

Coach Operator Ricardo Alvarez

Our maintenance team, Archie Rockwell, Phillip Sanchez and Alex Hernandez earned 6th place in the competition. Coach operator and 14-year veteran Ricardo Alvarez placed 23rd. The combined maintenance team and bus operator scores earned Omnitrans an impressive 10th place overall ranking.

“I am very proud of our team,” said Omnitrans CEO, Milo Victoria. “The competition is fierce, so for us to have placed in the top ten is a real accomplishment. What a great example of our team’s top skills and dedication to excellence!”

Front to back: Archie Rockwell, Alex Hernandez & Phil Sanchez

“The top ten winners truly are the cream of the crop in our industry,” said Omnitrans maintenance supervisor and APTA Roadeo judge Vicki Chesney. “The competition can be especially challenging because standards and vehicles tend to vary between agencies. For example, in this year’s competition we used 42-foot deisel buses supplied by the host agency, IndyGo. Here at Omnitrans, our guys are used to 40-foot CNG buses. They really have to prepare and be on top of their game for this event.”

In the Bus Operator Roadeo, judges scored competitors on the safe, smooth and efficient navigation of a challenging obstacle course which included serpentine turns, rear duals clearance, a left and a right hand reverse, diminishing clearance, customer stops and more. Drivers also had to pass written test and complete a timed pre-trip inspection by finding 8 equipment-related defects and 1 security hazard that had been planted on and in the bus within 7 minutes.

The Maintenance Competition event  included a written test, a Fraser Gauge Vehicle Inspection, an Allison Transmission/Cummins/EMP Power Train Event, an AxleTech/Bendix Air Brake System (ABS) Event, a Cummins/Voith Power Train Event, a Thermo King HVAC IntelligAIRE Event, a MCI Multiplex Module and aVapor Door Systems Exhibition Event.

2o13 APTA INTERNATIONAL ROADEO WINNERS

Grand Champion Award – Highest combined scores of bus operator and maintenance team

• Winner – Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

40-foot Bus Competition

• 1st Place – Paul Kilmesh of Ames Transit Agency (Ames, IA)
• 2nd Place – Daniel R. Schmidt of Ben Franklin Transit (Richland, WA)
• 3rd Place – Zenon Rinylo of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (Philadelphia, PA)

Maintenance Competition

• 1st Place – Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
• 2nd Place – Orange County Transportation Authority
• 3rd Place – Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Planning project manager Anna Rahtz recently received the Omnitrans Employee of the Quarter award.

Can you talk a little bit about what was involved with the transit design guidelines?

“The Omnitrans Transit Design Guidelines was the brainchild of our planning director, Rohan Kuruppu, and I worked on it as the project manager. It is basically a combination of our Bus Stop Design Guidelines document as well as a ‘lessons learned’ guide based on our experience with the sbX corridor in San Bernardino and Loma Linda. We always get lots of questions when the cities are trying to plan their future corridors or put in bus stops. They want to know how much space is needed, how long is the bus stop, how wide is the sidewalk, what are the ADA requirements. We also get lots of questions about the bus rapid transit (BRT) stations–how much space does it take up and how do you fit it into the street cross section?

Our consultants, Parsons Gruen, and MIG, took everything they had learned from working on the sbX project and compiled it into a toolkit. Now when designers, consultants, developers, city staff or others have questions about how to make these things work, they can refer to this toolkit for answers. City staff has already made a lot of use of it because cities like Highland, Ontario, and Fontana are doing their own BRT studies now. They’ve been able to integrate it into what they’re planning instead of reinventing the wheel.

Right now the Omnitrans Transit Design Guidelines is a PDF document, but we’re working on setting it up as an online interactive tool as well.”

What do you like best about being a planning project manager?

“I actually think I enjoy the smaller projects the most because they are more tangible and can be completed in a faster time frame. Recently I worked with several cities and our planning interns Allison and Alvaro to complete a grant application for SANBAG funds to improve pedestrian access to bus stops, including replacing and constructing new sidewalks.  Improving pedestrian infrastructure is extremely important.

Anna Rahtz and Omnitrans Planning Director Rohan Kuruppu

Can you tell us a little about any major upcoming projects?

“One of the main projects we will be kicking off in the next couple of months is the route 61 corridor through Pomona, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.

The current 61 is our highest ridership corridor with more than 6,000 boardings a day. We’re looking at ways to speed it up because it currently takes about an hour and a half to go from one end of the corridor to the other. There are 92 stops in the 20 miles.

Our consultants Parsons are doing an alternatives analysis so we can determine the best way to tackle the issue. One of the biggest criteria for federal funding is cost effectiveness. So we look at what the cost would be of various measures we could use, such as transit signal priority, dedicated bus lanes, or just reducing the number of stops. The corridor could also be developed in phases–maybe by incorporating a limited stop express bus and later transitioning to bus rapid transit. We look at the cost of all these things and how it would impact both ridership and the movement of traffic along the corridor.”

Why not just put another bus in service on the corridor?

“Frequency helps a lot, but we also have to focus on decreasing the amount of time it takes for the bus to get through the corridor because, as traffic congestion worsens, our buses slow down. Alternatives like dedicated bus lanes and traffic signal priority help the buses move much more quickly.”

I know you regularly use public transit yourself. Do you feel it’s important for you to do that? Is it a personal or professional choice?

“Both. I’ve always taken transit whenever I could ever since I was in grad school.  As a student, I was dependent on the bus. I don’t really like driving a whole lot to begin with, and driving is getting more and more expensive.  So I think it’s really important to have options. I prefer riding my bicycle, taking the bus, or both, whenever possible. I find that bus riders are like a community, and the people are generally pretty courteous to each other.

As a transit planner, I do think you have to be a rider in order to understand how a rider experiences the system. I find I am constantly taking my observations as a rider and applying them to my planning projects. That’s why all of us in the planning department ride all the routes in the system regularly.

Do you use NexTrip when you’re traveling?

“Yes. It’s actually been working out for me very well. I can use it to see when the next bus is arriving at the stop so I know how long I have to wait for a transfer. Then I can decide whether it’s faster to catch the bus there or if I should bike over to an alternative stop instead. It’s a huge help to be able to access live bus information from your phone. ”

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As Omnitrans CEO Milo Victoria points out, transit is not about buses. It’s about people. “Omnitrans provides a great service to the community. It’s not just about transferring people from point A to point B. We consider our passengers to be part of our family, and families take care of each other.”

This is why every Omnitrans coach operator receives extensive training, not only in customer service and the safe operation of our coaches, but in multiple emergency scenarios as well. They learn to deal with a wide variety of crisis situations from careless car drivers to terrorist attacks. The goal is to be prepared for anything.

Over the past year Omnitrans coach operators have helped with the identification and safe return of elderly people suffering from Alzheimer’s. They have acted to save lives of those suffering from heart attacks or diabetic seizures. They have offered assistance to women who appeared to be victims of abuse. They have even come to the aid of small children who were lost or abandoned.

Yesterday, one coach operator had the opportunity to put his emergency skills into action when an officer-involved shooting took place near Hospitality in San Bernardino. See the full story in the San Bernardino Sun. He was driving his bus when he heard the sound of gunfire and his rearview mirror suddenly shattered. This 18 year fleet veteran acted quickly, calmly pulling the bus out of danger, speaking with police on the scene and notifying dispatch.

“I was scared at first,” he said frankly. “But then my training kicked in and I knew exactly what to do. My first priority was the safety of my passengers.”

“This is the whole purpose of our training program,” says Omnitrans training supervisor Don Frazier. “Because our coach operators are so well prepared, their reaction becomes almost instinctive. Ray Lopez, our director of Safety and Security, and his team Brenda Rosas and Mark Crosby do a really remarkable job with annual emergency training. The coach operators are given the skills to handle even the most unexpected situation and are confident in the immediate support and backup they will receive from dispatch and our field supervisors. Being a coach operator is not just about driving a bus. It’s about helping people and coping with the unexpected curves life throws at us every day.”

- Juno Kughler Carlson

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Do you have a great Omnitrans story to share? Let us know!
Email juno.carlson@omnitrans.org

Although there are no radical service changes, there are a few minor run time adjustments to weekday schedule for routes: Routes 3, 4, 9, 61 and 325. There is also a slight change to run times for the Sunday Route 1 schedule.  

Click here for the online version.
 

]]> http://www.omnitrans.org/blog/2013/05/07/the-may-bus-book-is-now-available/feed/ 0 http://www.omnitrans.org/blog/2013/05/03/grand-prize-winner-melissa-paniagua/ http://www.omnitrans.org/blog/2013/05/03/grand-prize-winner-melissa-paniagua/#comments Sat, 04 May 2013 00:05:51 +0000 Omnitrans http://www.omnitrans.org/blog/?p=4289 Continue reading →]]>

Omnitrans Grand Prize Winner Melissa Paniagua

Twenty-one-year-old Melissa Paniagua from Fontana was drawn as the Grand Prize winner in the Omnitrans Clean & Green Contest, celebrating 100 million CNG miles. Yesterday she stopped by to visit with us and pick up her prizes of a $100 Target gift card,  bus passes worth 100 days of free rides and some fun Omnitrans gear.

Omnitrans Marketing Director Wendy Williams awards Melissa the Grand Prize which includes a $100 Target gift card, 100 days worth of free bus passes.

Melissa used to ride the bus every day from Fontana to the Marinello Beauty School in San Bernardino. “I started cutting my own hair when I was 15-years-old,” she laughs. “Pretty soon my friends were asking me to cut their hair during school lunch breaks. It’s something I’m good at and really enjoy. I graduated in February and am looking for a professional postion now.”

Grand Prize winner Melissa poses with some of her new Omnitrans gear

“Having the bus has made a huge impact in my life. Without Omnitrans,  I couldn’t have gotton my cosmotology license. I wasn’t driving when I started school–a car was just too expensive– and I had no other way of getting here. Later I was able to use my boyfriend’s car sometimes, but it was too difficult with our seperate schedules.  By riding Omnitrans, I was able to get an education in something I love doing.”

Melissa, her brother John and her two children, Jiovanni and Matalin

Melissa introduced us to her brother John, another Omnitran regular,  and her two children:  Jiovanni age 1 and Matalin age 2. John told us one of their favorite  things to do was buy a bus pass and go on an adventure for the day as a family. Because the children are so used to traveling on the bus, they aren’t nervous around strangers. Melissa feels it has made them better socialized.

John and Jiovanni sporting their new Omnitrans baseball caps

Melissa plans on using part of her new gift card to purchase swim floaties for the children so that they can have fun  swimming this weekend.

Matalin shows us her Omnitrans fan as she gets ready to head for home

Do you like this story and want to use it for your blog or newsletter? All our stories may be freely reposted and shared with others!

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The closest alternative bus pass outlet in that area is Superior Grocers at 1108 W. 2nd Street. You can also click here to order Omnitrans bus passes from our online store.

“I know when the bus is actually coming without needing to memorize a schedule. No longer do I wonder if I’ll miss my bus if I use the restroom.  I can set alerts on my phone for the bus near my home and stay in my air conditioning until the last minute instead of baking in the summer heat.”

Since then, she’s passed the experience on to many of her fellow riders. “Every chance I get, I help others learn about NexTrip, often breaking the ice by telling them exactly how many minutes until their bus arrives. Once, to test its accuracy, I set an alert for 1 minute. The bus arrived about a minute after the alert came to my phone. In a nutshell, I never worry about when the bus will show up as long as I have my cell. I KNOW! Thanks for implementing NexTrip.”

Although she has had a driver’s license since she was 18, Catherine has never owned or had regular access to a car, and taxicabs just aren’t cost-effective for her budget. “If Omnitrans was not an effective tool for transportation for all my non-emergency needs, I would have moved somewhere with better public transit years ago,” she says frankly.

As a regular rider, Catherine hopes to eventually see Omnitrans offer extended weekend coverage. As a Colton resident, it would allow her the freedom to enjoy more events and attend late evening services at her church of choice in Redlands. In the meantime, she is enjoying her new found flexibility with our NexTrip real-time bus prediction system.

–Juno Kughler Carlson

Try NexTrip for yourself.
Get real time arrival information via text message, online or by phone!

• NexTrip online
• NextBus Droid  app
• NextBus iPhone app
• Smart Ride iPhone app

Do you like this story and want to use it for your blog or newsletter? All our stories may be freely reposted and shared with others!

Do you have a great Omnitrans story to share? Let us know!
Email juno.carlson@omnitrans.org