By Mary Sue O’Melia

The challenge for transit agencies is to determine key performance indicators (KPI) that help measure mission achievement. The second challenge is to establish a process involving the entire team in keeping score and improving performance.

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Figure 1 – Key Performance Indicators for Board Presentation

Key performance indicators (KPI)
Transit agencies typically have mission statements such as “Provide safe, reliable and cost effective and efficient services that meet customer travel needs.” A list of KPIs that is small enough to present to the Board of Directors and covers most of the strategic areas from the mission statement is shown in Figure 1.

Transit agencies reporting to the National Transit Database (NTD) have a start on collecting information for KPI reporting. Schedule adherence and customer comments are not required for NTD reporting. All other items are reported on a monthly or annual basis, while much of the data is collected daily, tabulated monthly and reported annually.

Trust the data
A problem in KPI reporting is trusting the data. Address this issue by using the same source for monthly, quarterly and annual NTD reporting. To improve the integrity of the data, document its sources and owners. Check the data and talk about it. Inquire as to trends; why they are changing, and how those changes impact performance results.

An agency may not want to report to its Board of Directors the first year due to a lack of confidence in the numbers. Nonetheless, once an agency begins reporting and discussing KPIs on a routine basis, the data will improve. Ongoing involvement from the team is critical to data integrity as well as performance improvement.

Involve the entire team

The purpose of KPI reporting is to determine how an agency is doing relative to key objectives. Achieving measureable performance results requires ongoing involvement of the entire team. It is critical to data integrity and an improved performance.

Identify data managers for each KPI. This may be more than one person for cross-departmental objectives. Data managers are responsible for the integrity and reliability of the data used in KPIs and other scoreboard measures.

Set annual performance targets for each KPI. Targets should represent improvements the agency desires to achieve. Service plans and annual budgets provide much of this information, as does past performance. Sadly, if implemented as planned, some service plans and budgets result in declining performance. The focus should be on the status of the agency after three or five years of continuous improvement.

Involve departmental staff in score keeping An agency may track KPIs and report them to the Board (e.g., Figure 1 KPIs) but the information and format for team member involvement will be different. For example, the agency goal for schedule adherence may be 80 percent on-time performance. In addition to the daily, monthly and year-to-date score, the transportation team may want to see the actual percentages of trips early and late trips by operating division, route or even employee badge number.

Take measurable actions to improve performance. With access to the scoreboard, each team is involved in identifying actions that improve performance. For example, under schedule adherence, it may identify the 10 worst performing routes for analysis. Other actions may be to recommend a policy change to eliminate pennies as fare payment, or to reconsider the type of equipment used in specific route assignments, as some buses are faster or more reliable than others. Develop strategies that effectively address passengers’ questions and concerns. Establish a deadline for each plan of action and the means to measure the results. Changing fare policy and training operators may be accomplished short term; equipment changes may require a longer period of time.

Four disciplines of execution
In their 4 Disciplines of Execution (2012), Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling offer these three principals:

1. People play differently when they are keeping score.
2. A coach’s scoreboard is not the players’ scorecard.
3. The purpose of a players’ scoreboard is to motivate the players to win.

The 4DX provides the steps to developing player scoreboards and how to execute a plan to achieve performance results.

While the agency may have KPIs it reports to the Board on a routine basis, in the successful implementation of a business intelligence program, it is the team that keeps score and becomes involved.

Mary Sue O’Melia is president of TransTrack Systems®, Inc., a business intelligence solution that transforms volumes of data into meaningful information for transportation managers and executives to use in planning, strategizing and ensuring optimal performance. Visit TransTrack Systems® at www.transtrack.net.