In the Dispatch Center: After Errant Keystrokes, a Scramble

At the MetroAccess dispatch center, green on the color-coded late-trip monitor means good, red means bad. One woman's name is bright red in a blur of green.

The woman was supposed to be picked up at her home in Southeast Washington at 6:58 a.m. It's 7:29. Her driver is late.

In her cubicle at the Silver Spring center, dispatcher Cynthia Givens has checked her drivers' schedules several times and knows that the rider in red is not on their lists. Her earpiece rings. It's one of her drivers. He's supposed to pick up someone at the Parkview Apartments in Bladensburg, but his schedule doesn't give the street address.

With a click of her computer mouse, Givens pulls up the trip's details and reads the address to him.

"Do you need a map to help you out?" she asks.

No, he says. He grouses about the information being missing.

Givens has seen this glitch before. The reservationist typed in the information in the wrong order. As a result, the driver's computer couldn't process it and kicked out the street address.

Tell the customer to "give reservations a call and tell them to put in the address and then the apartment complex," she says.

Givens has been at work since 4 a.m., one of 17 dispatchers on this eight-hour shift Thursday. By the time she punches out at 1 p.m., she will have handled close to 200 trips. This control center for MV Transportation takes 2,500 to 3,000 telephone calls each weekday and coordinates about 4,300 trips.

Givens, 43, has been in the job for a week, promoted from the Where's My Ride answer line. Twenty drivers depend on her to troubleshoot errors before they become crises. At peak times, such as between 5:30 and 6 a.m., she is so busy taking calls from drivers and sending schedules to them electronically that as many as four drivers may be on hold. No time to sip from her water bottle, much less take a bathroom break.

At 7:43 a.m., the woman's name is still in red. A young man walks over to Givens and hands her a sheet of paper that mistakenly lists the woman as assigned to one of Givens's drivers.

"She's not on his run," Givens tells him. She checks the computer and finds the correct run. Using that run number, a supervisor heads over to the dispatcher whose driver has this trip. The dispatcher guides the driver to the home, street by street.

Givens is about to take a call when another man hands her a sheet of paper. A customer has received an automated call saying her ride is outside, but it's not.

"Silver Spring to 200, come in," says Givens, calling the driver. The driver radios back. She's almost at the location. The driver explains that she mistakenly touched the computer console and triggered the alert.

"The client is looking for you," Givens says. Undo the action and redo it when you arrive, she tells her.

Givens goes back to the driver on hold. He has arrived at his Silver Spring location to pick up his rider. With the rider is another person who is waiting for a separate MetroAccess pickup. Because the riders are going to the same place, the driver asks if he can take both. Givens initially says no, but a supervisor says it's all right. Go ahead, Givens tells him. She'll cancel the other pickup.

She heads to the bathroom, her Nextel radio in hand.

It's shortly after 8 a.m. The rider in red has been picked up and taken to her destination. But the delays have messed up her return trip. Her name is still red.