COVID-19 Recovery: Riders are Coming Back but Where are the Drivers?

[marmar]

As restrictions begin to lift and the world shifts its attitude to “living with COVID-19,” agencies are reporting upticks in ridership, such as the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Metropolitan Council and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System.

While the increasing ridership trend is welcome news, there has been an equal if not greater number of announcements from agencies saying they are limiting services due to a driver shortage. To highlight this phenomenon, the Shared-Use Mobility Center (SUMC) released a report in November 2021, “Managing the Labor Shortage at Transit Agencies,” that documents the drastic drop in transit industry employees, saying from “March to April of 2020, employment in the transit and ground passenger transportation industry fell from about 498,000 to 321,000 employees.”

While the drop is significant, this labor shortage has been years in the making; it was just exacerbated by the pandemic, explains a report released February 2022 by the Alliance for a Just Society, the Labor Network for Sustainability and TransitCenter.

Take Steamboat Springs Transit (SST) in Steamboat Springs, Colo., for instance—a ski resort area with a heavy reliance on seasonal drivers. Jonathan Flint, transit manager for SST, explains filling the seasonal driver roster has always been a challenge, but was making progress by working with areas that have an opposite seasonal demand.

“We had made that successful up until COVID-19 hit, [then] we started losing some of our drivers,” Flint shared. ..................(more)

https://www.masstransitmag.com/management/article/21259119/covid19-recovery-riders-are-coming-back-but-where-are-the-drivers