How Tiffany Gunter Drove a 40% Ridership Increase on SMART’s Busiest Routes

Today we take you to the Motor City.

I'm Paul Comfort and this is Transit Unplugged.

Today's guest is Tiffany Gunter.

She's the CEO of SMART or the Suburban Mobility Authority for

Regional Transportation in Detroit.

We sat down together in person at the Think Transit Conference in Boston

just recently and recorded this great interview where Tiffany discusses her

career journey, what led her through the local MPO to the CEO role there at SMART.

She also demonstrates how she's a hands-on leader, getting deeply involved in the

day-to-day affairs of the operation.

I remember when I met her, um, maybe a year ago for filming our Detroit

TV, uh, transit Unplugged TV show.

She was the deputy CEO at the time.

And I remember when I interviewed her, I said, what's next on your plate?

And she said something like, I want to, uh, we gotta fix

the plumbing in building nine.

You know, so even then she was always really, uh, hands-on leader, but she

also notes the importance of staying connected to the elected leaders and

the decision makers in her region.

She's got a real passion for Detroit, I think that comes through

to today, and she's got a vision for how SMART is helping the

Detroit region in its resurgence as one of America's amazing cities.

I was so impressed with Detroit when I went back there last year to film

our episode, and Tiffany's gonna share even more about what their transit

system is doing now, moving forward.

Join me in this conversation recorded live in Boston with Tiffany Gunter.

The CEO of SMART in Detroit.

Great to be with my friend Tiffany Gunter, who is CEO of SMART in Detroit, and we're

here at the Think Transit Conference.

Thanks, Tiffany for being on the show.

Thank you for having me.

Tiffany and I are old friends.

Uh, how long have we known each other?

Maybe 10 years, eight to 10 years

Longer than that.

We, I think we met in two.

Thousand six in Atlanta at a conference.

And what were you doing back then?

So, uh, I was the transportation planner for SEMCOG, the Metropolitan planning,

uh, organization in, in metro Detroit.

Isn't that something?

Wow.

And I had you on a panel, right?

You did.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was fun.

I remember that.

but we're here at Think Transit.

This is the, uh, conference we do once a year where we have an executive summit.

We had about 70 people in a room all day yesterday for the

Think Transit Executive Summit.

What'd you of that?

Oh, it was wonderful.

I, you know, we had a great exchange.

The networking was amazing.

Listening to conversations about how to deal with fare technology and AI

integration for your organizations and recognizing that we're all kind of

in the same boat and trying to figure things out was really helpful, very

validating for us and it, it kind of set us on a path for what to do next.

So I really appreciated the discussion.

when I put these agendas together, invite people to it, I like to try

to, ensure there's good interaction between all the executives there.

Did you have good engagement and meet a lot of people and stuff?

Absolutely.

The tone and tenor was, it was really chill.

It was a chill vibe, right?

Yes.

Um, we had a lot of fun yesterday at our evening event, uh, and I got to

meet people who I've been looking at and knowing on LinkedIn for so long

and got to have conversations with them and meaningful conversations.

So that was, the networking was wonderful.

That's good.

Now, what'd you think about that last session?

Was that any good?

About the book,

which one?

I, the last session about the book.

Listen, I was so into that conversation.

The X Factor is something that I, you know, I, I leaned in, I think

everybody in the room really heard and understood when your passion and your

ability intersect and what that can create, it's, it's almost, it's like

explo, it's exponential growth, right?

It comes from that when you enjoy what you do every day.

Yes.

That is something that we get to enjoy.

I think it might be particularly unique to the public transit industry

because we get to help people.

And also we get to problem solve so many things.

It's like a kid in a candy shop some days.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've seen you really come into your own, Tiffany in this role as CEO.

Do you feel like you have found your X-Factor?

I definitely feel as if I've found my X Factor.

funny story when I, got into, I didn't start in public transportation, I don't

think any of us actually intend to

Yeah.

Necessarily go this way.

We kind of fall into it.

I remember working in a private sector.

I sent a joke email to a old professor of mine at U of M and he happened

to be the HR director at SEMCOG.

And he's like, here's a job position that I think you'd be great at.

It was for Urban Planner.

And I was like, okay, I don't know what this is exactly.

So I go in, I interview with the guys, Carmen Palombo and Jerry Rowe.

And in the interview I'm like looking at the long range plan going, do

you guys want anybody to read this?

Because it, it's not all that it, it's not all that engaging,

but it's great information there.

Like, what do you, what would you do?

And you know, this is early two thousands.

I'm like, have you heard of infographics?

Maybe a different way to tell a story.

And I just knew.

I went in there, I messed this interview up 'cause I might

have been too much, right?

They called me before I got to my car and offered me the job and I was like, they

told me how much it paid and I was in the private sector and I was like, whoa.

Not very much, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's gonna be a, that's gonna be a little different.

Welcome to the reality check of government work.

You don't, you don't go rich in usually these jobs.

Yeah.

But the work, it was so intriguing to me and what I had been doing at

the time, I wasn't that into it.

I didn't have a passion for it.

So I said, well, let's give this a shot.

I'm a kid, I'm young, I can adapt.

Right?

Yeah.

So I had just graduated from college.

I was kind of, you know, high on my own intelligence, all the things, right?

And so I asked them, what's the hardest thing you have to do here?

And I got a chuckle.

Oh, that's an interesting question.

The hardest thing, huh?

Yes.

And I got a little chuckle and they said, give her public transit.

Wow.

And I was like, I don't know really, what that means, but I'll find out.

And they weren't kidding.

It is not easy, but man, once you get into it, it's almost like

you, it's, if you're a puzzler.

And you like to solve problems, you can't stop doing it until you feel

as if you've seen some progress.

And there are certain things that are a lot of delayed gratification

in public transportation, but there's a lot of things that you

can get instant gratification from.

And I like to kinda weave my way in between the two.

Yeah.

Day-to-day, still even.

So last time you and I were together I was in Detroit filming an episode

of our Transit Unplugged TV show.

That was last year sometime.

And uh, you were deputy CEO then I remember interviewing you on the bus.

We were going to the what, Rosa Parks Transit Center maybe?

I, yes.

On the bus?

Yes.

Yes we were.

And um.

I was very surprised as deputy, you're kind of responsible for the day-to-day

operations of the whole agency, but you were like super into the weeds.

I was like, what's next on your plate, Tiffany?

Well, we gotta fix the plumbing in building four or something like that.

And I said, wow, she's, is that what you mean by when you say

you, you're getting immediate gratification for those kind of things?

Exactly that.

Yeah.

Is that you can see a problem and if you go to fix it, it's not just instant.

There are things that I get from that long term when I roll my sleeves up

and show up for the team, they see that and they, they, that's how you

exemplify leadership as being present.

Right.

And so, you know, I'm known for my 3:30 AM runs at the terminals.

I gotta see first pull.

You can't.

Expect for

I love that

them to come and experience it.

And you don't experience it too.

so at first it was a little weird 'cause everybody thought they were getting

fired when I showed up at 3:00 AM

Oh yeah, yeah.

And I was like, no, no, I'm not.

Come I come in peace.

Yeah.

I just want to observe it so I can understand it too.

I didn't come up in O&M, I came up on the policy side.

Okay.

So I'm actually fascinated by what we do every day.

I think it's beautiful when you watch those buses pull from the garage.

Yes.

It is something that you, people don't experience transit that way they see it

one bus at a time, one shelter at a time.

But when you see the magnitude of that first school,

yeah, it's like a ballet dance, isn't it?

It's a beautiful thing.

Yeah.

And I, and I try to help my operators understand my vantage

point in what I see, so that they can also have pride in what they do.

They are delivering a real service that is necessary and needed.

Yeah.

For the region every day.

Let's take that one step further.

I, you and I were having an earlier conversation and you were talking

about not only do you get out there at three in the morning, but sometimes

you'll have a staff meeting where you have all your staff come out.

Tiffany, that is wonderful.

Oh, yeah.

So many times the administrative staff don't really get into the

operations, and they're even in separate buildings and they don't see what's

happening, and it's like they lose track of what we're really doing here.

That absolutely does happen.

So my, my executive leadership team, they didn't love it when

I first let 'em know, but, uh,

really?

Yeah.

We are gonna have our, our staff meeting at 3:00 AM and there was some

grumbles of course, and I laughed.

I said, don't worry guys.

I do it.

And it does it, it hurts.

But the thing is, our operators are doing it every day.

Come on.

Exactly.

So, come on, let's go, let's go do this.

And so we, we went for our first run, and it was cold.

It was like 27 degrees outside.

You know, I said, bundle up.

'cause we gonna be, we're gonna be outside.

and what I saw happening was you walked in kind of with that cloak

of frustration on you, right?

Yeah.

And as they started to get into it, as they heard the roar of the engines

that they were getting started.

Mm, it's the maintenance

--. Visceral.

Yeah.

It got visceral and it was like, oh, is this how it works?

Oh, is this what a pre trip inspection looks like?

All these little things that they've heard being said in random meetings.

Now they're seeing it live action.

And then I said, okay guys, we pull from the garage at 3:45.

Let's go stand outside, get out of the way.

Mm-hmm.

And let and watch 'em cook.

Right?

They started seeing it and it was like, wow, you saw the light bulbs going off.

That may have been one of our best leadership team meetings, 'cause

we had the meeting immediately following at 4:30 in the morning.

They were in on fire, they were energized.

Yes.

So now when it's time to go out, first thing in the morning, they're ready.

They're like, what garage are we hitting?

You know, what are we doing when we get there?

Yeah.

And I'll tell you too, we had some issues at one of the

garages with the, um, bus wash.

It was down in the middle of winter.

And if you know Detroit in the middle of winter.

Bus wash down, you got salt, and snow.

And it's just a, it's a mess.

Right?

Right.

And so we get there and the vehicles, they wiped them down, but they're not,

there's one window with, I know if I'm a driver, I need to see out of that window.

And I saw one operator come out and he's got this squeegee and

he is washing this one window.

And I was like, guys, that's not right.

They shouldn't have to do this as part of their pre-trip, they should have

the expectation of a clean bus, a clean vehicle to drive when they get to work.

So we all went and got buckets and squeegees and at 3:00

AM we were washing windows.

Look at that.

That's awesome.

That's public service.

That's what you're supposed to do, right?

I had a couple team members were like, I don't even know how to use a squeegee.

They're young.

And I was like, let me, let me show you.

'cause they were bad at it.

Yeah.

So we, we, we did a couple, windows, but then it was okay, we can't be

here every day to do this, obviously, but let's make sure that our bus

cleaners know while they do a good job of getting that front window clean.

If our bus washes down, at least hit those places where you have blind spots.

And so we changed the game, had the conversation with the folks at night.

They said, oh man, we didn't even think about that.

They started doing it.

Bus operators said, thank you.

You're welcome.

That's good.

It's our pleasure.

Yeah.

You know

how long were you deputy?

three and a half years.

Three and a half years.

Yeah.

Deputy

and were you doing right before that, before you got the job?

Deputy?

I've been, you know, I, I joke I was a deputy 12 years.

Um, and so I was at the, actually, let me.

Oh, I gotta think about it.

I went to SEMCOG.

I went back to SEMCOG.

Okay.

Alright.

For a short while.

I went there for a year to work with their executive director on a project.

saw that through to fruition.

But before that, I, I tried to get out of public transit.

I don't know if people know this.

It's kind of, I'm telling about myself now.

And so we have the Regional Transit Authority.

It's kind of like the overarching authority that

distributes federal funding to,

and that's Ben.

That's Ben Stupka, yeah.

Yep.

So he runs the RTA, then you have the Detroit system, DDOT.

they stay within that jurisdiction.

for the city they carry, uh, between us we carry like 23 million passengers a year.

And, and what are the operations they operate?

Robert Cramer.

What's, what's his operations?

He's bus fixed route bus.

And then he's got, uh,

well he's got the people mover as well's.

The people mover.

That's, yeah.

Yeah.

And I almost forgot the RTA has the Q line now.

That's right.

They inherited the Q line.

A light rail line, right?

Yeah.

It's a light rail that goes in the downtown east.

Yeah, I rode on that.

That's all on the show.

You did?

Yeah.

That's a great,

that's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So,

and then you're in the suburbs, but you bring people into the city, right?

Absolutely.

So that's how our system works.

Kinda that Pace CTA deal, so when I was at the RTA, I actually

worked with Ben at the RTA.

He was my chief planner when I was running the RTA.

Oh, is that right?

That's funny.

Yes.

We, we all know each other.

Yeah, that's good.

And so we lost by a percentage point, 18,000 votes took it down and I said,

I need, I need, I, I worked on it for 12 years and then that happened.

So I said, I'm gonna take a break.

I went into city management.

Woo.

We, I worked in the city of Birmingham, Michigan, and it's one of the most

affluent communities in the region.

And when I say that was intense engagement, I was parking

director and deputy city manager.

And, we had a lot of issues with parking.

'cause 70,000 people a day wanted to come to Birmingham and

it was like 3.9 square miles.

Why, what's there?

A lot of money.

A lot of shopping.

A lot of eating, a lot of the good things that people wanna come see.

So you had your employees coming in and then you had all the people that

wanted to visit the city and it was every day and it was all year long.

It wasn't seasonal.

Yeah.

And so we had five municipal parking structures and I was responsible for them.

I'm not a civil engineer but I do have eyes.

And so what I did was I said, I have to learn this job.

I have to walk around and figure out what do I need to know.

And, What I realized was their infrastructure wasn't great.

With all the money in that community.

Their infrastructure needed help.

So I hired an independent consultant to come in and assess them.

While that was happening, a 350 pound aggregate concrete block fell on

a car that was exiting the garage.

And thank goodness no one was in the passenger seat of that vehicle.

I shut the entire garage down.

That was my lesson in learning how to do the hard things

because I was really unpopular.

70,000 people needing a place to park, and suddenly 300 parking spaces pulled

from the system because of safety.

I kind of went on a tangent there for you, so I'm gonna bring it back to transit.

Okay.

So, I did that for a while, but I recognized that I'd missed mobility.

I understood parking cars, and it was the irony of looking at the vehicle

sitting there and then showing up and then saying, I can actually move

people more effectively and I got an opportunity to come back to public

transportation, so I'm back and I don't think I'm gonna leave again this time.

Yeah.

Um, so that's a, that's the structure of how we're set up.

That's kind of how I meandered my way back into public transportation.

And what I see in looking at and understanding transit is

understanding the state of good repair.

And facilities and how you treat your people, how that matters.

That's what we're working on right now as well.

You got a call recently?

hope you don't mind me telling a little bit of the story, but I think

it tells, uh, I'm, I'm actually making notes as we talk about keys

to success, and at the end I'm gonna summarize for you what I think they are.

You tell me if I'm right or wrong,

okay?

But you gotta call late on a Friday night.

You're on the couch with your kids watching TV, with your son watching TV.

What was that call?

a ceiling tile at one of the terminals had come down and, and it was in a dispatch

area where employees were actively working and it was due to a leak in the roof.

we had a, a, a lot of deferred maintenance in the garages over the years, and it's

starting to come to the point where we're seeing the effects of it, right.

So they called me, like I said, I was in my bonnet, I was chilling, you know,

it was Friday, I was taking a beat and.

I could have let the team tell me what it was and stay home, but I said I need

to go, you know, if I'm a dispatcher and I'm sitting in that office and

the ceiling tile comes down on me or near me, I'm probably thinking about

quitting and finding another job.

Right?

Yeah.

So that's where, you know, presence matters.

And so I showed up.

I took the bonnet off though.

Um, but I had on my hoodie.

You know, I wasn't, I wasn't putting on dress clothes.

I wanted to come figure it out.

So we, we wandered around that, that terminal.

I was not beyond getting on a ladder with the flashlight, trying to figure

out where the issues were, if we could, pressure test, the snow was melting and

that's essentially what was happening.

Okay.

The, things were melting and we were finding out what the damage was

and we were sectioning off places.

I moved the dispatch team and I talked to 'em.

I said, Hey, I can imagine what you might be thinking.

And I was accountable.

I told 'em the truth.

here's how I would feel if I were you.

And I understand that, but here's what I'm gonna do to try to make it better.

We sent them home for a couple of days while we prepared another

area for them to work from.

And they work from home.

And they work from home.

Yeah.

You know, benefits, I guess that you can say that came out of the pandemic.

Right.

and we brought 'em back to work.

Uh, put 'em in another area, repaired the roof, and kept going.

One of the greatest benefits outta that was the visibility piece

that I didn't know at the time.

It was just doing what I thought was the right thing, is that people who have

largely been, sort of at odds, that cross purposes with the management side on the

labor side, they saw it and they were like, whoa, you guys showed up for us.

You cared.

and that.

I said there was some instant benefits and able to see the roof and know where

we needed to move and calling out the companies to do some emergency work.

But there's also the long-term benefit of them understanding this is a new day,

new culture, a culture of care at SMART.

Thanks for listening to the Transit Unplugged Podcast.

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Now back to Paul Comfort for this edition of the award-winning

Transit Unplugged podcast.

Tiffany, I I, uh, I hope you don't mind me saying this, but I believe

you're destined for greatness.

Thank you.

I'm not kidding.

I've known you for a while and, uh, I, I knew when we were together

at Detroit riding the bus and I interviewed you and I, I knew right

then, you know, you, you were destined if not to be there somewhere as CEO.

And I think there's, even greater heights for you to climb.

And so, uh, whatever it is.

but, uh, you have, I think, You're passionate about what you do.

You've got the instincts that are key, I think, for success.

and you're willing to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work.

I mean, you said you were raised with brothers and kind of, you know, were

a little bit of a tomboy when you were younger and you learned how to kind

of get right in the middle of things, but you also learned the grace and the

elegance That you display so much now.

And so, uh, I really think you've got amazing things ahead of you.

Tell me what you've got going right now at SMART.

So you've been there eight months.

Yeah.

What are the hot topics?

What are you working on?

So, I, I took the helm, I said I gotta, one thing I need to

focus on back to basics plus.

Okay.

I, so basics are important, but I can chew bubble gum and walk at the same time.

And two, you made me blush.

Thank you.

People can't see me.

Thank goodness.

Because I'm just like, oh, Paul, you're so kind.

Um.

I wanted to focus on the most important things and for, for a long time our

struggles, like many agencies with on-time performance were very real.

our state of good repair issues these are the basics, the things that if you do

the fundamentals well, I'm a baller too.

I play basketball, so,

okay.

Every coach I've ever had, you do the fundamentals well,

everything else follows.

Right.

I love that.

Yeah.

And so we have to do the fundamentals well, so we get into on-time performance

and, and I also realize you can't bite off more than you can chew, so

you have to pick your priorities.

And so we started with on time performance, we started a challenge.

And this is fun.

I I love to tell this story.

So if you're a nineties, a fan of nineties music, you know the group

Naughty by Nature, You're Down with OPP.

You know what I, yeah.

So OTP very similar, right?

Yeah.

OTP on time performance.

So we were joking one day and I said, Hey, you guys, are you down with OTP?

And they caught onto it almost immediately.

The soul of SMART, is fantastic.

They say, yeah, you know me.

And I said, you know what?

Let's make that our challenge, right?

So we structured a real challenge around it where we have every day,

Sunday to Sunday, 9:00 AM calls on pull time, on on time performance.

What happened, what went right, what didn't go right?

What are the things you're gonna do to make sure that you can sustain the

improvements that we're starting to see?

We had a communication issue.

The dispatch wasn't talking to the maintenance for available

buses, and the operators weren't exactly clear on time points.

You gotta make it clear to people if you want 'em to do something,

you gotta, you gotta give 'em the objective so they can meet 'em, right?

So that's what this challenge is about.

In three and a half weeks, I went from 65% on time.

And yes, I tell on myself, 'cause you can look it up for yourself to 76% on time.

We went up 11 percentage points.

You focused on it.

You took that spotlight that a CEO has and pushed it over there, and you

focus on the fundamental, what's our number one key performance indicator?

On time performance.

On time performance.

So we are seeing that we're reaping the benefits and hearing

the, and our, our customers.

They're like, Hey, you feel like you're on time now?

'cause you're showing up so much better for us than you did before.

But we're like, but wait, there's more.

We can do more.

We're looking at the technology that's gonna support our operators

with on time performance.

And if I could wave a magic wand and didn't have to go through the rigors

of the procurement process, I would put that technology on the buses yesterday.

Yeah,

I have to go through the process, but what we did too.

As we talked to the union representation and said, Hey,

we are not trying to police you.

We're trying to help you achieve your goal.

Who wants to do a bad job?

And we partner with them.

We created a leaderboard in every driver's lounge.

Each garage has a leaderboard.

Who's in front for on time performance today?

Oh, I love that.

Who the competition is real

individual accountability is the key, isn't it?

I'm telling you.

Every garage wants to be at the top of the leaderboard.

They're pushing themselves.

Right.

And so when we talked about introducing technology on the bus, that has better

directional navigation for them.

Yeah.

And understands the schedule, tells you your time points.

They're like, how so can we get it?

'cause I wanna be at the top of the leaderboard as opposed to fighting it.

Right.

Which is what you're, I'm

almost gamified.

We gamified it.

Absolutely.

We did.

Yeah.

And they're,

what are they gonna get if they're in the lead?

Do they have, is there prizes or

We're putting together prizes now they, what they really

want is on time performance T-shirts Down with OTP T-shirts.

So we're like, you got it.

What that is,

isn't that awesome?

Easy win.

Right?

And so they're excited about it.

This management is excited about it.

And what I, drilled it down to what I talked to the staff about

every month we have a staff forum and I talk to everybody.

You get online, you can ask me any question, I'm open.

Right?

And what we talked about.

Because nobody comes to work to do a bad job.

You're here anyway.

But if you are given expectations, but you're not giving resources

or understanding, you're just gonna be frustrated.

And that's what I've been seeing for years.

Mm.

So let's remove the veil.

I'm not trying to hide from you what I need you to do to make

sure that we are all successful.

Right.

And one of the things that I, I find is magical is anytime I

talk about transit externally.

I always shout out my operators and my mechanics, every single time they, they

have become, if I forget, boy oh boy.

They're like, Hey, what you doing over there?

And I'm like, no, no.

I 100% bring you all into the wins every time because we have to do it together.

Yeah.

let's, uh, open the lens a little bit on the city of Detroit.

Yeah.

So you and I have had this conversation before.

I'm so impressed with Detroit.

Detroit got a bad rap for a while, right?

It did.

And, uh, even my boss, uh, Rod Jones is from there and I brought him.

You remember?

Oh, that's right.

Oh, yes.

To, to there to see it.

And when he walked through that, what Ford has done with the old Amtrak

station and the money they've invested in, how it's become a technology center.

I mean, it really touched him even emotionally.

He's like, you know, this is just amazing what's happening.

I mean, Tiffany, tell us about the resurgence of Detroit.

It's phenomenal.

It's amazing.

And now I'm, I'm a, I'm a Detroit girl.

Um, I'm a daughter of Detroit.

I was born and raised and I have been watching, so I've worked downtown

When we got down there, I think we had a Quiznos and, uh, the Caucus Club.

It was a good restaurant in the Quiznos, uh, um, Campus

Martius was just being built out.

the park that receives all of the, the national accolades

now and there was vacancy.

I think the vacancy rate was somewhere in the 70% range.

Oh my gosh.

folks just weren't downtown.

We weren't promoting it.

We weren't talking positively about downtown.

And I remember Dan Gilbert, head of Quicken Loans decides he's moving

his headquarters downtown Detroit.

Now, in full transparency, I used to have a nine minute commute from my house to

downtown Detroit, which was not good.

You should not be able to get into a downtown in nine minutes.

Right.

When Dan brought his employees down there, it doubled.

I went to 20 minutes.

Wow.

And boy, I was mad about it.

I said, good grief, these people are in my way.

But I also knew these people are gonna change downtown.

And so watching over the years, that focused investment has

been wonderful for us to see.

Of course, the pandemic set us back a bit.

Everybody went home and trying to get people to come back

downtown has been a challenge.

But I will tell you the, the work of the Downtown Detroit Partnership,

the Detroit Regional Chamber, the administration, the mayor's office,

uh, we just got a new mayor.

Our first woman mayor.

Oh, congratulations.

Over 300 years, mayor Mary Sheffield, has taken over and

with 77% support by the way, she

really,

she, she,

that's massive.

Just, I mean, she was the council president for 10 years.

Okay.

And so, you know, a Harford community, she proved herself there.

Yeah.

Proved herself and walked right into that role.

And this one again, she's built for.

Right.

Yeah.

Um, so looking at the future of Metro Detroit and the region.

It's so positive.

We have leaders that talk to one another.

That respect one another that really want to see, investment.

We're seeing ourselves as a region more so than as an individual jurisdiction

now, and I, I couldn't be more thrilled to be the glue that pulls 'em all together

with public transportation and mobility.

Well, we were there of your colleagues, Bernard Parker, who I've become

pretty good friends with, he took us over to see the sports complexes and

how they're all, tell us about that.

I love how they're all together and they're all well served by transit.

Again, part of the resurgence.

We used to have a Silver Dome in Pontiac, the Auburn Hills for the Pistons.

everything has moved into downtown Detroit.

The Tiger

the little Caesars

Tigers right there.

Little Caesars Arena, Ford Field, little Caesars host the Pistons, Ford Field.

for the lions.

Go Lions.

We love 'em.

Oh, I love, I love the lions.

Yeah.

We, I love the lions.

Um, and so we have all of this energy and basically what it does is it creates

an opportunity for us to pull people in from the outer areas using public transit.

When we had the NFL draft

Oh yeah.

Tell us about that.

we said, you know, how do we plug into this?

And the city of Detroit got really serious about plugging in with

all the partners, including smart.

Even though we're the suburban system, we absolutely serve the city of Detroit too.

And so plugging in with them.

We were, we carried 30,000 people that weekend on shuttles from the suburban

communities into downtown Detroit.

We, we alleviated

hundreds of thousands of people.

Total came in.

Right?

Hundreds of thousands.

780,000 people I think came in.

We were able to give some relief on parking.

oh yeah.

For just the shuttles.

We don't even know for fixed route, just the regular services

how many people use those?

Okay.

We did see some in some upticks in ridership, yes.

But for the specific shuttle saying, Hey, you can park your

car and try something new.

Now we're doing it all the time.

Now we're saying, Hey, when it's a big event, you can count on smart.

And it's been wonderful to see that.

The number one goal I have is to get new riders to try the system

and find out just how easy it is

yeah.

A little taste and then they maybe ride

a little taste.

Yeah.

We could,

when people don't ride transit, they normally will for a

sports game or a big event.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

But you gotta have good service when they get on.

And so, real talk.

we weren't doing any of this before we started seeing gains in on

time performance and seeing that, you know, we put wifi on, uh,

the express routes for our buses.

We wanted to get some amenities.

We cleaned up our shelters.

We have a full blown shelter program where everything has to be ADA compliant.

We can't just do the pole in the, in the grass, right?

Thank and expect people to wanna use the service.

And that's just what the community sees, right?

Low 1% mode share.

How do people experience transit in their community?

The shelter.

Pick up the garbage, clean up the shelter.

Pour the concrete pad.

Show it has some dignity and use.

And then, oh, Paul, I almost forgot the most critical thing you said.

What's going on right now?

Yeah.

highly used routes it's up 40%.

Up 40%?

Four zero.

I didn't believe it myself.

I said check every system.

Yeah, yeah.

And tell me that this number is real on Gratiot Avenue and Woodward Avenue, I'm

up 40% and I don't have a cross town.

We increased frequencies, added some wifi, even across town's, up 35% right now.

That's amazing, Tiffany.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

Clean up the system.

Talk positively about it.

I'm everywhere all the time.

I see it's lot.

I see it online.

Yeah.

I follow you.

Yeah.

Oh, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, LinkedIn and your system's doing great, telling the story of transit.

Mm-hmm.

What do you got next?

What's, uh, so we've talked about what your past and your present.

Now let's talk future.

So what's next one of, um the opportunities of a lifetime I've had

is to be a co-chair for the transition team for this historic mayor.

And what we have been talking about is what are the things that are bold and new

and exciting and useful to the public?

And we're rolling out a program where all kids ride free.

All kids ride free

12 K through 12.

And for SMART, we're gonna do post-secondary as well.

So we've got the community colleges and a lot of more

universities out there that area.

it's a tripper service.

It's something that so many transit properties already do, and you're

just using existing capacity.

The fixed route is there, creates some relief for the families and again,

getting that young population to try transit so that as they grow into their

adult space, they just naturally know that it's a real viable alternative.

Have your car wonderful, but also know that you don't need to use it every day.

You can use public transportation.

And so being able to provide that and to do it in conjunction with, in

partnership with the City of Detroit is like a, that's a real win for me because

I don't see the jurisdictional lines.

I see good mobility throughout the region.

The other thing we're doing is we're turning on some new services.

SMART has microtransit.

Pilots, throughout the region that we've been working on.

We had a million rides at the end of last year in our pilot, and we are

looking at expanding that service.

So as we're working through this year's budget, we are looking to do more of

that first mile, last mile connection.

And there are so many things, that we're doing.

We're rolling out the wifi on the rest of the system.

We only did the express routes for now.

so we're gonna continue with that.

the kind of the less sexy things, but the things that are necessary

is really shoring up our facilities.

I cannot have one more ceiling tile fall.

I cannot have one more incident that shows I need to be able to demonstrate

to my team, to my staff that they are as important as the riders that we serve.

And so for them to be in the space where the facility is

shored up, plumbing's working.

You know, you told, you caught me on that one.

That's funny.

I did talk to you about that.

Um, the, the roofs are intact and not just that we're looking at the future,

there's an opportunity for us to not just replace the roof, but to do the

solar energy on the roof as well.

again, back to basics.

Plus that plus is loaded, and that's where we're headed.

I wanna see on time performance meet industry standard

before the end of this year.

I want it by the summertime, but I'm, I, I, I'm a realist.

Yeah.

Maintenance is a big deal with our vehicles.

We gotta make sure that we have the capacities to be able to produce.

We've got the operators.

When I came into SMART, we were 117 operators short to meet

the promise of our schedule.

Wow.

That's what I said.

How exactly are we supposed to do this?

We are going to fail because we don't recruit.

Well, we did a drive a bus with us a bit.

We invited the public to come and drive our buses on a racetrack.

Oh boy.

It was, our legal team was like, whoa.

We said, what now?

We were like, we'll have the principal trainers on the bus with them, or the

master trainer on the bus with them.

We'll be okay.

Right.

And we had governors that can only go so fast.

It will not be a movie

speed.

That won't be speed.

We saw it.

Um, but we recruited people that we got, got aggressive.

Right.

We got aggressive.

You recruited them from that.

We recruited a lot of people from that event, but the thing

was, people heard about it and they're like, huh, bus driver.

I hadn't thought about it, but what I recognized the secret sauce was.

Bus drivers kept saying, well, I'm just a bus driver.

No ma'am.

No, sir. You are so much more than that.

You are an ambassador, you're an economic driver.

You are a, a, a, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, some days for folks.

You are a de- escalator of, of, of situations on buses.

You, you are a friend to a lot of people, right?

You, you are not just a bus driver.

What you do is so important every day and they didn't understand, again, just

like seeing pull out in the morning.

They didn't understand the magnitude of what it is they were contributing to.

So having that conversation, most of my operators I talked to every new hire

class, most of the operators that came in came in off of a recommendation and

referral from another bus operator.

When they started to see themselves the way I see them.

Oh yeah.

They started to tell other pe other people this was a good job.

Yeah.

It's amazing how quickly that turned around.

Wow.

Uh, just about every one of my classes was about 90% referral based.

And how many total employees do you have at SMART?

Uh, 981.

Almost a thousand employees.

A thousand people.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing, Tiffany.

Alright, so here's what I've written down.

I can't wait to hear

your keys to success.

Tell me if I'm right.

So you have an attention to a level of detail, even at the CEO

level I think that is important.

You've learned in the bowels of the organization how the operation runs,

not just from the top, so to speak.

A willingness to make hard decisions, like on safety, shutting things down

if you have to, being present, showing up, willing to get your hands dirty.

you have, uh, focused on the integration of the region at the political

level and at the regional level.

You focus on the fundamentals, the facilities, and you value and partner

with your operations teams, your drivers.

Is that some of it connected?

Some of it.

You got it Paul.

That's exactly it.

And I have fun every day.

We, this is fun.

I love that.

Yeah,

we do.

I enjoy what I do.

It's exhausting, but it is fun and it's rewarding.

I get good sleep at

night.

So next year at Think Transit Executive Summit, why don't we put together a

panel and you can be the anchor of it where we have a bunch of CEOs come up

and talk about what it takes to be a CEO and what it takes to be successful.

Wouldn't that be good?

I would love that.

Yeah.

I would absolutely love that.

That's good.

We'll have to do that.

What, any closing thoughts you wanna have for our listeners?

You know, Paul, I think we talked about just about

everything, but I say thank you.

What you do.

Nationally and even internationally in terms of telling the story of these

transit agencies helps us I don't know if you realize it, but I've taken think all

you, did WeGo with Amanda just recently?

Yeah.

and her conversation, I pull from that, right?

It gives me energy to say, oh, that's a, a, a way in which to tell the

story I hadn't thought of before and storytelling it's sort of like how when

we figured we had built everything and the next thing was everything

was about the customer experience.

Storytelling has become that now for public transit.

We know what, we know what it is, but how you deliver it, how you talk

about it, how you get people to pay attention, especially in a world where

people just kind of infinitely scroll.

Yeah.

And a space where, you know.

Brain capacity is limited.

Right?

Right.

Yeah.

How do we, how do we get them to notice, pay attention, advocate for

want, and decide to use public transit?

What your podcast does, what your work does, is to help us tell

that story in our own region.

I love that.

We are not competitive with one another is transit properties.

pull from other people's ideas, and then our region too can be successful because

we got those ideas from somewhere else.

So just thank you for everything that you do.

Uh, thank you.

That's very wonderful.

I appreciate it and I appreciate the work you're doing there in

Detroit and for our industry.

I think, you're becoming a model of what a CEO should be in our

industry, and I'm gonna help, shine a light on that continually.

I really have loved connecting with you here at Think Transit.

I think, it sounds like you've gotten a lot out of it, and

we hope to have another one.

For those of you who are listening to this and you're a senior executive.

it's worth their time.

Absolutely.

I can't wait to see you next year.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Transit Unplugged, the world's

number one transit executive podcast.

I'm Julie Gates, executive producer of the podcast.

Many thanks to the team that makes this show happen.

Host and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keeffe, editor Patrick Emil,

associate producer Cyndi Raskin.

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