Unsuck DC Metro: High Praise from Metro

Monday, December 3, 2012

High Praise from Metro

Here are the "results."

Comments (20)

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+10 Vote up Vote down

Jason · 640 weeks ago

How much of what drugs do I need to smoke to believe this?

+11 Vote up Vote down

M. Sahid Al-Stessel · 640 weeks ago

There are no complaints. We have all happy customers everywhere. Satisfaction bellows from chests of our customers riding forth in our system.

+14 Vote up Vote down

Heather · 640 weeks ago

I was so pleased with Metro's service that I bought a new car and now get to work for about the same price daily! And MUCH more safely and timely I might add!

+24 Vote up Vote down

Bob Smith · 640 weeks ago

"Thank you for participating in the WMATA customer satisfaction survey. For the following questions, please use the numbers 1-5 to indicate your response.
1-Highly Satisfied
2-Highly Satisfied
3-Highly Satisfied
4-Highly Satisfied
5-Highly Satisfied"

1 reply · active 640 weeks ago

+1 Vote up Vote down

guest · 640 weeks ago

hahaha! :-)

+12 Vote up Vote down

Aaron Z. · 640 weeks ago

I'm reading through the methodology now and I've already found several problems (I'm only on the fourth page). The sample size alone says it all; 385 bus customers, 385 rail customers. Selection was based on state using random phone numbers.
DC VA MD
RAIL 34% 33% 33%
BUS 59% 17% 24%
That doesn't seem so bad, right? Here's the fun part: "21% of calls were cell-phone only households---known to be younger, more urban, lower income, and more likely to be Black or Hispanic." Now, lest anyone make the dumb "oh, it's racist!" claim, taking into account existing demographics is a part of good surveying. That said, this 21% figure is insanely low.

In addition, any good survey requires you use different methodologies. I'm no statistician, but I do know that you always want to have data collected in different ways. People are generally more willing to give metro the benefit of the doubt when they are comfortably at home than they are when, say, waiting for a Rush+ Blue line train.

+16 Vote up Vote down

John · 640 weeks ago

I'm about as "satisfied" with metro's services as I am with Dr. Gridlock's reporting....

+7 Vote up Vote down

@savemetro · 640 weeks ago

Am I satisfied in Metro's service? . . . hummmm, well they've lowered the bar so much, I mean, look they haven't killed me yet, so yes, I am satisfied with their service.

+9 Vote up Vote down

JMC · 640 weeks ago

A good survey report should include the questionnaire (completely missing), sample info (which they have, sort of), the data collection strategy (sort of present, but some major omissions, e.g. time of day calls were placed), and the data analysis strategy (pretty much done). So this report is pretty crappy. The 770 customers they surveyed is probably a sufficient sample size for the 1m daily ridership, so they got that right at least. But the full report is missing a ton of information. They only present positive statistics. In a normal survey, you would expect to at least see a couple areas of weakness. Note the difference between rail and bus questions. They mention the high reliability score for bus but say nothing about the straight reliability score for rail, only including a composite index. That means they probably weren't too proud of the reliability score. They do not include any information about the questions they asked, which is a really bad sign. For example, their reliability question could have been "Would you say that your trips on metro rail goes well more often than not?" I would say yes to that. But that really means that my service is more than 50% good, which I would hardly consider a fair measure of satisfactory. And who the hell actually responds to phone polls anymore anyway?

1 reply · active 640 weeks ago

+3 Vote up Vote down

Aaron Z. · 640 weeks ago

Couldn't agree more. I was pretty amazed that none of the questions were released, though I'm sure you wouldn't be able to stall a Freedom of Information Act request for any of this information for too long. I'd love to throw in such a request and see if Metro refuses.

+4 Vote up Vote down

jimlcunningham 80p · 640 weeks ago

Are these the surveys they were handing out in Metro stations? If so, I happen to know they were very selective who they gave the surveys too. I WATCHED on two occasions Metro employees handing surveys to people as they went up escilators but holding their hands behind their backs and not offering surveys when white people came by.

They also carefully guarded the survey drop boxes in stations, no doubt so they could open the box and throw away surveys from people who "looked" like they'd give a bad survey.

You can be SURE this data has been massaged and tapered with.

That's OK; it'll work for then about as well as the Republican "weighted" polls worked for them. It'll give them a false sense of security until the next accident -- and until federal authorities finally get involved.

3 replies · active 640 weeks ago

+2 Vote up Vote down

hell'sFrozenOver? · 640 weeks ago

When do you expect these authorities to save you/us?

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@JaundiceJames · 640 weeks ago

I'm sure it'll be any day now. ; )

+1 Vote up Vote down

JMC · 640 weeks ago

This was not the in-person survey. It was conducted over the phone. You may be right about the massaging, but there is no way to know without the raw data and questionnaire.

+1 Vote up Vote down

Steffanie · 640 weeks ago

So we now know where the Unskewed Polls guy works.

0 Vote up Vote down

@katekirk · 640 weeks ago

Well of course you'd recommend it if you're over 55 - you are old and slow, have nowhere to be except your government job, and are past the halfway point of your life so who cares if service is unreliable, dirty and overpriced?

+2 Vote up Vote down

Rebecca · 640 weeks ago

This survey was clearly a PR move, not something that WMATA is actually using to improve service. Asking someone a vague question like "Are you satisfied with Metrorail service?" does not get into enough detail to tell you anything useful. If you asked me "Are you satisifed with Metro service?" I'd probably say yes, overall - I use Metro mostly for commuting, and it gets me where I need to go in a (mostly) dependable fashion. And obviously I recommend that my out-of-town guests use it, since even with all its flaws it's still far easier than driving around DC and trying to find parking.

Now, if you were to ask me any of the following:
"Are you satisfied with night and weekend Metro service?"
"Are you satisfied with the cost of Metro?"
"Are you satisfied with the business operations and leadership of WMATA?"

my response would be a resounding HELL NO. But of course they aren't looking to get this kind of feedback.

1 reply · active 640 weeks ago

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everythingIsPRWorthy · 640 weeks ago

"Asking someone a vague question like "Are you satisfied with Metrorail service?" does not get into enough detail to tell you anything useful."

Sure if does! If the results are resoundingly positive, continue with the status quo. If, however, the results are less than perfect, it's time to unleash the number-massager (no need to actually improve-just fit the requirements to the performance if it can't be spun).

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Rita · 640 weeks ago

Did anyone here receive a WMTA survey via e-mail earlier this week? I got one on Monday. The questions and rating instructions were very poorly written. Having taken data analysis and survey formulation classes in grad school, I'm sure my professors could have used it as an example of what NOT to do. Figures..it's Metro after all.