The Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority is outperforming the national transit industry in customer satisfaction by 20 points. Pinellas County’s public transit agency released results from a recent customer satisfaction survey of more than 500 riders after a board meeting Wednesday.
Responses to survey questions asked throughout various parts of the day and on all PSTA routes were high.
The agency earned a Net Promoter Score of 32 percent, which is higher than the national average by 20 percent. The score serves as a widely used index ranking customer satisfaction. The index ranges from -100 to 100 and evaluates the willingness of customers to recommend a product or service to others.
The survey also indicated particularly high marks on bus operator performance, bus safety and service improvements over the past year.
“Nearly 90 percent of customers agree that the buses are well-driven, and more than 90 percent of customers said they feel safe riding the bus,” said Mark Aesch, CEO of TransPro Consulting that conducted the survey. “What’s really impressive here is that 97 percent of PSTA customers felt that service quality has improved or stayed the same over the past year.”
The survey results come at a key point for PSTA. The transit agency has spent the past year or so working to maintaining service levels for customers and even expanding them. They are working to implement a bus rapid transit line from downtown St. Pete to the beaches and just this month rerouted buses in Williams Park to other parts of downtown St. Pete. They also just launched a public-private partnership with Uber and United Taxi to provide discounted rides to bus stops in Pinellas Park.
“All of us at PSTA are working hard to provide an ideal balance between the value we provide to the taxpayers of Pinellas County and the quality of the transit services our PSTA customers experience and these survey results indicate we are succeeding in our efforts,” said PSTA CEO Brad Miller.
