ELERTS sponsor at APTA Transit CEO seminar

ELERTS Sponsors “21st Century Transit Policing” at Transit CEO Event

(Weymouth, MA) January 17, 2017 — ELERTS is honored to be a part of the APTA Transit CEOs Seminar Program, to be held February 11-14, 2017 in San Diego, CA.

ELERTS-is sponsoring two CEO sessions: the “21st Century Transit Policing” and “Using Social Media to Improve the Customer Experience in Good Times and Bad”. ELERTS founder and EVP Chris Russo will be available to provide information about enhancing transit policing with a smartphone app that allows riders to quickly report safety and security concerns to police. Chris will also share lessons learned from the 11 major transit systems already using ELERTS See Say incident reporting system.

Chief James Spiller of Dallas DART is presenting at the “21st Century Transit Policing” session.

Smartphone technology serves as a force multiplier for police, with thousands of eyes and ears of riders helping to keep their transit system safe. Oftentimes, riders don’t know how to or don’t want to place a phone call to transit police. They prefer a discreet and quick way to communicate with police. It is empowering to riders, to be able to report security concerns and to provide situation awareness to transit police, via a mobile app. Having a simple way to communicate with police can transform the riding public into an integral part of public safety for mass transit systems.

A smartphone app, such as ELERTS See Say, also enhances outreach programs to riders, allowing advisory and marketing messages to be sent. The app is a conduit for the transit system to inform and be informed by the voice of the rider. For example, the ELERTS system has been successfully used many times to enlist transit riders to help locate a person of interest, such as a missing child, dementia patient, or criminal suspect. Riders have quickly notified police of the sighting of a person of interest, via the See Say mobile app. Police may engage in real-time, two-way communication with riders, using the See Say app.

“Social media broadcasts appear in a diverse ocean of topics from a diverse group of sources,” said ELERTS CEO Ed English. “By contrast, the ELERTS See Say app is not only directed at a target audience, it also enhances messaging capabilities for transit systems, including rider surveys and marketing.”

ELERTS See Say system enables riders to communicate with transit police and vice-a-versa, at Atlanta MARTA, Boston MBTA, Buffalo NFTA, San Francisco BART, Charlotte CATS, Sacramento RT, Santa Clara VTA, Dallas DART, Victor Valley and other transit systems.

More information about the APTA Transit CEOs Seminar Program can be found here.

Schedule

February 13, 2017
10:15-11:45 a.m.

CEO’s Professional Development Session: Using Social Media to Improve the Customer Experience in Good Times and Bad

The effective CEO is always looking to answer “How am I doing?” with customers and stakeholders. Advanced social media analytics can help do that on a daily basis, but social media can also be an especially effective tool during critical incidents. Transit agency leaders can use this channel to directly deliver key messages and monitor public sentiment. This session features transit communication professionals and CEOs who are successfully using social media to advance their agendas and keep their communities growing.

Moderators:

Morgan Lyons, Member, APTA Board of Directors; Chair, Marketing & Communications Committee; Co-Chair, Marketing — Advocacy Communications Task Force; Assistant Vice President, External Relations, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Dallas, TX

Pauletta Tonilas, Chief Communications Officer, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles, CA

Presenters:

Karl P. Gnadt, Managing Director, Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District, Urbana, IL

Neil S. McFarlane, Member, APTA Board of Directors; Vice Chair, Rail Transit Committee; Vice Chair, Rail Transit CEOs Subcommittee; General Manager, Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (TriMet), Portland, OR

Elizabeth Presutti, AICP, Member, APTA Board of Directors; Chief Executive Officer, Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority-DART, Des Moines, IA

1:45-3:45 p.m.

21st Century Transit Policing – Community relations and inclusion

Whether an agency has its own Transit Police force, contracts local law enforcement or has private security, the demands on these professionals has significantly increased as transit becomes a more central component of a city’s fabric. The last few years has seen changes in the means and methods of how law enforcement interacts and assists with the public it serves. Unlike a local law enforcement agency, a transit agency does not have a defined constituency but rather a customer base that can change on a daily basis. Transit police have become more than just law enforcement on your buses and trains, but now interact with customers at stations, attend community meetings, and work side-by-side with their partner agencies during city protests and special events; they are a central part of your operation and community. As transit grows so does the need for more training, better understanding of community” and the social and political issues that will need to be addressed. In no city has this topic come home more than Dallas where DART and Dallas PD officers were tragically killed while overseeing a protest in June 2016. Hear from the Chief of DART Police about the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and how his agency has been personally impacted by these evolving issues.

Moderator:

Phillip A. Washington, Chief Executive Officer, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles, CA

Presenters:

Alex Z. Wiggins, Chief, System Security & Law Enforcement Division, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Los Angeles, CA

James D. Spiller, Chair, Security Standards Policy & Planning Committee; Chief of Police and Emergency Management, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Dallas, TX

About ELERTS

ELERTS Corporation, headquartered in Weymouth, MA, develops best-in-class emergency communication software, empowered by community-sourced reporting of safety and security concerns. The company’s cloud-based approach leverages smartphone technologies to provide robust, bidirectional communication between multiple parties. ELERTS mobile technology integrates with video surveillance, access control and mass-notification systems. The result is actionable information for emergency situations — to help first responders become faster responders.