MetroAccess, which offers Metro's door-to-door service for people with disabilities, faces growing criticism for a lack of performance and poor customer satisfaction.
Numan Aslam, who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, said he's been using MetroAccess for more than 15 years.
Recently, he’s been losing patience with MetroAccess. It's progressively been getting worse, he said.
It came to a head when he was left for hours at the Springfield Mall in early December. Aslam was supposed to be picked up between 9 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., but his driver didn't arrive.
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“And I keep waiting,” Aslam said. “The mall closed at 9 o'clock, and it was a really, really cold, windy day. And I had to ask one of the restaurants, ‘Can I stay here to wait for the MetroAccess?'"
Aslam said he called MetroAccess and was told to consider getting an Uber, he said.
When the restaurant where he sought comfort closed at 11 p.m., his MetroAccess driver finally arrived, he said.
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Such stories are growing in his community.
“In the last month-and-a-half, it has gotten worse," said Katherine Montgomery, who has used MetroAccess since she was 17.
Metro's statistics show that MetroAccess on-time performance dropped to 89% last quarter, missing the target of 92%.
Customer satisfaction dropped to 79%. Metro believes late trips are contributing to that decline.
Metro recently switched from using five contractors for MetroAccess service to one contractor as a cost-saving strategy.
The transit agency said now it’s assigning dispatchers to monitor specific MetroAccess drivers and new performance reports also will be issued.
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