VVTA Fleet Analyst Earns CTA Transit Professional of the Year Award

Victor Valley Transit Authority (VVTA) Fleet Analyst Dustin Strandberg, accepted the 2015 California Transit Association’s (CTA) Transit Professional of the Year award during the 50th Annual Fall Conference in Pasadena, California. The award is given to a transit professional who demonstrates exceptional leadership and makes significant contributions that benefit public transit.

Strandberg led VVTA in the development of a paperless preventive maintenance inspection (PMI) program and incorporated it within the fleet management system. Using tablets, the program provides technicians with one-touch access to vehicle- and component-specific shop manuals and historical maintenance data during inspections. The program auto-generates work orders on individual line item inspection failures to ensure that all items are addressed, repaired, and not overlooked due to human error.

“Dustin has been instrumental in refining the preventative maintenance inspection process,” said VVTA Director of Maintenance & Facilities Ron Zirges. "This award is a token of his achievement. Through his vision and initiative, VVTA transitioned to a completely electronic paperless vehicle maintenance management system. The depth and accuracy of the new data now enables our team to quickly identify and eliminate repeat repairs and reduce the amount of preventable road calls. This can now be accomplished with information right at our fingertips instead of shuffling through countless files for the same data."

Strandberg studied computer science at Mt. San Jacinto College and launched his career in network communications and programming. He moved into transit via Transdev as utility supervisor with the Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA). Within months, he earned a promotion to service writer. Strandberg made his move to VVTA in January 2014 as a fleet analyst, where he put his extensive computer knowledge and skills to work.

“This award is an honor. Throughout my career, the true paperless PMI has been an elusive challenge,” said Strandberg. “VVTA has given us room to develop our skills and face such challenges. It has paid off for the entire team and our colleagues in the industry who have reached out to us.”

Strandberg began development of the program a month following his arrival. He deployed the first working beta three months later. By August, he had integrated pass-fail inspection prompts along with vehicle and component specific manuals.

“Major transit agencies have approached us regarding this technology and are impressed with the depth of our PMI program.” said Strandberg. “The manual entries and redundancies required using a paper inspection process are more prone to human error and the depth of data is not as comprehensive nor as reliable. FTA reviews of vehicle maintenance that once spanned days are now completed within 30 minutes using the paperless system.”

The VVTA program uses handheld Panasonic Tough-books connected via a wireless network. Next generation hardware is currently being tested and under review.

“It is exciting to work with such an innovative agency,” said VVTA Board Member and Victorville Mayor Gloria Garcia. “VVTA is having a positive impact in our community and the transit industry. For major transit agencies to award our efforts and seek our advice at the CTA conference was an honor.”