Are you looking for ways to grow your ridership dramatically,

even beyond your pre pandemic levels?

I'm Paul Comfort.

You're going to want to stay tuned to this episode of Transit Unplugged, where

I talk with Eve Wiggins, director of transit at a major transit system in

Mississauga, Ontario, outside of Toronto.

They have 500 buses and they have grown their ridership to 109 percent

of their pre pandemic levels.

Twenty-seven percent over the last year.

She tells us how.

We also talked to Eve about her career.

She's had a great career, 20 years, in the Toronto airport and then working

as a group station manager at Toronto Transit Commission for Andy Byford,

then to Metrolinx, where she was vice president of bus services for several

years and now as Director of Transit for the full city of Mississauga.

A great, talk about the differences between When you're the CEO, the

top person, and when you're in senior leadership and how you

can approach that differently.

And finally, we talk about what the future holds for Mississauga when

it comes to zero emission fuels.

I think you'll be surprised about what's happening there.

Stay tuned on now this episode where we talk to Eve Wiggins,

Director of Transit in Mississauga.

Let's join the conversation.

I'm excited to be with Eve Wiggins, who is the Director of Transit in

Mississauga, Ontario, MiWay Transit System, which happens to be, Eve, where

the headquarters of, uh, one of our big companies is, Trapeze, right in

Mississauga, so I've, I've actually been up there probably a half dozen times.

Great place, by the way.

That's right.

That's right.

Good morning, Paul.

Good to talk to you.

Yeah.

Good to talk to you too.

I'm so excited about the work you're doing at MyWay Transportation.

So, um, I want to just dive right in if you're good with it.

Absolutely.

Let's go.

I love the story of, you came to Mississauga to see some

dramatic improvements and man, you have driven the growth, you and your agency

have driven the growth of service in public transit there dramatically,

haven't you?

Yeah, the agency has been growing leaps and bounds

since the end of the pandemic.

it's been a very fast recovery.

I'd say different from other cities.

Um, there's something special going on here in Mississauga.

I have just recently joined, uh, only in November.

So, uh, this growth, I can't take any credit for it as much as I'd like to.

But, um, essentially I was brought in to Uh, help serve and support that

growth and help, help get this transit system, really delivering service for

all of the customers and the increasing number of customers that were having.

27

percent growth in one year.

Which is the numbers you're boasting now are phenomenal.

Tell us some about the system itself.

The modes you operate, where it operates, etc.

Their, you know, closeness to Toronto, etc.

We cover, um, and I'm going to give you, the metric version,

but we cover a population in the City of Mississauga, and this is

2021 data, but it's 717, 000 or, and probably 22, we've grown a bit as well.

So we're just shy of a million residents in the City of Mississauga.

The size is 292, just short of 300 square kilometers, um, and you can translate

that into, uh, square miles, and the service itself, we have, in 2023, we

serve 41 million customers on, 65 routes, and we have 51 local routes, six express

routes, and we also, add service in the, uh, school season, so we have also

routes covering high schools as well.

We offer 21, 24 hour service, and we are all exclusively bus service, but we do

have a bus rapid transit way as well, otherwise we are predominantly intercity.

Gotcha.

You got 500 vehicles, 1, 400 employees, and 3, 200 bus stops too, right?

That's correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a big system.

Uh, and just outside of Toronto, it's a great city.

You've got a lot going on.

I mean, let's talk about that because so many agencies across, North America

are still struggling with getting back up to pre pandemic ridership levels

and we're almost done talking about it.

I think, I think most CEOs I've talked to are like, Paul, I'm done with it.

You know, we've, This is our new normal.

We're at 80%.

This is what it's going to be because a lot of people are still doing hybrid

work is working and that's the, you know, for the foreseeable future.

But you, your agency has figured out a way.

I mean, you're, you're over your pre pandemic ridership numbers, from 2019.

I think I saw numbers like 109 percent of what it was.

So tell us what's happening and what's the secret sauce.

Yeah, what's the secret sauce is, I think it's about, for us to, uh,

return the level of service, the number of hours that we're putting in service,

recruiting, uh, operators as quickly as we can, we, we're, we're looking for, uh,

in excess of a hundred, uh, bus operators, and we are certainly in competition, so.

as you mentioned, we are, just next to the City of Toronto, so we are right

next door, and, uh, we offer connections to them, and the City of Brampton is

just north of us, and we are all looking for, uh, upwards of, uh, a thousand

bus drivers we are all looking to hire.

There's a lot of competition.

There's a lot of jobs and a lot of work.

And I think that's part of the secret sauce as well.

We just had Amazon open a huge facility.

Um, we have some other, uh, industrials.

Mississauga is the, still the largest cross docking, uh, facility

in North America for trucking.

So, um, trucking generates a lot of employment.

There's a lot of factories, a lot of industrial, operations

that have opened up.

Bombardier is opening, a new plant, uh, right on the airport property.

So Toronto Pearson International Airport is also within the city of Mississauga.

So, um, there's a lot of employment.

That is, uh, rising here in Mississauga and, uh, transit is responding and

transit ridership, they want to take the bus and we are thrilled about that

and, and we are looking to deliver them the best product that we can and

continuously improve that product.

And, and your service is a real connector, right?

It connects in with other services in your region?

That's right, we connect with the provincial intercity provider,

GO Transit, we connect with the TTC, the City of Toronto Service, the Toronto

Transit Commission, we connect with the Brampton Transit to the north, we

connect with Oakville Transit to the west, we are bordered by the lake to the

south, but yeah, we connect our residents and our customers across the region

with all of the other transit as well.

And how does that work with uh, intermodal fare, cards or whatever?

Are you able to use the same card between different services or

does everybody have their own?

Yep, so we are a PRESTO, enabled system.

So similar to TTC, OC Transpo in Ottawa and, and also GO Transit,

we are all PRESTO systems.

And, uh, right now, we are two fares.

So you tap.

once, and then, uh, tap onwards,

We do have a fare agreement with GO Transit, um, and I heard there is a

fare agreement coming, uh, with the other systems as well, so it'll be

better for riders, but, uh, more on that with, what I think is going to

be a government announcement soon.

So it sounds like, it's a combination of factors

like it always is, right?

To see the growth.

One is what you can do.

It sounds like you've increased the service levels, the frequency back up to

what it was, uh, pre pandemic, so you're offering services, at the same levels.

Then you've got, uh, the great connections with the other major

regions around you, Toronto being one of them, Brampton the other.

And then also, thirdly, I'm hearing you say that, having enough staff to

deliver that service is another factor.

So let's talk about you because we've mentioned a lot of transit

systems in the area and you've actually worked for most of them.

So I think you're really well positioned to kind of take this job because

of your background and experience.

Tell me a little bit about all that, how all that played out.

That's right.

So, um, actually I started my career in aviation.

I, I thought I was going to be a pilot or a big blue sky.

I thought I was going to be an astronaut when I was a teenager.

So, uh, for those, uh, of your listeners that are just, uh, coming into transit,

you never know what the route is that you're going to take to get there.

So, um, yeah, I did 20 years in aviation and I spent the last 12 of that at

Toronto Pearson Airport, actually, I worked in airport operations in a

number of fields, um, in a number of departments, and I got this amazing call

from a headhunter to go and work for the TTC or the Toronto Transit Commission,

Andy Byford, we all know Andy had just arrived, and he was modernizing the

system and he was implementing the group station manager concept that he was

bringing over from the London Underground.

So I was one of five unheard of external people to come in at a relatively

senior level to join the Toronto Transit Commission as a group station

manager, where I did that for two years.

And then there were a number of changes at that time, but I was then asked to move

over and run the paratransit operations.

So, uh, for four years, I was the TTC's head of WheelTrans, which is

the name of their paratransit product.

And, um, I did that, uh, until 2018.

When I got another call from the same headhunter that said, now you want

to go and work for the provincial transportation provider than that being

GO Transit, where I was asked to be the vice president of bus services.

And so I looked after GO Bus on the Ops and Maintenance side for four years.

And, um, then I took a little break, uh, of a few months to kind of consider

what I really wanted to do next and, uh, looked into, uh, really focusing

on myself, focusing on, uh, leadership.

And, um, then.

Same headhunting company called me and said, uh, here's,

here's your next role for you.

And, uh, we want you to come to the city of Mississauga and be

their new director of transit.

I think we all need to get the phone number of that, uh,

of that, of that headhunter firm.

They're just giving you all the good leads there.

They, they are.

And I, I heard once, uh, somebody said that, uh, you know, what's your, what's

the secret to your career success?

And it's that whenever, whenever anybody offers you an opportunity, you say yes.

And it was about just really transit.

Why would, why would I want to do that?

My career was in aviation.

I was thinking at that time of, uh, you know, I was turning 40 at that

time and it was about, do I, do I want to do this for the rest of my life?

And there's something happens around that age, I think for most people is.

If I keep doing it, then I'm going to be stuck doing it.

And this is all I'm going to be.

And, uh, and then when this, I just put that intention out there

and the call came and it was, yes, this is going to be amazing.

And as we've all heard of the TTC, I mean, it's a, it's a storied company.

It's a part of the fabric of if anybody lives in Southern Ontario or

lives in Toronto, it's an absolute integral part of the fabric.

So the opportunity to work for such an organization, uh, was

really something I jumped at.

Yeah.

And such a great leader with Andy Byford, who's, I consider the Western world's

leading transit executive, you know, doing Toronto, then New York City, then

London, and now back helping Amtrak.

Go high speed rail.

I just saw Andy a few months ago and he told me all the cool things going on.

I'm very excited about what's happening there.

So you had a great opportunity, I think, to be mentored by

one of the industry's best.

My gosh, what, what a guy and what an opportunity to spend even

just two minutes with, with somebody like that and just two minutes with Andy would.

Would just fill you up and make you feel incredible for months after he

just had that, you know, he asked about the secret sauce of transit.

I think he just had that secret sauce of leadership of believing in people and

helping people to believe in themselves.

And then, and then that was all it took really is just like a way we go, let's,

let's do something really amazing.

And he made us believe it.

And once you believe it, you can do it.

That's great.

Yeah.

I think, um.

I think it's a little bit different though, isn't it, that so you've

been in positions where you weren't the very top person in transit, you

had these other folks like Andy and Phil Verster up in Metrolinx that

you're working with and for, and now you're catapulted into the top job.

Tell me about that, the differences there, and what's it

like, and what's your approach?

I gotta be honest, I gotta tell you it's pretty awesome to be, to be

the top transit dog here is, it's, it's great because It's really now down to me.

And that I can really, I learned from those incredible leaders what to do,

and then I learned from those incredible leaders in those moments of, hey,

maybe I would do something differently.

And now this is my opportunity to lead and to support the organization.

Now I really see myself at the City of Mississauga being their transit guide,

if you will, and, and really it's a, it's an awesome responsibility to support the

organization of the city and the city itself, and make those decisions, and then

grow and support the team that, that work for me and work with me to, um, To really

be the, their experts in their field, our, our maintenance lead to be that

expert and allow him to really do what he needs to do on the maintenance side.

My job is to move obstacles out of the way and, uh, and then communicate

that properly up to, I report to the Commissioner of Transportation

and Works, and then he in turn reports to the City Manager.

And so they have a lot of other things on their plate.

So it's pretty cool that I get to, uh, look after this, uh,

amazing transit organization.

Do you have any, um, unique, uh, kind of like perspectives on

leadership when you're in a top position?

You know, um, so do you have particular approaches that you'd like to share today?

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, I follow, uh, this, uh, newly coined, uh, term, the CASTLE principles

and, CASTLE stands for Courage, Authenticity, Service, Truthfulness, Love,

believe it or not, and Effectiveness.

And all of them support each other and at the end, uh, if you're

not effective, then, then, then there's really no point, right?

Like that's the number one thing that we want to be, but you need

courage sometimes to be effective.

You need authenticity.

You need to be an authentic person, an authentic leader.

You need to be in service.

And, and that was one of the, some of the work that I've learned is that

before it used to be about pleasing.

You know, the Andy Byfords, the Phil Versters, it was really about when

I reported to them, it was about pleasing and supporting that leader

and what would they have me do.

And now, uh, really as, as in the top transit job here at the city

is about what do my employees need?

How can I support them?

How can I serve them best and help them do the right thing?

And, and it's really changed the dynamic.

It's much more important to me, although of course I still want to keep my

job, but it's really important to me.

That my employees know that I'm in service of them.

I make it a point to, uh, head out and, and see my frontline employees at least

once a week that I'm in the garage, that I'm talking to them, that I'm

shaking their hands, that I'm asking them about their families, that I'm

saying thanks on, on difficult days.

I was in here on New Year's Eve.

I came in just to say hi and thanks to those that were here.

Um, we unfortunately had a horrible collision and, uh, the other

week and I made sure that I was in the hospital with the family.

So, so it really is, I'm, I'm really coming to embrace the role of service.

And then, you know, truthfulness, right.

It's like, people just want to hear the truth, even if it's bad news to them, even

if it's something that, that you can't do for them, they want to hear the truth.

So like, that's absolutely what I want to do is just be authentic

and truthful and loving, right.

It's about, they're all humans.

Nobody comes to work to do a bad job, so if somebody's done something that

they shouldn't, and we all know in transit things happen that you have

to deal with the employees, you're doing silly things, they're out on

the road or out in the system, it's really just sitting down and speaking

to them and saying, hey, what happened?

What happened with you today?

Rather than, rather than that approach, I think that we used to,

that I think we need to get out of.

I think the pandemic taught us a lot about being better supportive of each other.

And that's not necessarily, you know, the approach that had been taken before.

You don't intend to do a bad job.

I'm going to show you, here's how we need to do a great job here.

And together, all of us doing our part.

Wow, what amazing things can happen if we do that.

I think that's awesome.

I, you know, I kind of view, especially at a larger system such as yours, uh,

where you have like over a thousand employees, I kind of view the role

of a transit director, general manager, CEO, whatever the title

is, like a mayor, a mayor of a town.

you're handling, you know, not just transit, HR, finance, IT, procurement,

legal, PR, all the stuff that you would if you were managing, uh, you

know, like a, a town, uh, but also the, The leadership principles you just

mentioned there, a lot of them, are like those of an elected official, right?

Dealing with people with authenticity, uh, being out front, visiting, you

know, your employees when they're sick, all that kind of stuff.

You really are, um, it really is an all encompassing leadership position.

Absolutely.

And what I think sometimes, you know, leaders and as I was coming up

is sometimes you're afraid, right?

You might hide in your office.

There's often that people can be accused of that.

Certainly the higher up you go, the less time you have in your diary.

But I found that that is, and before I used to be, you know,

well, what do I say, right?

I, I.

You know, hold my hand up quite honestly and say, I didn't do my, my frontline.

I didn't pay my dues in the transit world, right?

I paid my dues in aviation.

I did other shift work doing other things frontline, but

I didn't do that in transit.

So it's the, what do I say, right?

What's important to transit operators.

And I'm very lucky that, um, my husband has been in the transit

world for, uh, almost 30 years now.

And, uh, he.

Started as a bus driver.

So he's a great resource for me.

And I, you know, I want to go talk to my operators.

What do I ask them?

Ask them how long they've been driving.

That's really important to a bus operator.

They really care about that.

Ask them what their day is like.

Ask them what their shifts are like.

Ask questions.

And once, once I figured out how to do that, I'm away at the races.

And, and I tell you those days when I go and it's unscripted

and it's not a structured meeting, those are my best days.

That's when I feel the best.

That's when I feel most energetic is when I've had time to speak

to the frontline employees.

Wow, they do so much and they sacrifice so much and I want to be

sure that they know how much I value and appreciate them for doing that.

I love that, Eve.

That's a great perspective.

Now let's shift to what's coming to you for the future.

I know, uh, Canada has, um, has really prioritized public

transportation in a way maybe that even America hasn't in some respects.

Uh, it is the heartbeat of many of your cities like yours there, but there's

a lot coming up in the future, um, in public transit, whether it's, uh, how

vehicles are fueled, whether it's, um, you know, any, any number of things.

What do you have coming up for your future of your agency there?

So absolutely growth.

We have to, um, I'm planning that, uh, we're coming back in six months

time, um, mid year, uh, to come back and ask for, we need to, if we were

not growing incrementally, Uh, given that, uh, our demand is not growing

incrementally, it's leaping forward.

So if we were going to actually catch up to where we should be now, um, if we

weren't trying to grow incrementally on top of the, uh, pandemic, uh, slowdown,

if you will, um, we need to do a catch up.

So we're working on how much is that?

Right?

What is our catch up plan?

How many more service hours do we need?

And therefore, how many more operators do we need?

How many more buses do we need?

What does that look like?

How many more supervisors?

How many more transit enforcement?

What does that look like if we were to be comfortably in

exactly where we want to be?

And then, and then beyond that is, okay, how do we stay out in front of it?

And then the big one for us as well is, okay, with new technology coming

in and, the Vision Zero policies and programs that the city has

in place as well as nationally is about, um, lowering our emissions.

And what is the choice of bus and what is the choice of that fuel source?

So, uh, we are actually, um, while we were considering electric buses previously,

we're now seeing that, uh, other, other transit operators are struggling.

Um, and we are in wintertime here now, and we are getting

whacked by some cold weather.

Finally, it's been pretty balmy and nice for us for, uh, the traditional months.

We certainly had a green Christmas here, but, um, It is now getting cold,

minus 22 Celsius with the windchill.

I'll let your American listeners translate that.

And that's not even close to what they're hitting at some of our

partner agencies in Edmonton, for example, where it's minus 40.

And then over minus 50, uh, with the wind chill.

And I think by the time it gets to that temperature, I think Celsius

and Fahrenheit are about the same.

Um, so it's really darn cold and, and electric buses are struggling in these

cold temperatures and the grid is struggling in these cold temperatures.

So we are looking to hydrogen and we are considering our options for

actually making our own hydrogen.

there is some, uh, federal government money, uh, that we are trying to take

advantage of and, uh, submit our proposal for that, um, which is, to purchase

the hydrogen fuel source buses, but also to generate our own hydrogen as,

as all of the listeners would know.

Um, the issue with hydrogen, while it might be great, is getting

it and getting access to it.

And then the question of, well, how is it produced?

Is it green hydrogen?

Is it not green hydrogen?

Um, so yeah, that's what, that's what we're focused on now.

And in order to do that, in order to buy more buses, we

actually need another garage.

we are full our garages.

We have two.

Main garages are one, one large garage is divided into two complexes, but

really it's one, and then we have another smaller one in the north part of

our city, and we need to, a third one, and I'm actually saying, let's get on

paper a fourth one, because in no time.

With the growth that we've experienced and the focus on transit,

Mississauga is a very transit forward, transit focused city.

We are looking to help our riders and help our constituents and residents of the city

of Mississauga to get out of their cars.

And if we want them to do that, we need to give them a great alternative.

And transit is a great alternative if we can get ourselves there.

Well, you've got a, you've got a full plate, uh,

coming up for you, don't you?

I do, I do.

It's, but it's fantastic.

You know what?

It's, it's really fantastic.

And I really see that, that I'm here conducting an incredible orchestra of 1400

people, and it's not all going to be me.

I'm not going to be the one with the great ideas or the best ideas,

but it's about setting the dream.

For everyone and all of them to come up with the great ideas.

I'm helping where I can.

I'm supporting certainly on the operations side.

We have some new leaders there that need some particular and focused operational

supports and and just in what What are all the interesting tricks of the trade

that you can do and how to really get your service humming out there on the street?

We need to get some more on street presence with our supervisors and,

you know, kind of catch a bit of the shenanigans that can go on in a big city,

uh, covering a big footprint So there's, there's a focus on that operationally,

but then it's, all right, how can we grow?

How quickly can we train new drivers?

How many training classes can we put on to bring all those new drivers in, get

them in the seat and get them going?

And then make sure that we have enough, enough buses to, uh, to put

them in and deliver that service.

Wow.

Well, congratulations to you on being one of the few large agencies that are

now growing at a rapid rate, 27 percent ridership growth, phenomenal over

your pre pandemic ridership numbers.

We wish you the very best as you continue to lay out this plan and

deliver for the citizens of Ontario.

Thanks so much.

Thanks so much, Paul.

It's been great to talk to you.

Hi, I'm Tris Hussey editor of the transit unplugged podcast.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode with our guest Eve

Wiggins, head of Mississauga transit.

Coming up next week, we have Holly Arnold.

CEO of the Maryland transit administration.

Talking with Paul about her transit career and some of the massive

projects on the go at the MTA.

We're excited to announce a special Transit Unplugged live CEO round table.

Hosted by Dr.

Khan you'll Legos at UITP MENA transport, Congress and Exhibition on

February the 29th at the Trapeze booth.

We'll have guests, including UITP president, Renee Amilcar and the

director general of the integrated transport center in Abu Dhabi.

Abdula Al Zuki.

But for more information and links in the show notes.

The MENA transport Congress and exhibition 2024 is the event focusing

on sustainable urban mobility solutions in the MENA region.

It takes place in Dubai from February 28th to March 1st, the event is

co-organized by UITP and Dubai's RTA.

The MENA of transport Congress and exhibition has been a premier

platform for showcasing advancements in public transport since 2007.

If you have a question or comment, feel free to email

us@infoattransitunplugged.com.

Transit unplugged is brought to you by Modaxo.

At Modaxo, we're passionate about moving the world's people.

And at transit unplugged, we're passionate about telling those stories.

So until next week, ride safe and ride happy.