GLTC wins nat=
ional
achievement award
=
Kim Raff/The News & Advance
Ryan Marshall boards a bus at the Plaza in Lynchburg, Va. on June 17,
2009. The American Public Transportation Association awarded GLTC with
the Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement Award.
By Alicia Petska
Published: June 17, 2009
A national organization is honoring the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company
for outstanding achievement.
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The award follows an extensive effort on the part of GLTC to improve its performance record. Officials with the local bus company called the recogni= tion a welcome sign of the progress made and said they planned to keep pushing f= or even greater improvements.
GLTC has won the 2009 Outstanding Public Transportation System Achieveme= nt Award from the American Public Transportation Association. The award, which will be formally presented during a conference in October, was bestowed on = GLTC over other transit systems of equivalent size.
American transportation awards are reserved for the “best of the best” within the industry, according to the association, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that claims nearly 1,500 member organizations.
The award was given out by a panel of judges who considered each candida= te’s performance over the past three years. Nominees had to provide data about things such as their on-time record, number of customer complaints and how often their buses suffered mid-route breakdowns.
Each of these indicators was major problem area for GLTC only a few years ago. Officials have since mounted a long-term campaign to improve service, including adopting a more aggressive maintenance schedule and working to replace worn-out buses.
Dilapidated buses were often cited as a major cause of the system’s patchy service. GLTC has since rolled out 20 brand-new vehicles and expects= to get four more this winter. Another 10 were recently ordered and are expecte= d to arrive sometime in the summer of 2010. Buses take a year or more to manufac= ture once ordered.
GLTC General Manager Mike Carroll said the new buses were “clearly&= #148; improving the reliability of their service and, consequently, boosting cust= omer satisfaction.
He called the recent award a proud achievement for GLTC employees, but a= dded they weren’t going to “rest on our laurels.”
“This is a recognition of how far we’ve come over the last few years,” Carroll said. “But it’s not as though we’ve arrived. We’ve still got a long way to go … We’ll keep on th= is path to success.”
As Lisa Dibble, president of GLTC’s board of directors, put it: “We’re very encouraged and very pleased with the progress made, b= ut we want more.”
Dibble said this was an exciting time for GLTC and praised employees for= the work they’ve done.
“I couldn’t hardly believe it,” she said when asked about=
her
reaction to the system’s national award. “It was really very
exciting.”