NextStop Blog

Metro Transit has taken steps over the past several months to improve accessibility and enhance the customer experience, especially for Metro Call-A-Ride customers, and more improvements are scheduled to be implemented in the coming months.

After carefully considering customer comments and partner feedback online and at public and virtual meetings in April, Metro Call-A-Ride will not implement next-day only reservations, but will instead move to a booking window of up to 3 days in advance for trips for disabled customers, effective Friday, July 5. The 3-day reservation window is being implemented on a trial basis and will be reviewed after six months.

Currently, Call-A-Ride customers can schedule rides 3 to 5 days in advance. On Fridays only, they can make reservations for Call-A-Ride trips up to five days in advance. Metro asked for feedback from customers, partners in the ADA community and the public about shifting to next-day only reservations in an effort to provide better service, reduce wait times on the phone on Fridays due to higher demand, and to decrease the number of trip cancellations. While some respondents favored the next-day reservation approach, the majority of commenters did not support that option so Metro is meeting customers in the middle with adjusting booking reservations up to three days in advance.

This scheduling change effective July 5 will:

• Allow customers to schedule trips up to 3 days in advance
• Provide more reliable service
• Help reduce reservation wait times
• Reduce trip cancellations

The 5-day in advance reservation option will no longer be available starting on July 5. Since the pandemic, Metro Call-A-Ride has experienced service capacity issues due to limited workforce resources, resulting in a significant number of trip denials each month where Metro Call-A-Ride cannot serve a requested reservation and significant wait times for callers trying to make reservations. Improvements already implemented have reduced the number of trip denials.