May 1, 2024
Season:    7

Launching Successful Innovations at SEPTA with Emily Yates

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In a previous episode we talked about SEPTA’s innovative SCOPE (Safety, Cleaning, Ownership, Partnership, and Engagement) program — https://transitunplugged.com/transit-unplugged-podcast/how-septa-is-making-a-difference-in-the-lives-of-vulnerable-people/ — and how it was helping the city’s most vulnerable people. This week we get the big picture from the woman at the head of it all.

Emily Yates reports right to CEO Leslie Richards and leads a team that’s willing to take a risk on something new and if it doesn’t pan out, learn from it and move on. Her recent pilot on using AI-powered cameras to detect weapons didn’t turn out like people expected. But, Emily and her team have distilled what they’ve learned and are looking at new ways to accomplish the same goal–keep weapons off the system.

Emily’s approach to innovation is very human-focused. She thinks about things like; “How do we make transit more welcoming for women and moms? Is there more we can do help our drivers feel physically and emotionally safe? Are we doing the right things to make it easier to take transit instead of a private car?”

In the interview Emily talks about programs like:

  • Letting moms keep kids in strollers and not having to unpack shopping carts on buses
  • Solar-powered, e-ink displays at stops to show route updates and next bus information
  • Programs to help operator safety and mental health
  • SEPTA’s transition to a zero-emission fleet

Plus how she navigates the process of getting buy in for these initiatives inside and outside the agency.

Coming up next week we’re celebrating the release of Paul’s newest book The New Future of Public Transportation with two of the contributors Dr. Karen Philbrick and Paige Malott. You can pick up a copy on Amazon https://a.co/d/dqp2red

If you have a question or comment, email us at info@transitunplugged.com.

Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo and these fine folks:

  • Paul Comfort, host and producer
  • Julie Gates, executive producer
  • Tris Hussey, editor and writer
  • Tatyana Mechkarova, social media

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Sign up for the Transit Unplugged Newsletter

00:00 Introduction to Emily Yates and SEPTA Innovations

00:22 Driving Innovation at SEPTA: A Deep Dive

05:19 Enhancing Rider Experience with Real-Time Data and Accessibility

10:35 Navigating the Approval Process for New Initiatives

13:21 Focusing on Operator Safety and Well-being

17:49 The Future of Transit: Zero Emission Buses and Workforce Development

24:10 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged

Transcript
Paul Comfort:

Should passengers on public transportation have

Paul Comfort:

to fold up their stroller?

Paul Comfort:

We'll ask Emily Yates today.

Paul Comfort:

Emily is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Southeastern Pennsylvania

Paul Comfort:

Transportation Authority or SEPTA, the public transit system in

Paul Comfort:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the fifth largest transit system in America.

Paul Comfort:

I'm Paul Comfort and this is Transit Unplugged.

Paul Comfort:

Today we dive in with Emily in a description of all the interesting

Paul Comfort:

innovations she's bringing to the transit agency, her and her team.

Paul Comfort:

She leads the Office of Innovation, which focuses on driving innovative initiatives

Paul Comfort:

through internal and external partnerships and collaboration there at SEPTA.

Paul Comfort:

In addition to growing a culture of innovation, the Office of Innovation

Paul Comfort:

works to incorporate sustainability principles and data driven decision making

Paul Comfort:

into all the aspects of SEPTA's efforts to become a lifestyle transit network.

Paul Comfort:

Prior to this role, she was the smart city director for the City of Philadelphia,

Paul Comfort:

and Emily has held a variety of positions in Europe and North America.

Paul Comfort:

including urban planning positions with the District of

Paul Comfort:

Columbia, the City of Cleveland.

Paul Comfort:

She's worked in Germany, has a Bachelor of Science in Landscape and Architecture

Paul Comfort:

from Arizona State University.

Paul Comfort:

And today we dive into a number of specific innovations they're doing

Paul Comfort:

at SEPTA, which I think you'll be interested in, including the one I

Paul Comfort:

just mentioned, making some changes and even getting new buses that'll

Paul Comfort:

better fit strollers and shopping carts to allow passengers to ride.

Paul Comfort:

She said that two thirds of their passengers are women, and they

Paul Comfort:

want to make sure they make changes to their policies to better allow

Paul Comfort:

them to go about their daily lives using public transportation.

Paul Comfort:

They're also adding up to 700 new e ink real time bus monitors at bus stops.

Paul Comfort:

We're going to dive into that and talk about the process of driving

Paul Comfort:

innovation at a large agency like that.

Paul Comfort:

The different steps they have to go through to push it through the system.

Paul Comfort:

The approval process is up to the Board of Directors.

Paul Comfort:

We also talk about ways to increase safety for the passengers, as well as

Paul Comfort:

the operators, including deploying AI to make their stations safer, operator

Paul Comfort:

support for mental health and training, and, sustainability, micromobility,

Paul Comfort:

their sustainability playbook, and what they're doing about zero emission buses.

Paul Comfort:

Are they moving toward battery or hydrogen fuel cells?

Paul Comfort:

Or both.

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We'll tell you if you stay to the end, you'll hear all about it on the ZEBs.

Paul Comfort:

That's on this episode of Transit Unplugged.

Paul Comfort:

Emily, great to have you with us today on Transit Unplugged.

Emily Yates:

Thanks so much for having me.

Emily Yates:

I'm really excited to talk with you.

Paul Comfort:

You're doing so many great things there at SEPTA

Paul Comfort:

that we want to talk about today.

Paul Comfort:

and I think I'd like to set it up first off to talk about, , your

Paul Comfort:

agency itself a little bit.

Paul Comfort:

Tell me about the Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation

Paul Comfort:

Authority, SEPTA, in Philadelphia.

Paul Comfort:

Just some general numbers and statistics.

Emily Yates:

Sure.

Emily Yates:

So we are the fifth largest transportation authority in the U.

Emily Yates:

S.

Emily Yates:

We cover seven modes of transportation, which is the most next to, MBTA out

Emily Yates:

of Boston where they have ferries.

Emily Yates:

and we service, the four surrounding counties, including the County

Emily Yates:

of Philadelphia, the City of Philadelphia, as well as connecting

Emily Yates:

to transit in New Jersey and Delaware.

Emily Yates:

Southeastern Pennsylvania is the hub, the economic hub for the state.

Emily Yates:

So what we do is really important.

Emily Yates:

We have over 9, 000 employees.

Emily Yates:

here at SEPTA and provide, our latest is 700, 000, unlinked trips per day.

Emily Yates:

So we are, back to 70 percent recovery, post COVID, which we're

Emily Yates:

really excited about and just recently

Emily Yates:

hit.

Paul Comfort:

That's great.

Paul Comfort:

And your CEO, Leslie is, has been on our podcast before

Paul Comfort:

and on some of our big events.

Paul Comfort:

So, we really appreciate your connection to Transit Unplugged.

Emily Yates:

Absolutely.

Paul Comfort:

Yeah.

Paul Comfort:

And as I mentioned off, off camera, we also recently had a focus on

Paul Comfort:

your SCOPE program, and I know we're going to talk a little about

Paul Comfort:

your role with that today as well.

Paul Comfort:

So, thanks for being with us today.

Paul Comfort:

Tell us about your role in the organization and where

Paul Comfort:

you sit in the organization.

Emily Yates:

Sure.

Emily Yates:

So as chief innovation officer, I oversee the office of innovation,

Emily Yates:

which I would say is probably not a typical office of innovation.

Emily Yates:

We cover a lot of topics here.

Emily Yates:

so in addition to having an innovation vertical where we really

Emily Yates:

work to quickly pilot innovative technologies, and use of data.

Emily Yates:

and then rapidly scale it up.

Emily Yates:

We also look at data policy and analytics, and really focus on things like ridership

Emily Yates:

numbers, and helping support making data informed decisions here at SEPTA.

Emily Yates:

And then I also oversee sustainability.

Emily Yates:

where we're looking at things like, how can we increase our contribution

Emily Yates:

for renewable energy to the grid, but also how can we become more sustainable

Emily Yates:

as a transportation authority, both in the buildings that we build, in

Emily Yates:

our depots, and also the vehicles that we put out into communities.

Paul Comfort:

That's good.

Paul Comfort:

You know, I don't know if you know, but that's how, when I was CEO

Paul Comfort:

in Baltimore, that's how I set up our Chief Innovation Officer too.

Paul Comfort:

I put him over the Office of Performance Metrics.

Paul Comfort:

I put that person as the CIO.

Paul Comfort:

Because I think that our innovations need to be data driven.

Paul Comfort:

and they can't just be some great pie in the sky idea.

Paul Comfort:

And if somebody doesn't have other responsibilities under

Paul Comfort:

them, I think the data should always be driving our innovation.

Paul Comfort:

I mean, do you, does that make sense to you?

Emily Yates:

A hundred percent.

Emily Yates:

I couldn't agree with you more.

Emily Yates:

I do think having data within the innovation department is critical.

Emily Yates:

I also think it helps drive creative ways of using data, right?

Emily Yates:

We have a ton of it.

Emily Yates:

how can we create better, more informative data sets that really help

Emily Yates:

us, be more responsible spenders of our taxpayer dollars, but also how can

Emily Yates:

we start to think creatively, about how that data can form, the ways that

Emily Yates:

we provide services to our riders.

Emily Yates:

So,

Emily Yates:

couldn't agree more

Emily Yates:

. Well,

Paul Comfort:

that's a great segue, I think, to the first topic I wanted to

Paul Comfort:

talk about, which is how you're using, providing better data to customers to give

Paul Comfort:

them a better experience on the vehicle.

Paul Comfort:

As we know, you know, I don't even want to say the word post, it starts

Paul Comfort:

with C O V, so I won't say it because we're trying to get away from that.

Paul Comfort:

But anyway, in this new era of transportation, there really is

Paul Comfort:

a renewed focus on the customer.

Paul Comfort:

There's new ridership patterns, and people have other options.

Paul Comfort:

And so, making sure that riders have, the correct, accurate information about when

Paul Comfort:

the bus is going to come is key, right?

Emily Yates:

Absolutely.

Emily Yates:

I don't like to use post COVID either, but I'm going to be risky and throw it out.

Emily Yates:

Um, we actually launched our SEPTA forward strategic plan early on in COVID,

Emily Yates:

which helped us pivot from a nine to five commuter service to really focusing

Emily Yates:

on being the lifestyle transit network that we want to be, which means we

Emily Yates:

want to be the mode of transportation.

Emily Yates:

For all of our riders, whether it's going to work or to doctor's appointments

Emily Yates:

or the grocery store or whatever, and providing real time data and key

Emily Yates:

information to them about detours, because there's always detours, right?

Emily Yates:

There's always some kind of construction going on, especially here in Philadelphia.

Emily Yates:

and.

Emily Yates:

It's just, it's critical in order to get our ridership back up, but it's also

Emily Yates:

important, you know, we've done a lot of studies on things like perception

Emily Yates:

of safety in our system, specifically with relation to gender, fair portion

Emily Yates:

of our riders, in fact, two thirds of our riders are women who, ride our

Emily Yates:

system and do multiple stops, oftentimes with children, and if we don't provide

Emily Yates:

them with correct real time data, it can have a serious effect on their

Emily Yates:

feelings of safety and might make them choose another mode of transit,

Emily Yates:

rather than riding public transit.

Paul Comfort:

That's great.

Paul Comfort:

So tell us some of the specifics of what you're doing with your, you

Paul Comfort:

know, e ink schedules and adding, the ability to not fold up your

Paul Comfort:

stroller, et cetera, on the bus.

Paul Comfort:

Walk us through those.

Paul Comfort:

Those are really interesting innovations.

Emily Yates:

Sure.

Emily Yates:

so our first one is, is I'm really excited.

Emily Yates:

we just hired an innovation manager about six months ago and she got to

Emily Yates:

work on issuing an RFP and a really quick amount of time for E Ink screens.

Emily Yates:

And so as part of our bus revolution strategy, which is the first time

Emily Yates:

in 60 years that we've evaluated all of our bus routes for efficiency

Emily Yates:

and service compatibility.

Emily Yates:

we are going to be deploying E Ink screens, which is basically like a Kindle.

Emily Yates:

but their solar power is what we're hoping.

Emily Yates:

So we don't want to have to deal with, connecting to the power, in the ground.

Emily Yates:

We want really quick deployment.

Emily Yates:

And basically what it'll do is a screen that will update our riders

Emily Yates:

with real time locational information.

Emily Yates:

So if there are delays on our line, We can provide that to them,

Emily Yates:

as well as detours and whatnot.

Emily Yates:

So, just being able to provide real time data at bus stops, which are

Emily Yates:

historically, you know, just a seat or even just a street pole that has, you

Emily Yates:

know, this is where our bus stop is.

Emily Yates:

We'll be able to provide much better information to them, regardless of

Emily Yates:

their ability to utilize technology.

Emily Yates:

So, that's really exciting.

Paul Comfort:

How many of those are you planning to deploy?

Emily Yates:

Initially in the pilot, we're looking to deploy a hundred.

Emily Yates:

So we're looking to do some comparison because we've done kind of a landscape

Emily Yates:

analysis and some people have had a great, experience with them.

Emily Yates:

Some people haven't, and we want to understand how the

Emily Yates:

solar aspect of it works, in our urban canyons here in Philly.

Emily Yates:

so we'll deploy a hundred for a couple of months and, you know, make

Emily Yates:

sure we're tracking metrics on that.

Emily Yates:

And then we are looking to scale it up to 700, within the next year or two.

Emily Yates:

Okay, so it'll be a quick pilot.

Emily Yates:

and then with regards to our micromobility strategy, which we launched last year,

Emily Yates:

it's really looking at how we can connect folks better to our system.

Emily Yates:

So we recognize that a lot of people are riding bikes, riding the e scooters

Emily Yates:

that are darting down the street.

Emily Yates:

and we didn't really have clear guidance about how those, how Modes

Emily Yates:

connect to our, transit and what's the best way to utilize them.

Emily Yates:

we also, again, going back to the fact that women are a large portion

Emily Yates:

of our ridership, recognize that historically we've asked people to

Emily Yates:

close up their strollers, and take the children out of them and board

Emily Yates:

our buses, as a means of safety.

Emily Yates:

We now know that's not necessarily critical, and so we've, made the

Emily Yates:

recommendation that strollers do not have to be closed up if space allows.

Emily Yates:

Right?

Emily Yates:

That's the most important thing is we know that our buses are crowded and

Emily Yates:

we want to maintain safety on them.

Emily Yates:

And if it's super crowded, you do have to close your stroller, but that's

Emily Yates:

at the discretion of our operators.

Emily Yates:

but we've also, gone as far as to procure new buses, with space for strollers now.

Emily Yates:

So we're doing a seating reconfiguration that allows for, a stroller to be stored.

Emily Yates:

open.

Emily Yates:

And we hope that this really helps make it easier for our riders to ride our system

Emily Yates:

and not have to, you know, lug a toddler, a baby, and a stroller onto a bus,

Emily Yates:

which is, as a mother, I've experienced that and can be quite challenging.

Paul Comfort:

Yeah, that's great.

Paul Comfort:

And shopping carts, anything with those?

Emily Yates:

Shopping carts are included.

Emily Yates:

So, you know, if a person is coming on with their heavy shopping cart, they are

Emily Yates:

not required to offload the groceries or whatever is in it and close it up.

Emily Yates:

So really, again, just meeting people where they're at.

Paul Comfort:

That's great.

Paul Comfort:

And you mentioned tying in microtransit and sustainability

Paul Comfort:

with the scooters and all that.

Paul Comfort:

what exactly are you doing there?

Emily Yates:

There's concerns around e vehicles on our system in terms

Emily Yates:

of safety, the batteries are a huge component of concern, not necessarily

Emily Yates:

the new batteries, but the ones that have been retrofitted or updated, Those

Emily Yates:

tend to have a higher rate of fire.

Emily Yates:

And as we know with lithium batteries, they can be hard to put out.

Emily Yates:

So we just wanted to provide guidance around when we're allowing those

Emily Yates:

on our system, how we're allowing them, and really just kind of

Emily Yates:

be clearer with our guidance on

Paul Comfort:

those.

Paul Comfort:

Let's talk a process question if we could, and that is, so your office will

Paul Comfort:

analyze, for instance, you analyze, let's use this one as an example, two

Paul Comfort:

thirds of our riders are women, we know that they sometimes have children

Paul Comfort:

with them, a lot of times have children with them, and we're going to make

Paul Comfort:

a recommendation that they not be required to fold up their stroller.

Paul Comfort:

Walk me through the process of how something like that gets approved.

Paul Comfort:

So you have a recommendation and then what happens?

Emily Yates:

so we submitted, we went to the board for, well, I would

Emily Yates:

say, first of all, the important thing is to get the internal buy in.

Emily Yates:

And so, Ann Tiska, my sustainability manager who ran the project,

Emily Yates:

did a lot of internal meetings.

Emily Yates:

We worked with our vehicle and engineering folks on, the bus layout.

Emily Yates:

We worked with, our operators to make sure that they understood the new policy

Emily Yates:

so that they weren't, issuing guidance in contrast to what the policy says.

Emily Yates:

We updated all of our websites.

Emily Yates:

to reflect this new policy change and made sure that it was coordinated

Emily Yates:

across all forms of communication.

Emily Yates:

And we ultimately took it to our board and, presented it

Emily Yates:

to them and got their support.

Emily Yates:

But it was just a lot of internal buy in, and making sure that the

Emily Yates:

communication was, organization wide in order for it to be fully implemented.

Emily Yates:

And now we're working on procuring the buses with the spaces, making sure that

Emily Yates:

the signage internally is very clear about these are spaces for strollers.

Emily Yates:

or carts, and, you know, working on announcements to let

Emily Yates:

our riders know this update.

Paul Comfort:

And would you be able to give us like a estimated timeline from

Paul Comfort:

the time you all thought of the idea through working it out, getting Leslie's

Paul Comfort:

approval, and then taking it to the board?

Paul Comfort:

How long does something like that take?

Emily Yates:

I would say it was about a year or so.

Paul Comfort:

That's great.

Paul Comfort:

And I really appreciate you walking us through the steps

Paul Comfort:

because, you I don't want people to think that innovation is easy.

Paul Comfort:

Change is never easy.

Paul Comfort:

even something that makes sense to a lot of people, Oh yeah,

Paul Comfort:

you know, this makes sense.

Paul Comfort:

We want to serve, put our customers first.

Paul Comfort:

The process you go through involves a lot of stakeholders, doesn't it?

Emily Yates:

100%.

Emily Yates:

And I think, you know, I always joke that you don't go into

Emily Yates:

innovation to make friends, right?

Emily Yates:

Because you're expecting change and people are going to be, annoyed

Emily Yates:

with you because what, what's been happening has been working.

Emily Yates:

and that's kind of a sentiment we have here at SEPTA.

Emily Yates:

Is, you know, what we had in place was working, from perception, but what we

Emily Yates:

knew from looking at surveys and feedback, and recognizing that in this shift

Emily Yates:

from commuters to lifestyle network, we really need to focus on those who were

Emily Yates:

riding our system a lot, and this is just another way that we could, meet some of

Emily Yates:

our critical riders, where they're at, and, you know, You know, it was a lot

Emily Yates:

of culture change and getting kind of, okay, we've seen this happen elsewhere.

Emily Yates:

We're not, leading in this space, right?

Emily Yates:

We're not the first to try this.

Emily Yates:

So we know that it's safety, it complies with FTA, requirements and whatnot.

Emily Yates:

It's just, we've got to change the way we think about who our riders are.

Paul Comfort:

Now let's take a shift if we can from, one group of customers,

Paul Comfort:

which is your passengers, to another internal group of customers, which

Paul Comfort:

are your operators, your fixed route bus operators, your rail operators,

Paul Comfort:

your paratransit drivers, operator safety and well being, is critical.

Paul Comfort:

a lot of focus has been paid to, You know, mental health , but there's

Paul Comfort:

also the actual physical health of our operators, and you're taking action there.

Paul Comfort:

Tell us about that, Emily.

Emily Yates:

Yeah, the unfortunate part of this that drives a lot of

Emily Yates:

this conversation around, say, our operators mental health is that they

Emily Yates:

experience some traumatic events while they're providing services.

Emily Yates:

Philly is no stranger, the city of Philadelphia is no stranger to

Emily Yates:

violence on our streets, as any city really is, any large city, right?

Emily Yates:

and so, our drivers have experienced trauma and Innovation saw an

Emily Yates:

opportunity, to step in and say, you know, is there an opportunity

Emily Yates:

to address some of the concerns around our operators' mental health?

Emily Yates:

We already have a, somewhat of a process in place, but as is

Emily Yates:

pretty standard, I would say.

Emily Yates:

It's not a standard operating procedure, right?

Emily Yates:

We have support, but what is the actual process?

Emily Yates:

And so, Innovation wants to step in, and we've had a few handful of

Emily Yates:

conversations around how can we use technology to help address this.

Emily Yates:

Some of the issues are around things like, the belief that some operators

Emily Yates:

feel that they don't need therapy, or they don't need to talk to somebody

Emily Yates:

after experiencing a traumatic event.

Emily Yates:

but then a few days later, they'll say, you know, I

Emily Yates:

actually, I can't drive right now.

Emily Yates:

I'm really upset from what I witnessed the other day.

Emily Yates:

And so can we insert some sort of innovation, whether it's on

Emily Yates:

call, therapy, is it, providing a special, room where there's privacy.

Emily Yates:

you know, is it formalizing a standard, operating procedure around this?

Emily Yates:

But, it's really important to us that our operators feel that they're supported

Emily Yates:

in any and all aspects of their work.

Emily Yates:

and this is just one that, you know, is really prevalent right now due

Emily Yates:

to just what we're experiencing on the streets and around our services.

Paul Comfort:

what about overall physical, safety?

Paul Comfort:

I mean, there's been a rash of.

Paul Comfort:

violence against drivers, or potential violence against operators in a

Paul Comfort:

lot of cities across the country.

Paul Comfort:

What are you doing at SEPTA to address that with cameras, AI, et cetera?

Emily Yates:

So we're deploying, some technology in our stations.

Emily Yates:

I'm working closely with the police department.

Emily Yates:

actually my team is working closely with the police department and SCOPE,

Emily Yates:

which is our, the service we provide to individuals that experience homelessness

Emily Yates:

or drug addiction, within our system.

Emily Yates:

And we're deploying technology onto our cameras, which are one of our best assets.

Emily Yates:

We have over 3, 000 cameras alone on our subway and elevated system.

Emily Yates:

So our, Broad Street line and our market Frankfurt line, we tested

Emily Yates:

a pilot recently for about a year.

Emily Yates:

It was looking at gunshot detection or weapons detection, rather,

Emily Yates:

sorry, not gunshot detection.

Emily Yates:

and we really, it was an R& D partnership because the company

Emily Yates:

we were partnering with had never really deployed at a transportation.

Emily Yates:

system.

Emily Yates:

They had deployed in schools and been really successful.

Emily Yates:

They were a local organization.

Emily Yates:

and so we tested it on our infrastructure, which consisted of

Emily Yates:

analog and digital cameras, right?

Emily Yates:

We have some legacy infrastructure that we're working with and trying

Emily Yates:

to upgrade, but at the time we had about 50 50 in terms of cameras.

Emily Yates:

we deployed it on 300 cameras in 10 stations.

Emily Yates:

and.

Emily Yates:

Just experience challenges both with the algorithm itself.

Emily Yates:

and then also our situation.

Emily Yates:

as you know, Paul, transportation stations below ground can

Emily Yates:

often be a little bit dark.

Emily Yates:

it can be a little bit crowded and those make it really hard to

Emily Yates:

do things like weapons detection.

Emily Yates:

and so we.

Emily Yates:

ended that pilot and determined that it wasn't in the best interest to

Emily Yates:

scale it up further given some of the constraints that we had experienced,

Emily Yates:

but we're still committed to identifying, a technology solution.

Emily Yates:

So we're looking at other algorithms that can work given our, given

Emily Yates:

what we learned from that pilot.

Emily Yates:

you know, maybe it's not weapons detection, but it's better tracking

Emily Yates:

individuals through our system once an event has happened.

Emily Yates:

So we know where somebody came in, where somebody left, and we can better support

Emily Yates:

the City of Philadelphia Police in.

Emily Yates:

capturing the individual who committed a crime on our system.

Emily Yates:

so we're doing that.

Emily Yates:

I think also is important, is we're partnering with New

Emily Yates:

Flyer, our vehicles team.

Emily Yates:

I can't claim this as innovation, but I think it's important to share that we're

Emily Yates:

looking at ballistics, for, you know, For protecting our drivers, you know,

Emily Yates:

making sure that they're protected if some individual chooses to bring a weapon on

Emily Yates:

our vehicles, and, you know, making sure that we're addressing their concerns.

Emily Yates:

This is what they've asked us to look into.

Emily Yates:

And so we're partnering with New Flyer to explore this because

Emily Yates:

it's never been done before.

Paul Comfort:

Wow, that's interesting.

Paul Comfort:

And then finally, speaking about vehicles, let's move into zero emission buses.

Paul Comfort:

This is a hot topic this spring.

Paul Comfort:

It's probably the hottest topic of discussion among

Paul Comfort:

executives of transit agencies.

Paul Comfort:

What are you all doing there at SEPTA in Philadelphia?

Emily Yates:

Yeah, so we're in the exact same boat.

Emily Yates:

you know, I think the rate of innovation that's happening, especially with this

Emily Yates:

massive infusion of funds from the federal government is really going to change

Emily Yates:

the landscape of zero emission buses.

Emily Yates:

Everybody that I'm aware of has a mandate to transition their fleet.

Emily Yates:

We're committed to transitioning to a fully zero emission fleet

Emily Yates:

by 2040, which, you know, is 16 years away, but in transportation

Emily Yates:

authority time, that's not too far.

Paul Comfort:

No, because you have 12 years of a life cycle of

Paul Comfort:

a bus, which means you have to get started within a few years.

Emily Yates:

Exactly, and we were early adopters.

Emily Yates:

We were really committed, you know, we didn't commit to CNG, that didn't

Emily Yates:

make sense for us as a transportation authority, but we did purchase 25 battery

Emily Yates:

electric vehicles in 2016, battery electric buses rather, and we were, you

Emily Yates:

know, a little bit, bitten on that in terms of we had the buses operating for

Emily Yates:

a short period of time before we had to remove them from service and haven't been

Emily Yates:

able to bring them back into service.

Emily Yates:

and so now what we're looking at is, lessons learned from that.

Emily Yates:

it hasn't completely removed us from the battery electric space, largely because

Emily Yates:

there has been so much innovation, but it has made us look more deeply at

Emily Yates:

what buses make the most sense for us.

Emily Yates:

We're pretty confident that it will be a mixed fleet because

Emily Yates:

of the variety of scales.

Emily Yates:

Scale in terms of the routes we serve, right?

Emily Yates:

We have very short routes here in the City of Philadelphia.

Emily Yates:

But then we also drive on the highway and connect to our suburbs.

Emily Yates:

And so those are longer routes.

Emily Yates:

And we, you know, we think that maybe our shorter routes will be better

Emily Yates:

suited for battery electric, where we can do on route charging, and the

Emily Yates:

longer routes might be more, better, for fuel cell buses, where we think

Emily Yates:

that the long range will help us, right?

Emily Yates:

But there's a lot of proving that we have to do.

Emily Yates:

We don't know a lot of, we always say we don't know what we don't know.

Emily Yates:

the TVMs say that buses, hydrogen buses can get 300 miles per hour

Emily Yates:

and that, you know, fueling is very similar to our diesel hybrid.

Emily Yates:

but we don't know yet because we haven't tested out in our local context.

Emily Yates:

We're going to be implementing a variety of pilots, which I'm really excited for.

Emily Yates:

We've got, we have 10 fuel cell hydrogen buses coming to us,

Emily Yates:

in early fall, late summer.

Emily Yates:

We have a mobile fueling station.

Emily Yates:

As well, and we're really excited to just see what that means.

Emily Yates:

we're going to do 10 battery electric buses as well, so we can

Emily Yates:

do more of an apples to apples in terms of new vehicle comparison.

Emily Yates:

We're going to get, 5 fuel cell and 5, battery electric articulated buses or 60

Emily Yates:

footers as well to just really understand what, the spatial demands of what those

Emily Yates:

are, operationally, if they work as promised, as marketed, and the project I'm

Emily Yates:

really excited for, because I think it's a great tool to have in our zero emission

Emily Yates:

transition toolkit, is a pilot we're doing to transition 12 of our, diesel hybrid

Emily Yates:

buses from 2018, into battery electric.

Emily Yates:

So we're partnering with the company to, develop battery electric kits and then

Emily Yates:

have our mechanics install those kits.

Emily Yates:

And hopefully in time for the World Cup in 2026, it's coming to

Emily Yates:

Philadelphia, But this is a lower cost way of transitioning fleets.

Emily Yates:

And I, you know, we don't know yet again, what we don't know, but,

Emily Yates:

looking at the bus market in terms of supply chain challenges, TVMs that

Emily Yates:

are available or, you know, are able to accept federal dollars and provide

Emily Yates:

us with battery electric or fuel cell buses is a smaller group now.

Emily Yates:

So we just anticipate that there's going to be a little bit of delay as

Emily Yates:

the demand increases for these vehicles and being able to transition some of our

Emily Yates:

vehicles at the vehicle overhaul point, is really exciting for us to test out.

Emily Yates:

And so we're, we've committed to doing 12 vehicles.

Emily Yates:

to see if this is something that works for us.

Emily Yates:

The great thing too is that once we develop the battery

Emily Yates:

electric kit, it's really easy to develop a fuel cell kit, right?

Emily Yates:

Because it's just adding the propulsion component onto the battery electric.

Emily Yates:

should it be successful, look at how we can do, fuel cell as well.

Emily Yates:

The other exciting thing, you can tell I'm excited because I just can't stop talking

Emily Yates:

about it, is that there's an economic development component to it, right?

Emily Yates:

The company is looking to locate their headquarters here in Philadelphia.

Emily Yates:

We'd love to become a hub for this kind of, work where, you know, MTA

Emily Yates:

and WMATA bring their buses up here and we can help them transition.

Emily Yates:

But there's also a workforce development component.

Emily Yates:

And that's something that we're looking at in the ZEB space as well as how do

Emily Yates:

we train our mechanics, who are amazing.

Emily Yates:

I, like, one of my favorite things is to go out to our facility in Barrage and just

Emily Yates:

see all that we can do with our buses.

Emily Yates:

You know, you talked about a 12 year lifespan.

Emily Yates:

We actually are able to keep our buses operating for 15 years, because of the

Emily Yates:

great work that our mechanics do here.

Emily Yates:

and this, you know, having them install the battery electric kit will train them

Emily Yates:

on how to maintain and better understand how a battery electric bus works.

Emily Yates:

So there's lots of benefits, to that pilot as well.

Emily Yates:

And, you know, we're looking to have, to make data informed decisions

Emily Yates:

about what the mix of our fleet is.

Emily Yates:

in 2026, hopefully, so we can start to procure, vehicles and kind of queue

Emily Yates:

those up to, to support the transition.

Paul Comfort:

And about how many buses, SEPTA operates?

Emily Yates:

We do, we operate over 1, 300.

Paul Comfort:

Okay, yeah, big fleet, very big.

Paul Comfort:

Big,

Emily Yates:

Very big fleet.

Emily Yates:

Buses are our biggest, you know, are 50 percent of our rides on a given

Paul Comfort:

weekday.

Paul Comfort:

Well, Emily, this is fascinating to see all the things you're working on there.

Paul Comfort:

You've got a full plate.

Paul Comfort:

How many staff do you have to help you with this?

Emily Yates:

I have nine.

Emily Yates:

Well, actually, my team just grew because we added traffic

Emily Yates:

checkers to the data program.

Emily Yates:

So, 12 on my team.

Emily Yates:

Very good.

Emily Yates:

They're all very passionate and good collaborators because this

Emily Yates:

requires more than my team.

Emily Yates:

I think that's the exciting part is innovation is collaboration

Emily Yates:

and couldn't do this without our colleagues across the organization.

Paul Comfort:

That's great.

Paul Comfort:

Any final closing thoughts you want to share about innovation in general or

Paul Comfort:

where you think the industry is going?

Emily Yates:

I just think that there's.

Emily Yates:

You know, with the zero emission buses and vehicles coming out, with AI and

Emily Yates:

chat GPT and the language learning models, there's so much opportunity to,

Emily Yates:

address a lot of the challenges that we're seeing coming down the pipeline

Emily Yates:

in terms of workforce challenges.

Emily Yates:

In terms of how do we create more efficiencies with limited budgets and

Emily Yates:

maybe not the ridership that we want, that is just a really exciting space to be in.

Emily Yates:

you know, innovation is something that's critical to every

Emily Yates:

transportation authority in my mind.

Emily Yates:

and I'm excited to stay in contact with you, but also to see what my peers are

Emily Yates:

doing and that can benefit SEPTA as well.

Paul Comfort:

Very good.

Paul Comfort:

We wish you all the best as you continue to innovate in one of the

Paul Comfort:

nation's largest transit systems.

Emily Yates:

Thank you so much.

Tris Hussey:

This is Tris Hussey editor of the transit unplugged podcast.

Tris Hussey:

Thank you for listening to this episode with our special guest.

Tris Hussey:

Emily Yates.

Tris Hussey:

Now coming up next week on the show, we're celebrating the

Tris Hussey:

release of Paul's latest book.

Tris Hussey:

The new future of public transportation.

Tris Hussey:

We have interviews with two of the contributors from the book Dr.

Tris Hussey:

Karen Philbrick Executive Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute.

Tris Hussey:

And Paige Malott who is a researcher on high-speed rail for the

Tris Hussey:

international union of railways.

Tris Hussey:

And if you have a question for Paul about public transportation, you

Tris Hussey:

can email him at Paul Comfort at transit unplugged.com and ask him.

Tris Hussey:

He'll read it and he may even read and answer your question

Tris Hussey:

on this podcast in the future.

Tris Hussey:

Transit Unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

Tris Hussey:

At Modaxo.

Tris Hussey:

we're passionate about moving the world's people and at Transit Unplugged, we're

Tris Hussey:

passionate about telling those stories.

Tris Hussey:

So until next week ride safe and ride happy.