TransLink CEO apologizes for hours-long HandyDart delays
TransLink’s chief executive has apologized for an hours-long system outage that stranded and delayed many HandyDart users.
“We feel very strongly that we owe our riders an apology,” Kevin Desmond said during a board of directors meeting on Friday.
HandyDart is a door-to-door shared-ride service for people with physical or cognitive disabilities who are unable to use conventional public transit without assistance.
The disruption happened on Thursday, when the HandyDart reservation and dispatch system, which is hosted by a software company called Trapeze, went down. There was no communication between the dispatch system and the mobile terminals in the HandyDart vehicles.
Field operations staff scrambled to keep the system running, Desmond said, but they were “paralyzed” by the crash.
“For those customers who got caught up in it, they probably had a really horrible afternoon waiting for vans that didn’t show up or didn’t show up for a very long time,” Desmond said.
Beth McKellar, co-chair of the HandyDart Riders’ Alliance, was forced to take two buses and walk for a distance because her ride did not show up on Thursday. On Friday, she was hobbled by nerve pain.
“I’m all bent over. Sciatica has been activated. Thank you very much, HandyDart,” McKellar said.
It’s unclear what caused the outage, which lasted for at least three hours, but Desmond said the chief information officer, Coast Mountain Bus Company and Trapeze are investigating. He said he has never seen this kind of disruption before, and the service will ensure there are redundancies built into the system so it doesn’t happen again.
“It’s something we have to get to the bottom of,” Desmond said.