Hamilton’s public transit Director says the HSR will ensure a manager is on duty during business hours to communicate information, but will not commit to information during peak travel times.
HSR Maureen Cosyn Heath personally apologized last Thursday after the HSR failed to post Supercrawl detour information.
“We messed up and we know it. The Supercrawl detours were not implemented when they should have been, causing unnecessary confusion. We apologize,” she posted on X. “More importantly, we’re working on an improvement plan. Thanks for your patience.”
On Monday, asked by TPR before Council’s Public Works Committee meeting, Cosyn Heath stated the HSR “didn’t have the detours in place at the correct time.”
“There was an error made by a staff member, and it caused a domino and cascading effect back at HSR.”
This is the latest failure by the HSR during significant events.
On July 22, in the middle of the business day when a four-alarm fire occurred at the YMCA on James Street South, it took over two hours for HSR managers to communicate detour information.
City Manager Marnie Cluckie issued an apology on behalf of the City, and directed the HSR to review its processes.
Cosyn Heath says that the review is ongoing.
“So we’re looking at the protocols we have in place right now,” she stated. “We’re looking at some remediation that we can do, and we hope to have new processes unveiled relatively soon.”
She said the ongoing impact of the City’s February cybersecurity failure is one of the reasons the HSR continues to fail to communicate detours.
“We don’t have all of our information tools available, so largely, it’s a person-oriented process. And whenever we are focused fully on people-oriented processes, there’s an opportunity for failure.”
The HSR was failing to communicate before the cybersecurity failure.
On February 5, the HSR issued “sincere apologies” when it failed to update the public during an over eight-hour detour impacting 21 of the HSR’s 34 bus routes.
HSR Commits to Business Hours Communications, But Not Peak Transit Times
Effectively immediately, The HSR is committed to having someone on-duty to provide detour information during business hours between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
The HSR will not commit to providing detour information outside these hours.
HSR’s peak ridership hours are during school and work commute times, which are before 8:30 a.m. and after 4:30 p.m.
CLARIFICATION NOTICE
The City of Hamilton sent the following clarification request to TPR:
“Please note that HSR remains committed to having someone on-duty to provide detour information during business hours (8:30am – 4:30pm). There is work underway to have that in place in the coming weeks, however it is not effective immediately.”
TPR reviewed audio of the interview, the HSR Director stated the HSR will be updating between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. They did not state this was going to occur at a future date.
Production Details v. 1.0.0 Published: September 17, 2024 Last updated: September 17, 2024 Author: Joey Coleman Update Record v. 1.0.0 original version
Perhaps the HSR brain trust needs to get their heads out of their collective backsides and get with times? Only having updates during business hours and even then it does not happen? Too bad that part of communication is a abysmal failure to it’s riders?? Sacks of hammers!!