- One word to describe yourself: Determined
- Alma Mater: The Ohio State University
- Favorite book: “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” by Jane Jacobs
- Favorite TV show: “The Daily Show”
- Favorite movie: “Happy Gilmore”
- Favorite hobby(s): Hockey, mountain biking, gardening
- Fun fact about yourself: I am the proud father of soon-to-be, four-year-old identical triplet boys
- Favorite station or stop that you have ever visited or frequent (and why): Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey. It was my first and most visited transit hub and the gateway to New York City when I was growing up in Bergen County. I would take NJ Transit service down there with family or friends and travel from my small borough via commuter rail down to Hoboken. You could grab the bus, PATH subway or ferry into the city or just walk around the lively one-square-mile city just across the Hudson River from one of the busiest, densest cities in the world. When going out with friends on the weekends, we made sure to get to our last train on time or else it was an expensive cab ride home!
- Favorite route you have ever ridden or frequent (and why): Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner in California between San Diego and Irvine. I made a point to take the trip while out there for a TCRP panel and it did not disappoint. It was fascinating and exciting being on a train so close to beaches, passing surfside communities and even watching some military exercises all from the comforts of my seat on the train.
Thomas M. Hewitt Jr. led the creation of the service plan, bus stop optimization and the development of the operating implementation plan for BaltimoreLink, which he describes as more than a bus network redesign but a reimagining of the region’s transit network with capital infrastructure improvements and an agency-wide multimodal rebranding effort. Hewitt explains that BaltimoreLink provided the catalyst for data-driven decision making, guidance documents and standardization at the administration, which allows it to continue to build a transit system that provides safe, equitable, efficient and reliable service throughout the Baltimore region.
In the two years since BaltimoreLink was implemented, Hewitt has led several other major initiatives that have continued to push MDOT MTA forward as an agency. Hewitt is directly responsible for the development of the bus stop design guidelines, the bus service standards and the performance monitoring guidelines, three documents that provide a blueprint towards continued service growth and improvement. He has created BaltimoreLink route report cards that track overall service trends and performance using MDOT MTA’s guiding principles of safety, efficiency, reliability and world-class customer service. He developed an annual service plan that allows for a deeper dive into each of the route's performance to determine what changes will help both the individual service and the overall bus network. Hewitt has also established a process to analyze and review critical schedule reliability elements, such as runtimes and layover/recovery time to maximize service while maintaining efficiency.
Overall, the commitment to continuous improvement using data-driven analytics has already had a significant positive effect on MDOT MTA’s on-time-performance (OTP). This past winter, MDOT MTA utilized real-time data for the first time to construct bus schedules. Since the new schedules were implemented on February 3, core bus system OTP rates rose to a high of 71.4 percent for March, compared to a pre-BaltimoreLink OTP rate of 59.5 percent, all while reducing operations requirements.
Colleagues say Hewitt is as committed as they come towards improving transit and can regularly be found riding the BaltimoreLink service to and from work, talking to bus operators and passengers (either in person or through social media) and thinking about how MDOT MTA could continue to make improvements by using the latest in data and technology.
“Looking back, I am where I’m at not because of a specific experience, but a collection of experiences which provided me with the skills and knowledge to discover and foster my passion. Studying sociology, criminology, and city and regional planning in college, and starting out as a Transit Planner/GIS analyst for a consulting firm in the fixed-route bus dominant west coast of Florida all laid the foundation for my career in transit service development. Obtaining both my professional planning certification (AICP) as well as a certification with the International Code Council (ICC) as an Accessibility Inspector/Plans Examiner (AI/PE) helped me understand the relationship between land-use planning and transit planning while incorporating the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Transit facilities need to be designed and constructed per accessibility code, but comprehending the whole picture and how people access transit facilities is equally important and coordination is critical as transit agencies do not typically own the public right-of-way. More so, universal design principles need to be applied to transit projects to provide access to the greatest number of individuals. Accessibility is the law; accessible features facilitate access and usage for people with children and strollers or those who take transit to go to the grocery store with their folding carts.”
“I truly enjoy all of the collaboration and teamwork it takes to effectively plan, schedule and operate fixed-route bus service. Service development encompasses so many different disciplines. Working with bus transportation and operators, bus maintenance, field supervision, customer service, capital programming, long range planning, safety, finance, real estate, communications, marketing, government affairs and two labor unions just to name a few. Going into the community and discussing options with riders as well as elected officials just shows the breadth of what we do to successfully plan for transit service. Using data is key, but communication is vital. On top of it all, our decisions and the implementation of bus service can be felt nearly immediately. It is so gratifying seeing us modify a route or add a bus stop and immediately witness folks use the service. I will never forget during the planning for our bus network redesign in 2017 (BaltimoreLink), I was out in the field with staff and consultants examining site selection for bus stops to serve a new route that essentially extended an existing line to a previously unserved area. A lady saw our safety vests with MTA on the back and asked what we were doing. After I explained why we were there, she gave me a great big hug and said she was so excited to hear this news as she walks over two miles each day to get from her home to the existing bus stop/route and back. I remember when I first started in my position, reading a letter dated from 1992 about this exact same request for the extension of service to this area. This was an area with a contingent of Not in My Back Yarders (NIMBYs) and it was gratifying to make the push to provide service where it was sorely needed regardless of what a few non-transit riders thought about the typical stigmas we hear towards bus service.”
“I deal with daily challenges but the biggest challenge I consistently face is wanting to accommodate legitimate requests but having to say no. I joined MDOT MTA in the middle of the BaltimoreLink network redesign and I knew it was going to be like drinking from a firehose, but I saw the opportunity available to make a meaningful impact to the bus network in the Baltimore region. There were numerous needs and requests that we had to go through, and it can be challenging and stressful when you have to choose between multiple options for service and you have conflicting requests. Service planning and scheduling is also a balance between supply and demand. You need buses and operators to run service. Everyone wants more frequent service but it’s a balance of where you should be adding service as opposed to simply having making changes per unvetted requests. Listening to the needs of a community is critical, but with limited resources, that is why the data-driven approach we employ is so important. Service planning by anecdote may be the easy way out in the moment, but to be equitable and sustainable, we need to examine both the qualitative and quantitative data and make rational, data-driven decisions that help those who need it the most.”
“The accomplishment I’m most proud of was leading our bus network redesign called BaltimoreLink, which launched in June 2017. The project not only encompassed a network redesign, but a system rebranding with capital improvements such as bus priority lanes and transit signal priority, so coordination with other departments was vital for a successful launch of our bus system, which carries nearly 80 percent of our core riders and approximately 220,000 riders every weekday. So much work was put into the launch and it was a fast-paced time to work at the agency. I view BaltimoreLink not as a one-shot deal, but a reimagining of the transit network which includes standardization, guidelines, and processes to sustain service in an equitable, safe, efficient, and reliable way. The smaller, incremental changes we have been making the past two years may fly under the radar, but we are seeing improvements in reliability (increase of 20 percent on-time performance over 18 months) and decreases in passenger overcrowding as a result of schedule and trip changes. We also increased weekend service and have seen improvements in weekend ridership since launch. A spin-off of the BaltimoreLink network redesign is the development of a service planning performance monitoring program, route report cards, and completion of the first comprehensive bus stop design guide. The BaltimoreLink bus network redesign was the catalyst for data-driven decision making, guidance documents, and standardization so that we can continue to build a transit system that continues to provide safe, equitable, efficient, and reliable service throughout the Baltimore region.”
“The best advice I can give is to think outside your specialization and put yourself in others’ shoes. It’s important to be an expert but also having generalist tendencies help you see things from a different perspective. I may focus on service planning and scheduling now, but my background in GIS, operations planning, data collection, engineering and ADA compliance all fold into how I provide direction and make decisions when planning bus routes, schedule service and place bus stops. If you work in operations, understand engineering and community involvement. If you work in long-range planning, understand scheduling and operations. Build relationships with your counterparts in other agencies you deal with and ask questions how they do things. Being an expert in one area is important but having a working knowledge outside your area of expertise is what can help you to the next level in your career. This approach rounds you out to be a better transit collaborator and advocate while affording you the ability to make a greater impact to make positive change in your organization and the industry as a whole.”
“Transit affords so much. It moves people for work and play. It’s freedom. It’s good for the environment. When I take transit, I do not have to focus on the travel aspect. I can read, talk to fellow riders, or (ugh) check work emails. Being in the industry and using transit allows me to tell stories of my experiences so that others who may not use transit can try it and see if it works for them. Most importantly, we have to understand the public part of transit. There are folks that may live alone, and not directly communicate with others except for their transit round trip, so the operator may be the first and last person they interact with. Part of my job is to make sure the routes and schedules provide efficient and reliable service, so that the operator(s) can have realistic schedules. The work my team and I do directly impact whether a person can get to their job on time, and if an operator can realistically complete their run (trip) on time. Happy operators pay it forward to make our riders happy, so although I may not directly be interacting with the 220,000 riders that use our system each weekday, the decisions I make and work my team and I do impact nearly a quarter million people each day. That’s the motivation I use every day to make sure our service is the best it can be.”
