Week of Sep. 3, 2007

First-liners are Metro’s front line

Metro first-liner Lise McShane.

First-liners are the first step up the management ladder in Metro’s hierarchy. They are recruited from the ranks of Metro’s 2,600 bus drivers, and serve in four key areas: Service Quality; Service Communications; Base Operations; and Training. It’s a sought-after assignment. The last time testing was held, more than 150 bus drivers applied for 30 slots on the Supervisor-In-Training hiring list.

The Service Quality group, headed up by Vicki LaRitz, works as the on-the-road troubleshooter who makes real-time decisions to mitigate a variety of temporary problems affecting normal transit operations. LaRitz and her four chiefs oversee 24/7 coverage of Metro’s system, which requires 30 separate daily shifts.

"I thoroughly enjoyed my 11 years as a bus operator, but I wanted to try something new and be in a position to help other drivers,” said Lise McShane, a first-liner who roves the Seattle Central Business District in a supervisor’s white truck. “I’ve been doing this for eight years now, and I like the variety, the problem solving, and all the thinking-on-my-toes that I have to do.”

“Variety” is an understatement in describing the duties of a first-liner. They respond to all trouble calls – mechanical, operational and personal. They assist police, fire, and emergency medical staff when there is an accident or incident involving a bus, bus passengers, or transit facilities. They make sure bus operators are complying with all rules of the road and Metro’s own polices and procedures. This includes regular checks for on-time performance of routes and individual bus trips.

They frequently inspect the condition of each of Metro’s thousands of bus shelters, park-and-ride lots, and transit centers. They are responsible for writing up and posting much of the rider information that accompanies the closure of bus shelters and streets due to private and public projects – everything from the recent Interstate 5 construction to the annual installation of the holiday star on the outside of the downtown Macy’s building.

First-liners must know all routes in their assigned districts, including all the deadhead routes to the base, express variations, special service options, and snow reroutes. They supply operators on the road with timetables and transfers when they run out. They assist passengers by answering questions, giving directions, and sorting out disputes.

First-liners keep service running for special events like Husky football games.

“For the Seafair Torchlight Parade in July, we had 20 Service Quality supervisors on duty that Saturday night,” said Chief Paul Rodgers. “They were needed because we had more than 60 extra buses in service and almost every bus in the Central Business District was being rerouted away from the parade route on Fourth Avenue. Without them, we couldn’t have gotten 300,000 people out of town – 53,000 of them on our buses – in less than an hour after the parade was over.”

Chief Doug Bligh oversees first-liners that work on special service, a group that is particularly busy now as summer transitions into fall with all the festivals, parades, and overlap of special shuttles for the baseball and football seasons.

“The accuracy of the advance planning is critical to the success of any event,” said Bligh. “Even though we do it every year, the advance planning for the Torchlight parade took a couple of weeks to complete for the first-liner detailed to that assignment. There were countless meetings with the city, Seafair, police, fire, and several internal groups at Metro to make sure it all went right.”

Service Quality troubleshooting also extends to planning ahead for things that have a regional impact on traffic. In the months leading up to the August I-5 project, Rodgers coordinated with many outside agencies and groups inside Metro to come up with the most efficient way to move hundreds of Metro and Sound Transit buses around the construction zone. At the same time, Service Quality Chief Rudy Allen was behind the wheel; personally driving the different detour routes to make sure the buses would fit through the intersections and be able to make all the turns. Now that the I-5 work is done, Allen and Chief Jim Kost are focused on the many details that must be addressed before the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel reopens in three weeks.

The chiefs say there are a lot of skills and talents first-liners draw upon in their daily duties. But, they agree that the biggest asset is great people
skills.

“In Service Quality, we often walk into an unhappy scene,” said Rodgers. “A good first-liner is able to diffuse a tense situation, calm everyone down, settle the situation, and get the bus and passengers moving again.”

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