COTA’s Joanna Pinkerton

Tim Fulton 0:10Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, Columbus Underground reporter Brent Warren sat down with Central Ohio Transit Authority president and CEO Joanna Pinkerton. She's been at a role at COTA for almost a year now. They discussed how she came into her role, the interdependence of mobility in Columbus, mobility as a service, the state of things at COTA, and where they're going. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit morpc.org. Enjoy the interview.

Brent Warren 1:45Great. Well, first of all, thank you for joining us today. Really appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you. So you started, uh, at COTA in April, and, um, I, I think the main focus of our talk will be about your time so far, and also looking into the future and kind of what you envision for COTA. But I wanted to just sort of touch on your background because, uh, w- you had a lot of interesting jobs. They weren't necessarily like, um... It's not like you came from another transit authority or another bus place.

Joanna Pinkerton 2:20That's right. That's right.

Brent Warren 2:21Um, I'm just curious, what was it about the COTA job that sort of excited you, and what appealed to you about this job?

Joanna Pinkerton 2:28Well, that's a big question.

Brent Warren 2:29Yeah. It is.

Joanna Pinkerton 2:29So let me start with background-

Brent Warren 2:31Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 2:31... because I think it'll provide context-

Brent Warren 2:33Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 2:33... of how the discussion went once the board reached out to me at the beginning of this year. I have been in transportation for two decades now, but really started in an engineering capacity. Started in, um, construction, and that's really my passion. I love to build things. And evolved from commercial construction to, uh, working for a county engineer, uh, which is all about building and maintaining, and then moved on to the state level at the DOT, who is responsible for building and maintaining the system that we all use and take for granted. Um, from there, I was recruited to Ohio State to run the Center for Automotive Research at Ohio State, and it may sound like a pretty simple segue, but I can still remember, um-

Brent Warren 3:19Yeah

Joanna Pinkerton 3:19... a colleague of mine, a, a, a director at the DOT, who said, "Wow, I can't believe you're jumping out of one industry and entering another." And I, I got a little scared when he said that because here I thought I was just kind of evolving in my career, but he was, he was thinking, "Boy, you're going from infrastructure to automotive." And to me, it's all connected. It's, it's mobility. You know, the systems have to work together. Um, so joined Ohio State. Just loved my time there, but worked with people who knew automotive, and of course, who thought about theirselves more in a silo, kind of like my industry, the infrastructure industry did. Uh, great several years there. Ohio State eventually asked me to take over the Honda Ohio State partnership, which is the largest, uh, private industry partnership at Ohio State. Oversees transportation research for the state of Ohio, including, um, Transportation Research Center Incorporated, um, the nation's largest independet- uh, independent ground-based mobility proving ground. And, and, um, when I say that, people's eyes glass over, kinda like yours are right now. Um, so it's a really big test track in northwest Ohio, just northwest of Marysville, um, and more than 800 customers from around the globe, everyone from data, social media companies to automotive companies trying to figure out what system to build-

Brent Warren 4:41Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 4:41... that you and I will use. Um, so then the COTA board approaches me, and I... And same thing, um, I... Like many people, um, she's never run a transit company. She's not from, quote, the transit industry.

Brent Warren 4:56Right.

Joanna Pinkerton 4:57Um, is this a good fit? And, and you know, at first the conversations were a little... On both sides, we're not sure. But all of a sudden I had this light bulb moment when I heard the board talk about we are best in class. I like that.

Brent Warren 5:10Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 5:10I like the sound of that. Um, we're a really well-run organization, great people, uh, operationally excellent, but we know that the target is moving when it comes to mobility, as evidenced by every pop-up company, every startup, every major conglomerate that didn't exist three years ago.

Brent Warren 5:30Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 5:31And what is transit's role in that? And that transformational change is what I like.

Brent Warren 5:36Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 5:36So when I look back at my career, it wasn't about just moving on because I wanted a different job. It was because I like leaning into transformation and helping organizations with that, and that's what they were looking for in a new CEO. And there was a, a mutual moment, I think, when we both realized this could probably work, and then I went through hours and hours of grueling, uh- ... interviews. Um, so that's kind of where I've come from.

Brent Warren 6:06Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 6:07And what intrigued me, really intrigued me w- was the, um, community support and the board's direction of making sure this amazing best in class organization stays best in class and serves a growing community.

Brent Warren 6:19Mm-hmm. It's interesting you talk about, um, how it's a moving target and things are changing so quickly. I mean, you started this spring, and at that time there were no scooters in Columbus. And since then we've seen that just-

Joanna Pinkerton 6:33Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 6:33... you know, take off. Um, and that, that's on my list of things to talk to you about 'cause I know you've talked about, um, kind of mobility as a service-

Joanna Pinkerton 6:42That's right

Brent Warren 6:42... as one of those... It's, I mean, I think of it as kind of a buzzword-

Joanna Pinkerton 6:45Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 6:45... that not a lot of people maybe understand-

Joanna Pinkerton 6:47Sure

Brent Warren 6:48... what that means. But I wondered if you could just talk a little bit about your, your thinking about that-

Joanna Pinkerton 6:53Okay

Brent Warren 6:53... mobility as a service, and how does scooters relate to COTA, you know?

Joanna Pinkerton 6:59I'm glad you asked about mobility as a service. I think it is a buzzword, and most people do not understand what that, that word or the acronym, that phrase means. So boil it down to we're a pretty young country.

Brent Warren 7:13Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 7:13We're a pretty young infrastructure system. Everything we do is built around the fact an engine was put inside of a vehicle 100 so years ago, and our infrastructure's about 60 or so years old. That's pretty young.

Brent Warren 7:27Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 7:29And we immediately launched in from walking and carts and sharing and street cars and buses, trains, which were all kinda normal, you know, that was how you got around, to individual car ownership. It i- it's great, um, as evidenced by I've worked in the automotive industry, love it. I own a car, drive a car almost every day, and we're seeing trends that are changing that. The trends are that car, individual car ownership is declining. It does provide or create, rather, barriers to access. So if you don't own a car, you're left out of our infrastructure equation, so all of a sudden mobility becomes the limiting factor to your success. And so with these industry trends and also the societal impacts, um, what's happening is people are looking for mobility as a service. So think about that statement. The statement is, "I wanna move. I don't want to be saddled necessarily with the second largest payment on my household budget."

Brent Warren 8:34Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 8:34"I just wanna move."

Brent Warren 8:35Right, and that's getting away from ownership.

Joanna Pinkerton 8:37That's exactly right.

Brent Warren 8:38Right. Yeah.

Joanna Pinkerton 8:38So, uh, the automotives, the public infrastructure, the policy realm, everyone sees this trend. Um, you can ask any top company, including insurance, who's saying-

Brent Warren 8:48Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 8:48... "You know, my entire business model is based upon ensuring that you own something, and then my risk and my actuarials can tell me how my business will work based on your risk assessment of you owning something." So everyone's intrigued, and some, some worried about this model shift from individual to as a service, but there's two really big things driving this. Um, younger generation who has grown up in a technology age.

Brent Warren 9:18Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 9:18You know, I'm looking around this table, and for those who can't see, there's a little bit of gray hair in the room myself included. And, um, and, um, you know, we, we transitioned to pre-cellphone, pre-computer, pre-internet to it as part of our life. We have a gen- entire generations now who just know that it exists. And imagine if you told them there was a time when I had to pay for my cellphone, and then my data plan was separate, and then remember when we all got the separate bills for texting?

Brent Warren 9:54Right.

Joanna Pinkerton 9:54And when you went over your text allotment.

Brent Warren 9:57Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 9:57So anyways, imagine how we would all react if all of this was separate services, separate line items on our household budget.

Brent Warren 10:05Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 10:06And people are saying, "I just wanna move." So the younger generation's like, "I'm accustomed to just stuff as a service."

Brent Warren 10:10Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 10:11Um, "I can crowdsource any service I want, so why all of a sudden is mobility I have to choose one single form?"

Brent Warren 10:19Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 10:20They, they are mode agnostic. They just wanna move. So that's kind of a long way of saying, um, younger generation. Uh, the older generation, so we're dealing with an aging in place crisis. We have a pretty significant population set to double in the next 10 years who may not be able to drive. So they want to move, and they're hoping that we will come up with solutions to keep them moving instead of keeping them driving.

Brent Warren 10:45Mm-hmm. I wonder in, in your first, um, not quite a year, um, have you found that you've had to have this conversation a lot with people and kinda bring people along sort of the-

Joanna Pinkerton 10:57Yes.

Brent Warren 10:58Yes.

Joanna Pinkerton 10:58Undoubtedly. As a matter of fact, uh, our team the other day was just talking about we need to come up with the elevator speech for mobility as a service-

Brent Warren 11:05Ah

Joanna Pinkerton 11:05... 'cause you certainly can't put people through what, the exercise I, I just put you through. Um, I have a captive audience here, but i- in essence it's, "I just wanna move," mode agnostic.

Brent Warren 11:15Uh-huh.

Joanna Pinkerton 11:16Single payment.

Brent Warren 11:17Uh-huh.

Joanna Pinkerton 11:17"I don't wanna have to think about, um, those different systems."

Brent Warren 11:21Uh-huh.

Joanna Pinkerton 11:21Now, it's interesting. It's called mobility as a service in Europe. Here in the United States, that term is still up for debate. It's a little foreign to people. Uh, there's a new mobility on demand alliance being formed at the national level. COTA will be involved in that. Um, I will be sitting on the board of directors. And it's looking at how, how across all modes, scooter,

Brent Warren 11:43Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 11:43... bus, train, car, how, how do I move seamlessly?

Brent Warren 11:48Mm-hmm. And what kind of progress would you say COTA has made in moving that forward in terms of your operations? Like, what is COTA doing that fits into that viewpoint-

Joanna Pinkerton 12:02Sure

Brent Warren 12:02... on how people are gonna be getting around?

Joanna Pinkerton 12:04You know, that's a great question about internal operations. So just as that concept might be foreign to you or someone, um, you know, a community member, it was just as foreign internally here. Uh, we're a great organization, 46 years strong. And we know how to run fixed route service. No one questions that. Um, so we've been doing a lot of internal education. We formed a cross-functional work group from every division, um, a really wide diverse, uh, group of ages and genders and backgrounds, and we're letting them tackle it so they're learning as they go, and then they are s- decentralizing the information and educating everyone. So I think that's been pretty successful. We're on about month four of that, um, doing educational sessions. Um, the biggest challenge is then reaching out and making partnerships. We will not be able to do this alone. I do not pretend that we will be developing algorithms in-house, uh, to come up with how to switch to more on-demand available service. Um, but there's people who've done that.

Brent Warren 13:10Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 13:10And so developing those partnerships outside of the industry and bringing them in, um, that's a lot... Some of the progress we've made in the last seven months.

Brent Warren 13:18Okay. And, uh, specific programs that fall under this would be like the, the Smart Columbus app. Is that something that-

Joanna Pinkerton 13:28You know, that's a great example. So the Smart Columbus app will be an enabler to us-

Brent Warren 13:34Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 13:34... having mobility as a service. So that's why we have joined the city in that grant, um, application or the effort rather, to make sure that the app they develop, um, is an open source platform with the right data coming in, tying in all the private and public companies so that the product that's developed, I believe 16 to 18 months from now, will be something that we can use and likely build on. I-

Brent Warren 13:58Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 13:59I'll be, you know, real frank, a grant from the federal government tells you to do X, Y, and Z. I have a feeling we'll take that as a good foundation and build on it.

Brent Warren 14:08Mm-hmm. So the idea is somebody can... It just makes it more seamless to be able to plan your trip across all these different modes-

Joanna Pinkerton 14:18Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 14:19... purchase tickets, you know, buy a Lyft that goes along with the, the bus ride. That, that's the idea behind that, yeah.

Joanna Pinkerton 14:26That's exactly right.

Brent Warren 14:27Okay.

Joanna Pinkerton 14:27And, and reliability.

Brent Warren 14:28Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 14:28So why do people like being in a car? I know my car's there, and granted, it sits idle 85% of the day-

Brent Warren 14:35Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 14:35... so it's just a sunk cost, but I know when I need to get in my car, I can get somewhere. Um, so tying systems together so that you know when you get off of that system that there's another system available for you.

Brent Warren 14:49Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 14:50And, um, that's a really interesting concept because it forces public and private to work together. Um, so that's something I'd like to, to focus on moving forward.

Brent Warren 15:00Mm-hmm. Um, what... I feel like some people hear all this talk about mobility and apps and technology- ... and they get worried, especially if they're regular bus riders. They think, "Wait a second, I just want the bus to be there."

Joanna Pinkerton 15:14Right.

Brent Warren 15:15I j- I just want dependable service. I want more frequent buses. I want to be able to go where I need to go on the bus.

Joanna Pinkerton 15:21Sure.

Brent Warren 15:21What do you, what do you say to those people?

Joanna Pinkerton 15:23Well, that's a great question to ask. I'm glad you brought it to the forefront. That's not going to change. Our fixed route is there, it's going to stay there. Um, our reliability is increasing. Our on time performance is improving. You see screens now with digital displays telling you when the bus will arrive. If you use the Transit app on your phone, you can see real time, um, availability based on new systems we've just put in place in the last year. So those things are not going away. As a matter of fact, I would expect people to have more reliable service as things are connected. And for the unbanked or someone who does not have a smartphone or maybe smartphone costs or data plans are a challenge, we still have systems, um, that we're developing with smart cards and IDs so that you can still access these systems.

Brent Warren 16:14Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 16:14Um, I'm a real big believer in you develop technology and you develop solutions for people. You don't develop it because it's cool and because you want to have the next newest system. Um, our team takes great care to ensure that our wide variety of riders will all have access.

Brent Warren 16:35Um, I'd like to talk a little bit more about those fixed routes. I mean, we, we covered the redesign of the network and how that sort of implemented a frequent service network-

Joanna Pinkerton 16:49Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 16:49... and moved things around and was sort of, um, geared toward getting more people where they need to go and redesigning the network for the first time in, like, 40 years. Um, so what's the next step from that? I mean, we've also covered the regional corridor-

Joanna Pinkerton 17:09Okay

Brent Warren 17:10... plan. Um, I talked with, uh, Jaromir Steiner who's been involved with that-

Joanna Pinkerton 17:16Mm-hmm

Brent Warren 17:16... and he's big on these corridors, and it seems like a lot of people in Columbus are talking about that.

Joanna Pinkerton 17:20That's right.

Brent Warren 17:21Um, where do you see that going? I mean, I know everybody asks you about light rail. We don't even need to get into that. But just in terms of, um, dedicated transit lanes, are we talking about, um, taking space away from cars or taking space away from parking? I mean, that's something that has never really happened in Columbus before.

Joanna Pinkerton 17:44Right.

Brent Warren 17:45Um-

Joanna Pinkerton 17:45That, that's very, um, that's an astute observation that it's never happened before. Where it has happened are cities where you have density and you simply can't afford to have unused space. I mean, when you think about a parking lot as far as a sunk cost and, uh, a pretty heavy line item... I spoke at Ohio State last, last week, and, um, five of the top employment corporations were in town and, and I talked about, you know, a parking lot as a maintenance and repair item on your line, line item on your budget. And every single one of them shook their head thinking, "Yeah, I spend a lot of money, uh, to make sure that thing is there." Um, so- The reason it's on everyone's mind, Yaromir's mind, the city, the county, is we are projected, projected to grow. And that's a great thing. You know, we're the only city in Ohio projected to grow. Uh, our economy's doing well. Estimates are up to a half a million jobs and up to a, a million people within the next few decades. So even if you're not a traffic engineer, just stop and think about that. If you double-

Tim Fulton 18:56That's a lot of people

Joanna Pinkerton 18:56... the number of people , if you double the number of cars

Tim Fulton 18:59Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 19:00... I think we can all figure out what that looks like

Tim Fulton 19:02Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 19:03... at least anecdotally. So, uh, I mentioned earlier we've been doing the same thing for about 100 years just based on a technology change at the turn of the last century. The reason everyone is excited about the corridor analysis is this is one of the first times we're doing pre-planning. So as we grow along these corridors where we have available land, where we could get private investors to develop, where we have good backbone infrastructure, there are scenarios that say if we continue to just sprawl like we have in the past, what would that look like, commute times, tax base? How much more would it cost to maintain all this? Or if we do it, pardon me, in a more dense model, what would that look like and what would that cost us? So yeah, we're really excited about that because that's the first time we will actually put in front of the public along these corridors if we do mass transit, if we get more people into a vehicle, we can save you time, we can save you money, and you need to decide, should we change our policies-

Tim Fulton 20:08Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 20:08... and focus on moving people and outcomes? Right now, from the transportation world, I can assure you we count vehicles.

Tim Fulton 20:17Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 20:18That does not mean we are counting people, and it does not mean that that vehicle movement resulted in people having a better quality of life. So there's a lot of excitement around that corridor study, and there should be.

Tim Fulton 20:29Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 20:30Um, we will take that as basically the framework here at COTA of what we propose to the community for major capital investment.

Tim Fulton 20:40The Confluence Cast is sponsored today by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit MORPC.org. Do you see COTA taking a leadership role in terms of making the case for those, for that investment in the future?

Joanna Pinkerton 21:23Certainly, um, an active role. Leadership I think should also come from the city and the county, MORPC, uh, and developers li- like Yaromir and many others who care about this to say, "We want our economy to continue to grow and thrive, and we want people to have a better quality of life." We are an enabler of that, but there's a lot of leadership, even amongst the partnership in the economic development community here, who will have to join us and say, "We would like to build it right the first time."

Tim Fulton 21:55Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That's interesting 'cause when I... I was looking back at a interview I did with Curtis Tit when he was about to leave COTA-

Joanna Pinkerton 22:01Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 22:02... and I asked him about, um, the business, uh, community in Columbus and how I think in a lot of cities you've seen the corporate leadership kind of lead the way on transit investments-

Joanna Pinkerton 22:14That's right

Tim Fulton 22:15... and we haven't really seen that in Columbus. Um, in terms of, you know, like I think in Charlotte it was the, all the bank companies saying, "We need to attract people so we need to build trains-"

Joanna Pinkerton 22:25Mm-hmm

Tim Fulton 22:26... and stuff like that. Um, w- what, what would be your assessment of that business corporate leadership now in Columbus? Do you think there's starting to be an understanding of the importance of transit and investing in transit? Or is it still sort of like the old model where, um, most of our employees drive to work, we have huge parking garages, or we're out in the suburbs, that's not something that we need to worry about so much?

Joanna Pinkerton 22:52Well, that has been a focus of mine from the very beginning just in the short eight months. I've reached out to a lot of CEOs of the major corporations, and I think fundamentally they do support more efficient movement of people. This is affecting their bottom line from a facility standpoint. It's affecting their bottom line from not being able to access workforce who cannot get to work.

Tim Fulton 23:15Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 23:16And it's also affecting their bottom line as far as reliability and, and, and how can I ensure that people have mobility options? Because there's a wide spectrum of pay grades at those different companies. Um, so they've been incredibly receptive. I think why you haven't seen maybe a more vocal is because just recently those same people did an amazing job supporting our levy renewal. So two years ago they all came to the table, all the major corporations, and said, "This is vital for our community," and it passed by a super majority.

Tim Fulton 23:48Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 23:48It's fantastic. So they have stepped up. I think right now they're waiting for some initial analysis out of the corridor study, and they're waiting for us to make recommendations.

Tim Fulton 23:58Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 23:58Uh, but general support across the board... As a matter of fact, um, the Downtown C-PASS Program is an example of that. So you're for the first time ever having building owners, landowners, employers paying for their employees to have transit-

Tim Fulton 24:16Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 24:17... because it means they can get to work. So that was a pilot for a reason because we needed to know how it would work, and, um, it's going really well and some of those companies have scheduled meetings with us in the next month. They want us to come in- We have one company just down the road who has more than a 50% enrollment rate of their employees who have activated their credentials. They're starting to use the system. They called us and said, "We'd like you to come in. We wanna do better. We want more enrollment." And really, that blew our minds.

Brent Warren 24:48Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 24:49Uh, so we were thrilled to hear that, of course. Um, so it will take steps. We have to educate them as far as what we think are the next mobility options-

Brent Warren 24:58Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 24:58... so that they can take a stand. Um, also, we're changing our internal structure. We're bringing on a senior, um, director of development here shortly, hopefully within the next month, and that person will be responsible for reaching out to the corporate community, economic development community, and helping figure out what the next version of those deals are, um, that we can do right now with existing operations, existing revenue streams, before we even have to talk about the big capital investments of the future.

Brent Warren 25:26Mm-hmm. Um, th- you mentioned the C-Pass, and, uh, I participate in that. My employer -

Joanna Pinkerton 25:33Do you?

Brent Warren 25:33Yes.

Joanna Pinkerton 25:33Okay, great.

Brent Warren 25:34Uh, so, you know, I ride the bus, and I've noticed just anecdotally it seems like, and we've talked about it at the office, it seems like there's a lot more people on the bus. Um-

Joanna Pinkerton 25:42There are. It's not anecdotal.

Brent Warren 25:44Yes.

Joanna Pinkerton 25:46Um, we are seeing the data and the trends of more people riding, and we're seeing them coming from different parts of town, too. Um, suburbs where people have typically, uh, used their car and commuted in. Um, our, our park and rides are full.

Brent Warren 26:00Mm.

Joanna Pinkerton 26:01Uh, we've even had in one ser- suburb where we've had to change our service already and add a whole nother bus.

Brent Warren 26:07I was gonna ask about that, yeah. Do you see that potentially happening on other... I mean, I'm sure everybody asks you about their own personal commute and if you can im- improve it. But, um, do you see, like, a potential for frequency to increase on other, on, like, some of these frequent networks?

Joanna Pinkerton 26:25Mm-hmm.

Brent Warren 26:25Could they get even more frequent?

Joanna Pinkerton 26:27So that's what we'll have to... That's exactly what we'll have to do. You mentioned the transportat- transportation system redesign where we redesigned our routes for the first time in 40 years. Uh, we cannot wait another 40 years to do that.

Brent Warren 26:40Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 26:40Uh, so our, our team knows we won't be doing a, a complete overhaul, but as we see these, um, shifts, we will need to be nimble enough and respond to them. I was particularly proud of our team when we saw, um, the number 73 being overwrought during the morning commute, um, thinking, "Gosh, how do, how do we adjust to this?" We figured out a way with the same amount of buses, um, to send more service there and then adjust the, the time, so that's the peak time, and then to adjust the time that was non-peak.

Brent Warren 27:11Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 27:12I'm glad to hear that you're seeing-

Brent Warren 27:14Sure, yeah

Joanna Pinkerton 27:14... the same thing on your route.

Brent Warren 27:15And you're looking at those numbers. Um, those are coming in, like, in real time, and you're tracking the different, the ridership on the different lines?

Joanna Pinkerton 27:24We do.

Brent Warren 27:25Yeah.

Joanna Pinkerton 27:25Um, we... Not, not unlike any company, we're very data rich. Um, so the challenge is how to become information rich, take that data, um, and apply some analytics to it, and have more real time, what should we do tomorrow, instead of what should we do next week. You know, it took us about three weeks to adjust to that, um, service change I mentioned, and that's still not too bad.

Brent Warren 27:48Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 27:48I think that's pretty good. Um, but when you think about it, ridership on those express lines from the suburbs are up 16%. I don't think anyone in the transportation demand modeling world ... projected that.

Brent Warren 28:03Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 28:03So, um, our team responded to it, and we will continue to do that as we see data points.

Brent Warren 28:08Mm-hmm. Do you see the potential... I've heard people throw this out as a possibility, taking that C-Pass model and expanding it either in downtown or to other neighborhoods.

Joanna Pinkerton 28:19So now you've piqued my interest. Um, I wanna say absolutely, and, uh, my government affairs team in the room probably is like, "Jess, don't say anything and promise anything that we haven't, um, we haven't been able to commit to." Uh, absolutely. So we have employers in droves coming to us saying, "How do we get in?"

Brent Warren 28:38Wow.

Joanna Pinkerton 28:38Um, so I think in the very near term, uh, you know, our team will need to evaluate what is right for them because it's, it's a cost model, right? What can they contribute? What can we bring to the table as far as service or money? And then develop a program that does not interrupt, you asked the question earlier, does not interrupt our existing system, our existing riders, but extends it. Um, so we will respond to every one of those requests that come in. Um, eventually, when we're staffed up, we will also... I could see us doing a solicitation of saying, "Who wants in?"

Brent Warren 29:16Mm.

Joanna Pinkerton 29:16Um, then the C-Pass program itself downtown, our hope would be that we show positive, uh, enough data that the same people who chose essentially to self-assess would say, "This has been worthwhile, and let's re-up the," what I'll call the, the main C-Pass program.

Brent Warren 29:33Mm-hmm. Uh, one of the features that I like in that program is the mobile payment. So I can get on the bus us- using my cellphone-

Joanna Pinkerton 29:41Your phone, mm-hmm

Brent Warren 29:42... and it's, you know, incredibly convenient, and I really like it. Um, is there... I know there's plans to roll that out to every user. Are those still on track? When's, when's that gonna happen?

Joanna Pinkerton 29:51They, we certainly plan to roll out mobile payment to every person who wants to use it, regardless of whether they're in the C-Pass program. Um, it is slightly behind schedule. The goal was to have it rolled out this year, and I think we have, what? How, how many days left?

Brent Warren 30:06Mm.

Joanna Pinkerton 30:07Um, and this, so this is a tough question to answer because as a leader you always wanna say it's on time. You know, I, I wanna give you a hard and fast date of when everyone, all 1.2 million people in the area will have that.

Brent Warren 30:20Mm.

Joanna Pinkerton 30:21And we're slightly behind schedule because of a, an issue we're having with our vendor.

Brent Warren 30:25Mm.

Joanna Pinkerton 30:25And I wanna bring this up because I can see the challenges and the pain that our team is experiencing on both sides, us and them. And this is the epitome of how challenging it is to be innovative in transportation. So, okay, we know we wanna do this. Makes sense. Anybody can develop an app, right?

Brent Warren 30:46Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 30:47Um, but most of the systems were developed from n- from a system that n- didn't exist, so developed from scratch. So now you're taking existing systems, GPS real time, um, vehicle monitoring, all this nebulous network of all these things we have, and then you're layering on top of it another thing, and, and quite frankly, you know, the vendor and, and COTA team members will admit it was more challenging to do than you might think.

Brent Warren 31:14Hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 31:14So the C-PASS pilot has been very good for us. I think I heard some statistics that out of the, um, 45,000 eligible people and 20-some thousand eligib- or people who activated their credentials, like we had less than 10 who had a glitch, which was great.

Brent Warren 31:30Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 31:30But, you know, our IT people had to go out and, and solve these glitches. So, um, we're s- we wanna make sure that we don't have glitches when we roll it out to 1.2 million, so I think it's been delayed a couple months.

Brent Warren 31:41Mm-hmm. Another, uh, w- I know I d- I said I didn't wanna talk too much about specific programs but now that we're talking about it, um, I am interested in hearing about plans for, um, electric buses. Are those still on the table? Where, where does that stand?

Joanna Pinkerton 31:57They certainly are.

Brent Warren 31:58Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 31:59Uh, the board, uh, gave us authority a few months ago at a board meeting to investigate pursuit of, um, electric buses, electric vehicles. Um, that authority essentially gives us the ability to go explore. We are pursuing federal grants, state grants, and also talking, um, to private vendors who produce electric buses about what cost models look like. Um, so that's on the, the fleet side. We are undergoing renovations at McKinley Avenue facility and also Fields Avenue facility to upgrade for compressed natural gas and to meet, uh, modern building standards. And while we're doing that, we're making sure we are putting in the infrastructure for future EV charging and EV service of vehicles.

Brent Warren 32:47Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 32:48So we're preparing ourselves for, um, the future, which is every manufacturer out there said, "My fleet will be a certain percentage electrified." Most companies saying two-thirds electrified vehicles by 2025. And so we're doing that now.

Brent Warren 33:02Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 33:03Um, I do not have a date that we will actually roll out the EV buses because we'd like to leverage federal and state grants. I just read, um, a briefing actually at the federal government where Congress introduced a, a bill to provide a significant financing mechanism for all transit agencies nationwide to pursue, um, fleet electrification. So, um, not a grant necessarily, but especially for our peers who don't have a lot of financial resources to take out a loan, uh, to amortize that cost as they replace their fleet over the years.

Brent Warren 33:36Mm-hmm. Something with the electric vehicles discussion I've brought up with the Smart Columbus people, it seems like all the focus is on, you know, I think rightly getting more people to drive electric vehicles and making that a larger share of the percentage of cars on the road. Um, but you know, we're in Ohio. Most of our power- ... still comes from coal.

Joanna Pinkerton 34:01From coal, right.

Brent Warren 34:02Um, how would COTA approach that? I mean, is, is that also in the long-term thinking, like solar panels or, or what?

Joanna Pinkerton 34:10So this is the great debate. Um, I've been working on EV-related infrastructure for almost nine years. Um, in, in the Midwest, you know, our energy is not necessarily clean, so the emission may not be coming out of the tailpipe, but it's coming out of a pipe somewhere. Um, so two things that we are doing, one is, um, we communicate routinely with AEP. Our team was over there yesterday. Uh, AEP from a corporate standpoint has really taken a stand on what they can do in their portfolio to develop clean energy. I mean, they are shifting in double-digit numbers how much power they generate from clean sources. So we will continue to partner and support with them. Interestingly enough, their desire to do that has been driven by their shareholders, by their board, by their consumers, and there are regulatory barriers at the state level that prevent them from doing it. So we stand with them in talking to our legislators and our regulators to say, "That is the right thing to do," and it generates jobs when new fields of solar or wind or bio are built in portions of the state. Um, we do look at our procurement of, of energy, whether it's, uh, natural gas, electric, diesel or other fuels, uh, to make sure that we're sourcing appropriately so that we can support with our dollars-

Brent Warren 35:37Mm-hmm

Joanna Pinkerton 35:37... with our purchase. Um, we are also looking at... Uh, we have a new chief sustainability officer here at COTA, and he's looking at our entire waste stream. You know, we recycle. We do what we think is right, but what's our carbon footprint? And our carbon footprint's pretty significant simply because of the vehicles that we roll on the road.

Brent Warren 35:57Right.

Joanna Pinkerton 35:58So he's mapping all of that for us, he and his team, and we will continue to make choices that make us a much more economically and environmentally sustainable organization.

Brent Warren 36:09Great. Um, I just wanna go back real quickly to the regional corridor plans 'cause I know this is kind of the big question, I feel like, for a lot of people who want to see something big happen with transit in Columbus. And they've heard a lot of talk about this, and a lot of planning has happened through the years. Um, do you think this is that thing that will... Do you, do you think something big is gonna happen with transit? Or is the, are the powers that be gonna kind of get together and support this and actually invest in transit in the next couple years? Do you see that happening?

Joanna Pinkerton 36:45I'm really intrigued by your word choice, the powers that be. I believe the air quotes powers that be are already unified that we need to make investments, um, that are more efficient and consolidated and that optimize our existing system. Told you, I, I came from a construction highway background. Our... We have capacity. You might feel like you're stuck in traffic, but that's because most of it's actually empty. So we have capacity.

Tim Fulton 37:19And just by that you mean there's plenty of room on our roads right now.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:22There's plenty of room on our roa- roads.

Tim Fulton 37:24Yes.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:24It's how we're using it.

Tim Fulton 37:25Okay.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:26Um, so-

Tim Fulton 37:28So you could take a lane away from cars and it's not gonna cause that many problems for-

Joanna Pinkerton 37:34N-

Tim Fulton 37:34... car commuters.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:35Not if it's done correctly.

Tim Fulton 37:36Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:36I mean, there's... Connected vehicles alone are estimated based on recent research, having a connected vehicle system between two single occupant vehicles, you can still get 30% more capacity out of that road.

Tim Fulton 37:52That's a lot.

Joanna Pinkerton 37:52You don't have to build a lane-

Tim Fulton 37:53Yeah

Joanna Pinkerton 37:53... if you can get 30% more vehicles on the road. So the powers that be I feel like are on the same plate. Uh, we are waiting for some analysis that says, what is the right thing to build and what would it cost? But this has to be about the people. The people of this community will, I think, will have to share that information, and we will say, "If we do nothing, the do nothing scenario will result in this. Uh, here's one proposal," and they will have to vote on this. I mean, that's what's really cool about the Columbus way is we all pull together when we think it's important enough. You saw it pretty recently around a stadium and a team.

Tim Fulton 38:30Sure.

Joanna Pinkerton 38:31You've seen it around, uh, Smart Columbus. You've seen it around the mayor's neighborhoods plans. I mean, we have people coming together saying, "Let's help this neighborhood." Um, so it's not so much about the powers that be. You know, it's our responsibility to make sure we put good concepts out there, but then we'll need to get the public on board to say, "Yes, this is what I want. I, I would rather have this amenity than sit white-knuckle in my car for 50 minutes for a 12-mile drive."

Tim Fulton 39:00Mm-hmm. Uh, well, great. I mean, I appreciate all your, your thoughts on this. Just to kinda wrap up our conversation, when you look at... You're heading into your second year at the helm of COTA, what are you most looking forward to in, like, the next year?

Joanna Pinkerton 39:21I am really looking forward to the community thinking of us as their mobility systems integrator. Like, "Hey, new development. I already know what engineering plans look like, but no, I need to bring in the mobility experts and say, 'This is what I wanna do. This is the housing I wanna bring in, the commercial development or the redevelopment.' Tell me what we can do to move people in a connected system, and then let's design around that," instead of the current way, which is, you know, you d- develop it, design it, send it over, plans reviewed. There's a process. There's a step.

Tim Fulton 39:57Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 39:58And then we get called to the table and we say, "Oh, our 40-foot bus won't fit in there." And, and, and so that's the discussion today.

Tim Fulton 40:06Right.

Joanna Pinkerton 40:06So for the community to say mobility is so vital, um, that we'll be at the table at the beginning.

Tim Fulton 40:12Mm-hmm.

Joanna Pinkerton 40:12And I'm beginning to see that already.

Tim Fulton 40:14Great. Well, thank you for talking with us today. I really appreciate it.

Joanna Pinkerton 40:17Sure. I appreciate your time, Brent.

Tim Fulton 40:19Great. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite commuter. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite muralist. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info at theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.