Business View Magazine Feb 2023

190 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 2 But now, numbers are picking back up. “Right now, we’re at about 30 percent pre- COVID levels, so people are starting to return, but we are still not where we were in 2019,” Rudolph says. “But the trend is up.” Helping rider rates rise is the introduction of the People Mover m Ticket app, which is a mobile ticketing platform that allows riders to purchase their tickets contact-free and in advance. “We just had an update today from our customer service manager and mobile ticketing is outpacing the fare box ticketing at this point,” says Jamie Acton, Anchorage’s public transportation department director. Mobile ticketing isn’t just beneficial for customer purchases, it’s also had some other surprising benefits as well, Rudolph says. “Another benefit that we’ve seen with mobile ticketing is there’s less interaction with the driver and time spent at the fare box,” he explains. “So, we have seen our routes increasing and being on time more often due to the speed of the boarding process.” Even more changes are coming to People Mover, with the transit program being in the process of turning over its fleet. The new line of buses uses clean diesel, which makes them virtually smokeless and therefore emits fewer emissions. Plans aren’t in place at the moment to move over to an alternative fuel source, but it’s something they are keeping in mind, Acton says. “At this time, we’re looking at doing a separate planning effort that would basically evaluate the different alternatives,” she explains. “One of the things we are seeing here in Alaska is that some of the northern cities are transitioning to CNG (compressed natural gas), so we’re wondering if that would be a fit for us. We’re looking at taking on a planning effort that would really look at all the different alternatives and kind of vet those for us. That’s our next step.”