For many riders, Metro’s “Rush Hour Promise” sounds like it could add up to major savings over the course of a year. The program pledges SmarTrip refunds for the full fare if peak-period trips are delayed by 15 minutes or more.
But here’s why riders who are expecting a sudden financial windfall from the the Rush Hour Promise are likely to be disappointed.
First, understand the limited scope of the program: Metro estimates that a total 0.3 percent of all trips will be eligible for refunds, costing the agency about $2 million to $3.5 million. The pool would be larger — about 1 in 200 trips — but the agency says it can only refund riders who have registered SmarTrip cards, shrinking the eligible pool from about 0.5 percent of trips to 0.3 percent.
Seem small? It’s a product of Metro’s individualized trip score algorithm, MyTripTime.
Under MyTripTime, many of the factors that lengthen the usual Metro trip are already built in to Metro’s estimates.
Rather than how closely trains run to schedule, the program weighs customers’ actual travel times against how long a trip from their origin to destination stops was expected to take.
MyTripTime accommodates for factors like the anticipated wait, the time it takes to transfer, the walk from the faregates to the platform — to the exit once you arrive — and the actual travel time between two stations. According to Metro’s website:
The algorithm is variable, and somewhat complicated. Think of it this way: The clock begins ticking as soon as you tap into a station, and it stops when you tap out. If your trip takes longer than the maximum length Metro estimates — 15 minutes longer — you’ll recoup the cost of your fare.
For example, the MyTripTime estimate for the three-stop trip from NoMa to Gallery Place at rush hour is six to 14 minutes. A trip that takes 15 minutes is late, but not late enough to net you a refund.
For a trip to have stretched long enough to warrant a refund, that normally short ride would have to stretch to a whopping 29 minutes. NBC4’s Adam Tuss obtained some other maximum trip times, showing how the refund metric — perhaps unsurprisingly — benefits longer-distance trips compared to shorter ones.
Per Metro - here are some sample times for the MAX amount of time it should take to get between these stations during rush hour. Think you have it beat by 15 minutes or more? #wmata @nbcwashington pic.twitter.com/4QWcdgpBCV
— Adam Tuss (@AdamTuss) January 11, 2018
If the Orange Line from Vienna to Farragut West takes 55 minutes farebox-to-farebox, congrats, you’re in luck (if you could call a 55-minute commute “luck.”)
If the journey from Columbia Heights to Gallery Place takes 34 minutes, you’ll recoup the cost of riding — because that’s 15 minutes more than Metro’s maximum estimated trip length of 19 minutes.
Metro’s MyTripTime estimates vary significantly from Metro’s Trip Planner estimates, where the trip downtown from Columbia Heights normally takes 10 minutes and the Vienna-to-Farragut West journey takes 31. Those estimates only factor in travel time on the train.
Further, with Metro’s reduced headways, riders might feel like they’re experiencing delays even when they aren’t by official standards. Metro board member Michael Goldman offered a hypothetical at Thursday’s Board meeting. What if someone waited eight minutes for a Red Line train at Shady Grove — plausible under Metro’s reduced headways that went into effect last July — and then sat through eight minutes of single-tracking on the way?
Is that 16-minute slowdown eligible for a refund? No, said Lynn Bowersox, Metro’s assistant general manager for customer service — “not necessarily,” because the wait time on the platform was built in.
While it’s easy to see why some might be disappointed, Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld said in an interview last week that the program represents an experiment, and an outreach effort for customers.
“We did this [for] our customers,” Wiedefeld said. “You know, we have to try some different things and this is an effort. We will continue to think of other ways to do things to reinforce the predictability of service, the quality of service.”
It’s a welcome gesture for addled riders who have endured their fair share of commuting pain — and abandoned the system in droves — because of Metro’s reliability problems.
And its impacts could be magnified on days when Metro sees commuting meltdowns. Last week, for example, a cracked rail fouled up the evening commute Wednesday– resulting in single-tracking on the Blue and Orange Lines, and truncated service on the Silver Line.
That afternoon, 3.48 percent of trips were delayed 15 or more minutes. That’s 11 times the average for the four-month period Metro evaluated.
The Metro board will consider the Rush Hour Promise proposal Jan. 25. If approved it would go into effect the next day.