Beverly Scott, the General Manager and CEO of the MBTA, joined NightSide with Dan Rea on WBZ Radio Wednesday to discuss the MBTA’s operations, touching on the CapeFLYER train, the Tech Tax, Green Line electronic message boards, and mobile ticketing.
Scott acknowledged that, come Dec.17, she will have been the GM and CEO of the MBTA for exactly a year. “I knew I was really going to enjoy the T,” Scott said on WBZ, candidly admitting that she didn’t realize she would “fall in love with the people” of the Commonwealth.
The first topic of conversation during her interview with Nightside was the the CapeFlyer Train which provides summer weekend services from Boston to Cape Cod.
Scott told WBZ that the train’s services exceeded expectations. “It was a slam-dunk,” said Scott. The CapeFlyer, which opened this summer, provided services to about 16,000 riders and averaged close to 1,000 riders per weekend.
The CapeFLYER’s services have been extended through Columbus Day weekend.
Rea shifted the conversation one of the MBTA’s successes to the recently repealed Tech Tax, which could negatively impact the transit authority.
“We don’t think it’s going to be devastating,” Scott said, despite a absence of potential funds that could have been sent the MBTA’s way.
“[The MBTA] will be able to weather it.”
If the tax on high tech services had been imposed, the “MassDOT pot”– not just the MBTA — would have received a projected $26 million annually. This sum, Scott, feels, would not have made a tremendous impact.
Sticking with the funding-theme, Rea asked Scott to address any impact the government shutdown has, or could, potentially, have on MBTA services.
“It depends how long it goes,” said Scott.
The MBTA has about a month’s worth of liquidity to keep operations running as scheduled, “much longer than that and [The shutdown] could cause problems,” Scott added.
Scott didn’t go in to detail about specific problems before being asked to address the new electronic message boards for Green Line stops that will provide riders with realtime information.
A prototype of these message boards was unveiled last month at Kenmore station. Overall,”the total project will be completed in about two years,” Scott said. Even though the Green Line operates on a different system than the rest of the subway lines, Scott acknowledged that the MBTA is doing everything in its power to complete the project within 18 months.
In sticking with the topic of innovation, Scott addressed the idea of mobile ticketing, which she sees as the future of the next generation of fair collecting.
Thanks to the mTicket mobile app, mobile ticketing has been in place since November 2012. Since its inception, Scott said, 16 percent of all transactions are mobile, pulling in over $10 million.
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