NJ: After 4 years of waiting, NJ Transit riders have a customer advocate

NJ Transit board member Shanti Narra spoke the words that commuters have waited four years to hear, the agency finally hired a customer advocate to represent rider interests.

The position that has been vacant since October 2020 will be filled by Franck Beaumin, who held a similar post with Boston’s Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Narra said.

“After a long and drawn-out process, we identified a candidate for the position and made him an offer and he will begin this Monday,” said Narra, who oversaw the process for a board committee.

Born and educated in France, Beaumin’s experience ranges from working as a consultant to develop a network operational plan for a $500 million bus rapid transit, BRT in Bangladesh, then to France where he was a Customer Service Project Manager and Customer Experience Manager for Keolis, a transit operator in Paris.

His most recent job was overseeing customer communications with Keolis Commuter Services, which operates the MBTA’s 14 commuter rail lines serving the Greater Boston region and Rhode Island, officials said.

“I am looking forward to engaging with our customers and working with the operational teams on every mode to improve the passenger experience at every step of the journey,” Beaumin said in a statement.

He will earn an annual salary of $175,000 as an independent representative of NJ Transit commuters, a position that was created by 2018 agency reform law.

“Franck brings a unique and customer-focused perspective with his transit background in Europe as well as in Boston,” Narra said in a statement. “We look forward to how he’ll apply that experience in the interest of our customers here in New Jersey.”

A customer advocate is required under the 2018 NJ Transit reform law, but a job description for the first version of that office was criticized for having public relations functions and not solely representing passengers. That advocate, Stewart Mader, resigned in Oct. 2020.

The position remained open for years for multiple reasons, including the initial misunderstanding on the part of some applicants that it was a customer service position.

“It’s not customer service position,” said NJ Transit CEO Kevin Corbett. “We have a robust customer service organization.”

That prompted NJ Transit to release a re-written job description in June 2023. The new job description made it clear the advocate “represents customer interests across all transit modes” and outlines how they are expected to meet and survey riders to do that.

As customer advocate at NJ Transit, Beaumin will draft annual goals, oversee Passenger Advisory Committees to address customer issues and develop an “engagement plan” to gather rider opinions and insights and to ride the system “regularly.”

Beaumin also will be expected write and present numerous reports, including a bi-monthly report to the board of director’s Operations and Customer Service Committee about issues riders raised and actions taken to correct them and progress made on existing or new goals, and initiatives the customer advocate has participated in. Six month and annual reports also are required.

“This isn’t a position that reports to me, it’s up to the board how they see it and they have to comply with the legislative requirement that wants someone independent of the organization," Corbett said.

While the hiring process dragged on, lawmakers proposed legislation to make the customer advocate’s position conform with the intent of the 2018 NJ Transit reform law.

The first was a 2021 bill dubbed “customer advocate 2.0,” proposed by retired State Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D- Bergen, that moved the job out of NJ Transit and into the Department of Transportation.

It spells out what lawmakers wanted from an advocate — independence and the power to investigate and report on behalf of riders, to present comments and testimony to the board, legislative committees, and other governmental bodies.

Legislation proposed in 2023 by Assembly members Raj Mukherji, D- Hudson, and Shama A. Haider, D- Bergen, would create a rider’s commission, appointed by the the governor and legislative leaders. That commission would appoint a customer advocate.

Their bill also has the Treasury Department and not NJ Transit fund the customer advocate office and gives it added autonomy and investigatory powers.

None of the bills made it out of committee.

©2024 Advance Local Media LLC.
Visit nj.com.
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.