CTA Boasts Fewer Complaints

By Marcus Gilmer in News on May 20, 2009 2:40PM

If you utilize CTA buses to commute to work (or even around town for other reasons), it's probably happened to you before: your heart leaps at the sight of an arriving bus, you grip your CTA card for entrance, and then your heart crashes into your stomach as the bus zooms right on by, the driver not giving you and your fellow potential passengers a second glance. In the first quarter of 2009, the CTA received 468 complaints about such incidents, referred to as "pass ups." Always ones to put a positive spin on things, the CTA points out that more than 600 "pass up" complaints had been made each of the previous two quarters. Second place in total complaints for the first quarter of 2009 went to rude drivers/conductors.

Overall, the CTA says complaints are down. According to a report from the Tribune:

The replacement of aging buses with a modern fleet as well as track work to reduce rail slow zones may account for a decrease in complaints about service delays, officials said. The reduction in complaints overall his year is occurring amid a ridership increase of 2.5 percent through April, compared with the same four-month period in 2008.

If the complaint statistics continue to drop, the customer feedback suggests that the CTA's frontline employees are behaving more politely, operating buses and trains in a safer manner and are more helpful in giving directions and answering questions about fares.

Other top complaints included reckless driving and operators talking on cell phones. The CTA also averaged 130 customer commendations per month of CTA employees who went above and beyond the call of duty.