The Next Stop: METRO's Podcast Episode 46: Save money and stress less with METRO STAR Vanpool Danicel Whitaker: The vanpool allows you to form a network with people that you know, people that you get to know, and you become what the STAR vanpool team has called it a “Vamily.” Doug Delony: I’m Doug Delony. On this edition of the Next Stop: Save money and stress less with METRO STAR vanpool. [Introduction music plays] Doug Delony: I’d like to welcome Danicel Whitaker and Dezra Knowles to the podcast. Hi, there, friends! Danicel Whitaker: Hello! Dezra Knowles: Hi, how are you? Doug Delony: It’s good to hear from you guys today. Danicel and Dezra work together here at METRO to organize and help lead our vanpool services, of course, among many other things. Is that fair to say, in short? Dezra Knowles: [laughs] Danicel Whitaker: Absolutely! Doug Delony: And the big headline here is: Compared to last year, gas prices remain very high. We all know this. We’ve seen it on the news. We see at the pump. And of course, METRO’s Park and Rides also remain very busy. I think an unexplored option for many commuters is METRO STAR vanpool and carpool. I’m not too familiar with this service. Let’s start with the basics. What is METRO’s vanpool service? And Danicel, I’ll let you go first. Danicel Whitaker: Okay. So, METRO’S STAR vanpool service is basically a carpool, but it is a vanpool where 5 to 15 commuters who get together can save money, time, have a flexible schedule to get to and from work. And the beauty of that is that you’re removing four or five vehicles from our freeways, from our streets, and the glory of it is really being able to use our HOV getting to and from work in a stress-free environment. Dezra Knowles: It was something that METRO originally started. It started as METRO Van, and it was exclusively METRO’s vanpool program or rideshare program, probably about 10 to 15 years ago. Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: And they came in, did a rebrand, and then we became the regional vanpool provider, and so now, we’re not only METRO’s vanpool provider, but we’re the vanpool provider for this entire region, and the region includes all of the eight counties—Harris County and the other seven counties that surround us. So, we have a pretty large service area. Doug Delony: You know, it’s a great brand, though. You’re used to just seeing the METRO logo and the big star stands out. So, when I see one of these STAR vanpool vehicles, who is driving the vehicle? Is that a METRO employee? Is that a contractor? Or is that just a volunteer driving their co-workers and neighbors to their place of work? Dezra Knowles: It’s a volunteer. They’re all volunteer drivers. That’s one of the beauties: Is that you can operate these vehicles with a regular Class C license. Doug Delony: And whose vehicle is it? Dezra Knowles: The vehicle is provided by METRO. You don’t have to worry about that. We’ll provide the vehicle. We’ll qualify the drivers, those who volunteer to drive. We’ll qualify those drivers. And, you know, once you sign up, you know, we’ll decide on the type of the vehicle. And that’s an interesting segue into some of the new vehicles that we have… Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: …available. We’ve kind of moved to an SUV model. We have some of the smaller SUVs that we’re offering. I know people think of vanpool, they think of the big… Doug Delony: Right. Dezra Knowles: …the big van traditionally, but now, there is a new, you know, cooler options. We have a Volkswagen Atlas that we’re using. Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: Which is pretty popular, and we also have recently added to our fleet the 2022 Kia Sorento, which is a really neat, new vehicle that Kia’s making. Doug Delony: That’s really cool. It makes people a little more comfortable with the whole thing, whether they’re riding or driving. Some people just don’t want to get in a van full of people necessarily, even though that’s part of the benefit of doing it, is sharing the ride. I think a lot of people… Dezra Knowles: Right. Doug Delony: …are intimated to drive, you know, what they’d see as a big van. Drivers, they get to use the HOV, which is awesome. Where does the vehicle go during the day or overnight? Where is it parked? Danicel Whitaker: So, there are a few options. During the day, if the participants, let’s say the driver wants to park near his employment area, or there’s a designated or select parking structure, then that’s where the vehicle is parked during the day. When they return back from their work environment, the vehicle is typically parked at a parking lot. Doug Delony: Okay. And who pays for the parking? I mean, how does that work? Danicel Whitaker: Well, that’s a great question because the parking, the gas, all of that is built into the vanpool cost and something that Dezra will get into, but the parking is paid by the group. So, there’s no longer one person paying $10 or $15 dollars to park in a particular workforce area. Now everyone in the vanpool is sharing the cost and splitting the cost amongst the group. Doug Delony: Going back to the technicality of getting this all organized, you know, and splitting the costs, how do people pay for this? Are they Venmo-ing each other? Or are they giving each other cash? Or METRO helps to handle some of this? Dezra Knowles: Well, that’s the beauty of it. We have a whole billing team that are all METRO employees. They handle all of the billing for the vanpools. An invoice is sent out every month to the entire vanpool group, and there is an electronic link that’s provided. Everyone can go in and pay their individual portion. So, on the invoice, you’ll see what your portion is for that particular month. You click the link. You go in and pay as you would pay anything online. Doug Delony: Makes it super easy, then. There’s no awkward, you know, exchanges with your co-workers or your neighbors [laugh] about, “Hey, where’s my $20?” Dezra Knowles: Exactly. Doug Delony: “Where’s my $20?” [laughs] Dezra Knowles: [laughs] Exactly. Doug Delony: And as far as the cost, you know, for the person who drives, they’re just doing that because they like to drive. But not everybody has to drive. They’re not all taking turns. Dezra Knowles: No. And what we usually suggest is that everyone is approved to drive. Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: Simply because, you know, during the holidays, people tend to take a lot of vacation time, and if you don’t have an approved driver, then it would be difficult for the vanpool to operate for that particular day. The vanpool couldn’t operate if you didn’t have an approved driver. So, I usually recommend when putting the group together, I recommend that everybody’s approved. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to drive every day, but I usually tell people that if you make a schedule… Doug Delony: Mm-hmm. Dezra Knowles: …And let’s just say, if you have eight drivers and everybody takes a week, that means you drive once every eight weeks compared to you driving… Doug Delony: Right. Dezra Knowles: …every day now. Doug Delony: Yeah. Dezra Knowles: You know, so…. Doug Delony: No, and you get to use the HOV on top of that every time. Whereas if you’re just carpooling with one other person in your personal vehicle, that person may bail out, you know, or they might call in sick or something, and then you’re back in the main lanes. Dezra Knowles: Exactly. Doug Delony: So, that’s… Dezra Knowles: Now you’re in the main lanes. Doug Delony: And one of the other things I like about METRO STAR vanpool is the emergency ride home program. So, let’s say you’re at work. In the middle of the day, something comes up, and you have to get home before the rest of the group. METRO has this emergency ride home that can be used up to three times per calendar year. I was very happy to read that. Gives you a little bit of flexibility and lowers the stress a little bit. Are all these vanpool groups strictly 9 to 5, Monday through Fridays, suburbs to downtown? Danicel Whitaker: We have partners all over the region. To include, we have the City of Houston, UTHealth, ExxonMobil, Oxy, Aramco, ConocoPhillips, VA Hospital, and that’s just to name a few of our partners. Dezra Knowles: Very interestingly, we have some customers who work for the Federal Prisons, and they’re actually commuting from Humble to Beaumont. Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: And so, they work very non-traditional hours, as you can imagine. And then we also have, one of our largest communities is the essential workers. They’re nurses who work in the Medical Center, and a lot of them work, you know, they work shiftwork. They’re working 12-hour days, so they’re 7 to 7, you know, 7 am to 7 pm, and some are 7 pm to, you know, and… Doug Delony: Excellent. Dezra Knowles: …on. So, you have a varied list of people who are working all different types. Doug Delony: Yeah, as long as you have enough riders that need to get from one point to another point at a certain, at a somewhat, kind of a certain schedule, whether or not it’s a conventional schedule, I guess you can use the vanpool. Is there a certain number of riders you recommend to make it a successful group? Dezra Knowles: Well, there’s an interesting thing. There’s an interesting shift that happened during the pandemic. Of course, you know, everyone was limited in what we could do with quarantine and everything like that, but one of our biggest areas where vanpools were still going was to the Medical Center. We still had the essential workers and medical staff that had to get down to the Medical Center. So, we had a very interesting program that METRO allowed us to pilot during the pandemic, and we’re still going strong today. We have a pilot program where we’re allowing vanpools to start with as few as three, and so, you can have three people. You guys can start in an SUV, and you know the cost is based on what you would pay for a Park and Ride or a commuter bus route. Doug Delony: Right. Dezra Knowles: You know, so the rates are comparable to that, so it’s a very interesting program. It’s wildly popular, and I would suggest that anyone give it a try. Another beauty of it is we can help you put the group together. Doug Delony: Okay. Dezra Knowles: We can search our database. We have a database of over 5-6,000 people that have said that they’re interested in, and you know, we just need to match people together. Doug Delony: So, to make it clear, METRO is not just giving people a van and saying, “Okay. Hit the road.” You are assisting in a lot of what needs to happen to make this work. You know, the scheduling… Dezra Knowles: Absolutely. Doug Delony: …and the payments. Figuring out, you know, how much each person owes, giving them the link to actually pay. The vetting of those who want to drive, and then on top of that, you don’t have to go door to door to all your neighbors or your co-workers and say, “Hey, do you want to join the vanpool?” You are actually helping to organize and find some of the riders that want to go to or from a certain area at a certain time. Dezra Knowles: Full service. We have marketing, customer service, billing. We have an outreach team. And we even have communication specialists that are on our team that can help broadcast and get the message out about your particular vanpool wanting to start and needing riders. Doug Delony: As far as, you know, you send the link out, and people can pay. I know there are a lot of variations into how much a group or a specific person might have to pay. I mean, it’s not as simple as saying, “Okay, a METRO bus ride is a $1.25.” Or you get on the Red Line, and it’s a $1.25. Is there a… Dezra Knowles: Correct. Doug Delony: …range that you kind of give me as to what a typical person who might use this Monday through Friday might end up paying? Dezra Knowles: Well, we usually have found that the average person is paying $6 to $8 a day. Doug Delony: Okay. And that’s a lot cheaper than gas and wear and tear on your car. [laughs] Dezra Knowles: It is. It is. That’s a lot cheaper than what you could do in your car. Our job is to help people to understand the true cost of commuting. You know, there are a lot of costs involved that people don’t include. We all just immediately think, “Oh, I could save, you know, gas.” But then you have to think about tires. Doug Delony: Uh-huh. Dezra Knowles: You know, how often you’re having your tires rotated. Doug Delony: Right. Dezra Knowles: Your brakes. Your service interval. You know, you’re having to go and get your car serviced more often… Doug Delony: Right. Dezra Knowles: …because you’re using it every day. And so, there’s a lot to consider. Doug Delony: And there’s even, I would encourage some people to go to their car insurance’s website, and if you go on there and say you’re not driving 16,000 miles a year and you’re only driving 5,000 miles a year, you might be surprised by how much your insurance comes down. Dezra Knowles: That’s a savings. Yes… Doug Delony: The savings on just your car insurance… Dezra Knowles: …it’s a savings. Doug Delony: …from now having to drive just yourself around that many miles per year. You guys have insurance that is factored into all the costs. No one brings their own insurance to the table. Dezra Knowles: No. No one brings their own insurance to the table. Everything is included. It’s all-inclusive. Doug Delony: Anything that I missed that you’d like to add? Danicel Whitaker: What I would recommend to a potential rider is to try our services. I believe that with anything, once you try it, you’re able to make your deduction asks. Whether it provides the benefits that you’re looking for, and in today’s environment, I can give you a perfect example. In filling up my vehicle this morning at the gas station, I paid $75 just to fill my tank. Now, if I was driving into the office five days a week, I would probably be filling it up at least three times a month. Here’s what it does: The vanpool allows you to form a network with people that you know, people that you get to know, and you become what the STAR vanpool team has called it a “Vamily.” You become a network of family. You depend on each other. It’s very flexible. You’re no longer waiting on a schedule. You’ve created your own schedule. So, I think the beauty of vanpool is that once you try it, that’s probably going to be your main mode and your alternative mode of transportation, especially if you’re working different shifts or if your schedule at work demands something just a little bit different than what is offered by our normal Park and Rides. Our normal Park and Rides are great, but vanpool is an amazing alternative. Dezra Knowles: And something that’s underrated that people should think about also is the stress. That traffic is very stressful. There’s several studies out there that, you know, Houston is one of the most stressed-out places to drive. And so, that’s something that I don’t think we could, you know, write high enough on the list is the level of stress that would be relieved by not having to drive every day and just to share that responsibility. We have an amazing team of people who are dedicated to this mission. Doug Delony: Okay. Thank you, Danicel and Dezra, for joining us here on the Next Stop! Dezra Knowles: No problem. Thanks a lot for having me. Doug Delony: And, of course, thanks to you, the listener, and all of our METRO riders out there. If you’d like more information on any of METRO’s services that help you avoid the stress and cost of driving, visit our website at ridemetro.org. While you’re there, you can check out more episodes of this podcast. And if you’re interested in working for METRO, visit our employment website at workformetro.org. I’m Doug Delony. As always, drive less and do more with Houston Metro! [Music plays to the end] RMETRO/pti:kh Page 1 of 1