- Alma Mater: California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
- Favorite hobby(ies): DJ’ing and riding his bike with big groups
- Fun fact about yourself: He has visited 22 countries
- What is your favorite transit system (outside of the one you work for or have worked for!) and why?: He really likesTransLink in Vancouver, B.C., Canada because of the network design and service levels. He was really impressed when he would go out to the suburbs and there would be very frequent and late night service. The Skytrain rail network is really something too just in terms of its technology and the scale that it’s running at.
As a proud millennial, Bradley Tollison made significant contributions to Torrance Transit agency and the overall transit industry. Before coming to Torrance Transit, he explained how he could help use gps to locate Torrance Transit buses and place the agencies schedules on Google Maps. As a small agency, Torrance Transit was still in the process of researching an Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL) system. Given his persistence, hard work and dedication, he was hired as an intern to see exactly what he could do with the data collected and if it could help Torrance Transit move the AVL project forward. Well 8 years later and all of his hard work has paid off. Torrance Transit is on now Google Map with real-time updates and the agency also has a Transit App that provides real-time arrival information. This was an amazing feat given the fact that he was the only employee the agency had with planning knowledge and the fact that he recruited other students to assist him. He was truly an asset to the organization.
Tollison is always looking for ways to use technology to optimize the use of the current transportation infrastructure. He is not only knowledgeable of our system, but every system in the region.
He represented Torrance Transit at various meetings and is often times called to assist other agencies. He was the agencies go to person when they need to know what other agencies in southern California were doing or how they operate. Many of Torrance Transit's technological advances have been as a result of his recommendation. He prides himself on looking at solutions from the end user's perspective. Always looking to improve the passenger's experience. That is one reason why he utilizes transit as his choice mode of transportation everywhere he goes. He believes that anyone who makes decisions as a transportation planner should utilize the transportation system to understand the impact of their design or plan. Even during his trips aboard he is always assessing how other transit systems run, what amenities they have and what solutions we should consider to help improve Torrance's service. His love for transit began when he was a kid riding the Torrance Transit System.
Not everyone is as fortunate as Tollison to work in an industry that they are passionate about. He is truly living his dream and we are so grateful he chose us as his employer. His great work has also been recognized by others in the industry. So much so that he has recently been recruited by the Trapeze Group as a senior application support analyst. Tollison is a member of Young Professionals in Transportation (YPT), American Planning Student Association (APSA).
"I like being able to make a difference in people's lives. It's really nice because at Trapeze I help different agencies fix issues with their schedules and things like that. Just generally I've always enjoyed the aspect of making those differences in this industry. You really help people in their everyday lives. Maybe that person can now get home because you made an improvement or can get to school. Those really simple things are what transport can do for people and I think that is really rewarding."
"I started riding public transport when I was really little, my daycare and summer camp would take public transit rather than chartering out a bus. During the economic recession I had the opportunity to build up the Google transit feed for my local agency and I started realizing that I could have a job doing it. It was a kind of accident, but it was also meant to be."
"It's making a difference in people's lives that to me is really the key."
"I'm always trying to solve puzzles. I've found transit to be one big puzzle, I've been able to travel a lot and one of those things that I noticed is that humans tend to do similar things differently and I feel that way about transit agencies as well. I'll try to deliver a service to the public, but we'll tackle it differently. It's interesting to see how different agencies tackle changes differently."
"When I worked at Torrance I was really proud to change their schedules. They hadn't modified their schedules in at least 20 years and I was able to build some technology to build running time data. That is something that I am really proud of... Buses were running to around 11 at night as opposed to 8, so I was able to see people waiting for a later bus."
