CEO's Message
Bill Carpenter
Chief Executive Officer
RTS is a mission-driven organization, with everything we do focused on being our community’s provider and partner for safe, reliable, and convenient public transportation that people can build their lives around. We have carried out our mission over the past few years by following the themes of the respective comprehensive strategic plans: “Connecting Communities, Knowing You Better to Serve You Better,” and; “Connecting Communities, Better Transit Driving Better Communities.” This year’s theme, “Connecting Communities, Reimagining Public Transit Together,” will continue that trend.
We began the 2017-18 fiscal year by making improvements to our regional operation as part of our regional service efficiency study. With the launch of Reimagine RTS, we are building on that effort by studying a redesign of the fixed route transit system in Monroe County. The community has embraced the importance of this project with more than 10,000 people providing input during the first phase of the study through surveys, public events, the RTS website, and social media channels. We formed a new partnership with Monroe Community College (MCC) that is providing reliable transportation for students, faculty, and staff between MCC’s Brighton and downtown campuses. We made progress on upgrades to facilities in Livingston, Monroe, and Orleans counties. And we received grant funding from the state and federal governments to replace aging diesel buses with electric buses, and implement a new mobile ticketing system.
We have based our strategy for the new fiscal year on our ongoing efforts to reimagine public transit to meet the changing needs of our community. In the past year, we saw the emergence of a new bike share program through Pace, and ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft received approval to operate throughout the entire state. The addition of these mobility options and the ever-increasing demand from millennials, senior citizens, and people with mobility limitations places greater importance on Reimagine RTS.
The initiatives on the following pages build on the success of recent years. With your approval, we will continue our work with the community to reimagine public transit. Financial Sustainability will remain a priority through continued cost-containment efforts and the deployment of new subject areas as part of the new data warehouse. We will improve the quality of our service through the procurement of electric buses and the installation of new technology on our fleet. We will expand our diversity and inclusion efforts to better serve our customers, the community, and each other. And we will study our facility and infrastructure needs for RTS Access to meet the growing demands for paratransit service.
We still have much work to do to reimagine public transit and the RTS team is up to the task. On behalf of the entire team, I thank you for visiting our site and for working with us to reimagine public transit together.