Mobility Innovators

Randy Clarke ([00:00]):

The thing that I’m really proud of is we, I think, infuse a lot of passion for our customers into what we do and this idea that we only exist for the customers. Trains and buses are irrelevant, stations are irrelevant. Podcasts are all these things are irrelevant. It’s only about the customer. And I’m on the system. I probably did 600 plus trips last year. Hopefully they’ll beat that this year. All of the members of the team are on the system. And when you do that, I try to explain to people all the time, the little stuff is the big stuff. And so when the destination sign on a bus isn’t working and we fix that, or there’s graffiti somewhere, or an escalator isn’t working, or something was spilled on the floor and not picked up. All these things that are little compound and accumulate into a way better system and all the customers really want is a safe, frequent, reliable system.

Jaspal Singh ([00:59]):

Welcome to the Mobility Innovators Podcast.

Jaspal Singh ([01:05]):

Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Mobility Innovator Podcast. I’m your host, Jaspal Singh

Mobility Innovator podcast invites key innovators in transportation and logistic sector to share their experience and feature forecast. In this episode, we’ll be discussing the success story of WMATA Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and its transformation.

Today Guest is responsible for running the transit system in Washington DC. He’s a General Manager of WMATA. WMATA operates service in Washington DC Metropolitan area. He took the role when the transit agency was facing major challenges coming out of the pandemic with record low ridership. Before joining WMATA, he served as President and CEO of Capital Metro in Austin, Texas, where he secured for bus Connect Multi-billion dollar capital program, which is one of the largest voter approved transit referendum in US history.

He also worked with APTA (American Public Transit Association) and Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority in different roles.

I’m so happy to welcome Randy Clarke, the General Manager of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Now it’s time to listen and learn.

Hello Randy. I’m so happy to have you on the podcast. Thank you for taking time out to visit.

Randy Clarke ([02:22]):

Yeah, well great seeing you as always and thanks for having me on the program.

Jaspal Singh ([02:27]):

Great. And I actually want to kickstart our discussion with your personal journey in transit. It’s quite inspiring to see how your career shape up. You started as a Project Manager focusing on safety and security in transit and then become a Chief Safety officer at MBTA and then become a president and CEO of Capital Metro in Austin and now at WMATA. So how’s your journey feel like when you look back from Project Manager to CEO as one of the most challenging system in North America? And I’m also curious, anything you’re hiding from the world on your LinkedIn profile?

 

Randy Clarke ([03:02]):

I got to say, I don’t probably do enough of that LinkedIn stuff, but I don’t think I’m hiding anything in this world. Not intentionally anyway. So listen, my journey is probably not that dissimilar to a lot of people that get in transit as you kind of fall into transit somehow and then you end up staying there because transit’s such a cool industry to be part of. It’s so impactful. You impact so many people’s lives every day. And we impact everything from economic development to security and terrorism to labor to infrastructure, big finance things, homelessness to just every part of society we interconnect with, right? So I’ve been very fortunate, worked at the Volpe Center, did some work up there, then I did a little consulting, then worked at the MBTA and I ran security emergency management, and that’s when we had the Boston Marathon bombings

Randy Clarke ([04:03]):

As Chief Safety Officer for a little bit. And then I left as the deputy COO running kind of the infrastructure portfolio. And then like I said, I worked at APTA and then CapMetro and CapMetro, we won a big referendum and try to build a bigger system for a very fast growing city and then had this amazing opportunity to become the GM of CapMetro here in the DC area, which is kind of maybe the dream job at least It was for me, the dream job in transit because as you mentioned, it is so complex and so challenging here with three states, the federal government, everything is magnified here for attention in the fishbowl. And I personally love it because it makes us perform at such a high level. And to me, I am the ultimate customer advocate and I love that that’s what we really focus on and why I think the systems we’re back to being the best system in North America, I believe. So really proud of our team and I’ve had a very fun, fascinating journey. And hopefully it’s not over yet.

Jaspal Singh ([05:13]):

It just started, I would say, I mean there is still a long way to go, but it’s really inspiring to see how his journey moved from starting at a lower level in our organization and being now a CEO one of the big transit agency, not in the US I would say in the world. So you moved to Washington DC in July, 2022, which is right after the pandemic. And pandemic had a major impact on transit agencies, and I can imagine WMATA was badly impacted because most of the people were working from home system were not performing optimally. Why did you take this role and how do you feel in the first three year on the job?

Randy Clarke ([05:53]):

Yeah, well, I mean I got recruited for the, and I literally had this, I had a great job in Austin, really great people, great city having a lot of fun. And I actually said to my former board chair, there’s only one place that I would leave this for when they asked me to do a new contract. And he said, where’s that? And I said, well, DC I said, if I ever had the chance to run Metro, because again, being America’s capital city, the pressure is high, the amount of big events and just the infrastructure. And anyway, I got that opportunity. So yeah, when I got here was really a challenging time. So the pandemic, it’s really interesting. Across America, people came out of the pandemic at different times. This region was one of the last to really come out of the pandemic. You got to remember we’re the home of NIH.

Randy Clarke ([06:47]):

So you got this natural, very high public health kind of apparatus around here. So I mean got people questioning me in the summer of 22, why we still didn’t have mask only rail cars and buses. So the rest of the world I think was moved on this region took a while longer to kind of catch up. And again, I’m not judging right or wrong with that, it’s just a fact. So our ridership was in bad spot. Most of our rail fleet was grounded because of an issue that probably shouldn’t have been that case. But anyway, we had to work through that. We had rampant fair evasion, we had a lot of crime and we had very bad public relations and big problems on the reputational brand. And then we also had a $700 million plus deficit that we had to solve. So I mean you put it all together, it was kind of a rough time.

Randy Clarke ([07:44]):

So yeah, some days people say, why did you do that? But honestly, challenges are opportunities and I mean you can look where we are now. The rail fleet is running at the highest reliability of any heavy rail fleet in the country. Ridership. We’ve led the country two years straight in ridership growth faster than anybody. We’re at an eight year low for crime and on pace, the lowest crime year we’ve ever had at metro, highest customer satisfaction we’ve ever had on Boston Rail. And we just won APTAs Transit Agency of the Year for North America Award. So you put it all together, this team, listen, I don’t really do that much here. I do some interviews, I talk, I tweet. I got 13,000 colleagues that have just been all gas for three plus years. And I think that effort, the public I think has really recognized and appreciates what this team has done. We’ve brought the system back to be in really at a really dependable high quality system. And I think it’s made our region economy better because of that quality of life is better and we’ve become now a pretty trusted member of the again, which it feels really good to see that.

Jaspal Singh ([08:58]):

That’s really, really amazing because you rightly mentioned challenge, create opportunity and congratulations on winning the APTA award. It’s actually a second award. Last year, WMATA won the APTA Gold Safety Award as well. So it’s a second year. You got some award from APTA?

Randy Clarke ([09:14]):

Yeah, well actually, well this year we won gold safety again and we won the partnership award this year for our Better Bus. We did our whole system better bus system over this year as well. And we won some marketing awards, so we went through the Oscars and cleaned up this year. So I mean it’s so many really good people here that are just a high level of professionalism and quality and it’s just fun to see them being recognized for the work they do.

Jaspal Singh ([09:43]):

So may I ask, what is the secret sauce? Like you mentioned when you joined in 2021, WMATA was facing the deficit of more than $500 or 750 million and planning to cut the surveys, planning to cut the job. And now 2025, you guys are growing one of the faster digs in the country and have a surplus of $28 million and revenue exceeding the budget expectation and strong passenger recovery. What is the secret sauce and what is the status of now ridership recovery at WMATA?

Randy Clarke ([10:13]):

Yeah, there’s a lot to that. So we actually ended the year $120 million under budget, which is we’re going to be able to recapitalize $90 million after the capital program, which is a big deal. And over the last three years we’ve identified almost $500 million worth of savings or cost avoidance, which is a lot of money and that’s helped stabilize the system and I think we’re much better off for it now. And we’ve got stability ridership continues to grow. This federal shutdown is obviously not good for business and we that’s going to hit revenue every day and ridership obviously. So hopefully that won’t last long. But a good example is in August, I think we were still up 12% year over year on rail bus is off a little. That’s not that surprising because we started enforcing fares very heavy compared to what we’re doing and we have a new network and I think with all this police conversations, especially around ice, there’s probably a little bit of impact of all of these things a little bit, but still pretty high. And so we still are very confident on that. I think the secret sauce, honestly, this organization needed to collaborate with each other a lot more.

Randy Clarke ([11:28]):

It was very siloed. I mean you’re always going to have some silos. We have 13,000 people, so there’s always going to be some, but it needed a little bit more of empowerment of staff, a little bit more forced collaboration. And I think the thing that I’m really proud of is we, I think infuse a lot of passion for our customers into what we do and this idea that we only exist for customers, trains and buses are irrelevant, stations are irrelevant. Podcasts are all these things are irrelevant. It’s only about the customer and I’m on the system. I probably did 600 plus trips last year, hopefully they’ll beat that this year. All of the members of the team are on the system. And when you do that, I try to explain to people all the time, the little stuff is the big stuff when the destination sign on a bus isn’t working and we fix that or there’s graffiti somewhere or an escalator isn’t working or something was spilled on the floor and not picked up. All these things that are little compound and accumulate into a way better system and all the customers really want is a safe, frequent, reliable system.

Randy Clarke ([12:41]):

That’s it. We talk a lot in our business about marketing and all this other stuff. All that’s good after the system runs well. So people only care about fair policy when the system runs well. They only care about messaging campaigns when the system runs well. So basically you can go in our system and feel safe, which is important all the time. And then that a train or a boss is coming with a very reasonable frequency and the reliability is you’re not going to get offloaded on a train and have smoke in a tunnel and all this other stuff. It’s kind of real simple stuff. I know it sounds weird, but if you do the simple stuff well then it really builds quickly and then the public gives you a lot of grace when you have bad things. So the thing that I think we’ve really done well is this transparency.

Randy Clarke ([13:31]):

One is when we’re doing well, but also if there’s a problem, we just admit what it is, we put pictures out, we explain what’s going on. And in 2025 there’s not lot of people to admit when they’re wrong. And so when we do that, I think the public gives us a lot more grace. And actually if I put something out and say we messed up, most everyone’s like, Hey, thanks, great information. Keep doing a good job. It’s kind of weird. And I think that’s a good sign for most people publicly that omitting problems is a good way to actually build political and community trust capital because they all know something’s wrong. So just tell them what’s going on as best you can. And I think that transparency and that culture of continuous improvement is really both internally and externally got us to where we are.

Jaspal Singh ([14:16]):

That’s very important. And like you mentioned, the trust is very important. So once you win the customer trust, they are more forgiving, they are more open to learn and accept the challenges.

Jaspal Singh ([14:29]):

That’s amazing. And in fact, and I use the personally WMATA system over the period and I can definitely say huge difference, like you said, the little thing is in big thing, the system is much more cleaner, you see more lighting, the trains are running on time, you adjusted a lot of small stuff, the signages, the way finding has improved. So these things make a huge difference. One major thing you have done is the ATC (Automated Train Control). And I know WMATA was one of the first agencies to launch ATC in 1976, but 2009 something happened and it was stopped and you relaunch after 15 year in June 2025. It’s a big achievement. Lot of people may not know because they just see the train running, but putting ATC back winning the trust is very important. So why ATC is important for WMATA and how are you balancing between this challenge about safety and security and people’s perception about how the system will run?

Randy Clarke ([15:28]):

Yeah, well let’s just for terminology just for your audience, I want to get clarity around a couple terms. So a TC is the signaling system that actually basically prevents trains from going into another block.

Randy Clarke ([15:42]):

That never changed. ATO (Automatic Train Operation) is what we’re now back into. And ATC train operation is an overlay system of top of ATC that basically the way this place was built was very technical back in the day, it was the most sophisticated system in the world and we were the only system to regress in our use of technology. So what happened is in 2009, obviously I wasn’t here, but basically what happened there was a crash at Fort Totten where a train came around a corner, hit another train. Unfortunately multiple people lost their life. That was related to a thing called parasitic oscillation inside of the signaling system. So faulty maintenance and some other things that ATO, the train was on ATO, but it was a fault within automatic train control. So the team replaced over the years, all of the circuits related to those faulty pieces. So automatic train control was still a hundred percent operation. What we wanted to do is get back to automatic train operation. So Automatic Train Operation is overlay is a little bit like for lack of better cruise control.

Randy Clarke ([16:43]):

The idea was ATC is still going to prevent train incursion on blocks, but this basically means an operator closes the doors on the platform and that train immediately engages and then runs at the full regulated speed of that section. And when there’s an issue, it slows down, it speeds up and it does all of its breaking dynamics and propulsion dynamics based on the system and then opens the doors automatically when the train bursts. And so now we’re back to that first time in 15 years. So if you had an internationalist or they’d be like, oh my god, I can’t believe you guys didn’t have that running right. No one in the right mind would not run that to be

Jaspal Singh ([17:20]):

Perfectly

Randy Clarke ([17:20]):

Honest, because one, it’s a safety system because it helps prevent red signal violations, which is our biggest fear on the railroad. And then two, it brings massive efficiencies and customer benefits. So a good example, our red line, which, but not everyone, it’s a horseshoe and that line, we now run the same frequency with two less train sets to get that same level of frequency. So that alone is probably worth about 7 million a year just on that. And every customer’s trips are somewhere between one to four minutes faster depending on how far you’re riding. So let’s say the average person saves a couple minutes a trip each way every day, and we’ve had no red signal violations.

Randy Clarke ([18:05]):

Then it’s a smoother ride too. It’s not herky jerky with the operator and then the operators could concentrate on the roadway. So it’s an obvious win. It took 15 years to get back to it and really proud of the team. They did an incredible job and now we’re on across the whole system. And it’s interesting because most people just take it for granted now, and if we turn it off, I think we’d have a rebellion. People would say this is not as good as when it runs on automatic train operation. So it’s a level two operation for people that are out there on JO. And this is a level two operation. We are now investigating what it looks like to move to level three or level four system. And part of that is we need to do our signaling system over. So we have a very significant program, we’re in the early days of really building out CBTC program for the whole agency and then thinking about where and when we would put platform screen doors, we got a lot of trespassers. We want to get rid of the trespassers, we want a higher level of automation to provide even more safety and even more efficiency just like you would see in all the world, the best systems in the world. So I think we are leaning into that more than most people in North America.

Randy Clarke ([19:21]):

And I don’t think our environment is overly conducive to automation without platform screen doors unlike say a Vancouver that was built environmentally like that. It works kind of hard to go from our system to not having that. But yeah, that’s our next journey and we’re trying to learn from all those around the world and we visited a lot of other systems, they’ve been super great. That’s the best thing about our industry. Everyone wants to share and work together. And then obviously there’d be big commercial aspects about this. There’ll be a lot of people wanting to do the procurement and bid and work with us, but I think it’s an exciting time ahead for Metro on the next phase of safety and automation.

Jaspal Singh ([19:58]):

So maybe WMATA be the first one to have a fully G4A in USA because it’s sad there is none of the system has G4A,

Randy Clarke ([20:05]):

Oh Honolulu.

Jaspal Singh ([20:06]):

Honolulu is, yeah, I mean they’re the newly built, so they are the one.

Randy Clarke ([20:09]):

We got to think, remember our system has major reach kind like a subway on kind of combo thing. And so I’m not quite sure it makes sense to do full level G4A for the very far suburban stations because your cost for a couple thousand people or maybe 1,500 people at a station, that’s a very expensive modernization to the station. Whereas, London take the Elizabeth line, they run three different types of signal. So they’re automated, they’re manual, and so there might be a version of that. So in our early days of analyzing all of that, so exciting times ahead.

Jaspal Singh ([20:51]):

Amazing, amazing. And not only you improve the metro network, but you also work on the bus system a lot. And in fact the better bus network redesign program, and you mentioned about just it implemented again in June, 2025, I don’t know why June is a major month for WMATA a pick.

Randy Clarke ([21:09]):

It’s one of our employee picks, so June and December and with school it’s a big deal too with school. And so there’s a natural flow for some of that and we start some summer construction. But yeah, well for us it seems like every month is a big month, so it just

Jaspal Singh ([21:25]):

Kind of every month is a big month,

Randy Clarke ([21:26]):

We joke when’s the next quiet month? And there isn’t one.

Jaspal Singh ([21:30]):

Bus network design was change after redesign after 50 years. So I am curious to learn more about why WMATA did not change the network for so long. What was stopping it and why it is so important now to make those changes?

Randy Clarke ([21:46]):

I think I wasn’t here, but my instinct here would be like everybody, it’s very hard to make these changes. And I think most agencies over time used to try to do these incremental changes and you might get away with some, you might not, but especially in the US transit is so political. So when you go to move something, so if you have a bus stop and you go to move that bus stop two blocks further away, obviously the people that are going to complain are the people that are next to the bus stop. The people that get the bus closer to them don’t show up at a board meeting or don’t tweet or don’t write a letters to elected officials and say thank you.

Randy Clarke ([22:22]):

They just do it. And so I think it’s been very hard and the incentive structure for transit agencies, transit boards, others to take on, even if everyone thinks it’s the right thing to do to take on that change politically, not everyone’s incentivized to do that. So if you guys got to get beat up and someone hits you over the head every day and says that you’re doing a bad job or you’re mean or whatever and you’re not going to get really anything out of it or they don’t think they are, there’s not a lot. So we bundled the whole thing together and we pulled the band-aid off at once and we got rid of about 500 bus stops. Now we have like 8,000 more and some of these were some stops. Were like every block that we had right up to every block. That’s not good for anybody.

Randy Clarke ([23:08]):

It’s not good for traffic, it’s not good for us. We want to be able to get to as close to the curb as possible for someone with maybe a wheelchair and when they’re every block you can’t get in, you can’t get out. So anyway, overall we engaged, I think about 45,000 people in the community provided comments. We did hundreds and hundreds of events all over the place because remember we got the three state area and work with our union, work with our frontline employees, we had to get people all trained, we replaced all the signs and overall gone well. Obviously something this big, there’s going to be a variety of hiccups, but they’re all a little bit a whole bunch of minor things then. So we’re already doing our next pick for December and we’re adjusting some routes. So we thought this bus would take 45 minutes to go from point A to point B, but it’s 32 or an hour now we’re making those changes.

Randy Clarke ([24:05]):

And so there’s some of that kind of stuff we’re doing. But overall we’re feeling pretty good. What we really were able to do was increase frequency on a bunch of core routes. So I think we added 12 more high frequency routes to our network and more importantly, we created a vision plan as part of this process to say, because we did this as cost neutral. And so most places do this, they add money, we did it cost neutral, but now we got the blueprint that says if we have 5 million, 10, 20, 30, a hundred doesn’t matter. Now we know where we want to put that extra service, whether it’s more frequency, whether it’s later at night, whether it’s weekends across different routes. So we did that whole effort and now as money becomes available, we know exactly where to put it.

Jaspal Singh ([24:49]):

We had to add more service and all. No, that’s quite impressive. And the point you mentioned about in the beginning is like people are looking for more reliable, fast and safe, safe service. That’s it.

Jaspal Singh ([24:59]):

If you can bring them even saving two minutes and five minutes in their life, that’s make a huge difference for them. They can reach their job faster and finish their,

Randy Clarke ([25:08]):

And when the app or phone says, Hey, that bus is going to be here four minutes and it’s four or five minutes, people are happy when it says four and it ends up being 18, they’re not. Again, it’s just how we live our life. If you went to the grocery store and someone said, Hey, it’s going to be like 30 seconds, I’ll be right back and you got to wait for an hour, then you’re not going to go to the grocery store again. It’s pretty basic stuff.

Jaspal Singh ([25:31]):

People are more demanding. In fact, another initiative you’re done, and I would say it’s a very few agency, which especially in us have is an open loop payment system. And I’m very curious because WMATA was one of the system which has this Google and Apple wallet option, but not open loop purely. Can you share more about that initiative and why you think it’s important to make easier to pay? Because you mentioned about the big problem with the fair evasion, but sometimes the fair evasion happen because you don’t know how to pay.

Randy Clarke ([25:59]):

Yeah, there’s no point. We need to be as frictionless as a society. We got to meet people where they are and where they are.

Randy Clarke ([26:06]):

They pay everything with a credit card or a phone or your watch and not everybody, right? Because a bunch of people, society that are still struggling and maybe will always struggle. And we got to make sure we’re doing our best to really provide good service and try to help someone that may have very low income and whatnot. And we have a regional program called Metro Lift as in lift hand up for people to get 50% reduced fare for people that really need it. But otherwise, yeah, we need to make it easy to pay. So we had a smart trip as part of your phone from a wallet point of view, but we didn’t have what we can now call tap ride and go. So we launched that in the summer and we did that on the rail side. So now any metro at any one of our stations for the train, you can go and you can just tap your credit card. We’re a tap in, tap out kind of like London system and then they’ll just calculate the distance and bill you and you move on with your life. We expect that to roll out on bus in November and then parking is shortly after that. That’s the goal. And therefore the whole system is integrated that way and we were able to do something really, really cool here. So Cubic is our main fair collection vendor, but S Traffic is the company that does our gates.

Randy Clarke ([27:31]):

There’s a company called Little Pay and all three play in this transit space to some extent. And we were the first place to ever have basically forced in one way, but then all three companies really did work well together and I got to give ’em a lot of credit and we set a deadline that we were going to get this thing done and we met it and we met the budget on it and it’s the first system ever to integrate with these three vendors. And what we did is Little Pay basically did an overlay into the cubic system so we didn’t have to replace the whole system Infrastructure.

Randy Clarke ([28:03]):

And it was the first time that it’s ever really been done. And my only, I guess someone else has done a version of this, but the one that happened was about a year and a half effort and we got ours done in three and a half, four months and with three vendors versus two, and I’m generally summarizing this is what I really understand about it, but it’s gone really well. DC is a big tourist, obviously the DC market here is a lot of tourism, so we want it to be able to make that easier. So we now have the silver line that goes to Dulles. We need a lot of international visitors so they can just walk in and tap and don’t have to think about it. National Airport is an incredibly busy, I’d argue, the best connected airport to rail in the country with two lines going through there.

Randy Clarke ([28:50]):

I mean we run a train every couple of minutes a train is going through there and I think we move 20 some thousand a day, I think out of maybe 18,000 a day or something like that out of national. And then Amtrak obviously is interactive in the union station, which is more or less another airport kind of equivalent. So that’s the interaction there. And then bus we hope to again go lot to November. We do think that on the bus side that will further help us with fair enforcement because on boss, if you don’t have it, then next thing, unlike a station, the vehicle’s moving and the operator’s like, Hey, let’s go. I got to move this bus anyway, all positive things and overall the feedback’s been great and it’s going to allow us to think about these fair bending machines and instead of having 10, you get four and those four machines are more modern and less maintenance and it’s going to help us with our staffing and what we really are. So all of this, we collect less cash, we don’t have to collect cash the same way process it. It’s a lot of downstream impacts to all this stuff that are about the whole agency becomes more efficient and then we can put that money into better service.

Jaspal Singh ([30:00]):

It’s a network effect. And I can also compliment and congratulate you. I mean the airport connected with the WMATA lines, the way finding is amazing from the airport itself. You can go to the train station and the staff at the station is really helpful personally experience.

Randy Clarke ([30:17]):

Yeah, no, that’s good. I came through there on Friday actually the airport and I think we want people, our message is real clear, how can I help you? That’s the staff message and we’re going to be really tight on that.

Jaspal Singh ([30:32]):

I would say it’s coming from the top leader. So I also want to understand a little bit about your leadership philosophy because I say the life of transit leader is very hard. Sometime it’s very lonely. You are doing a difficult job dealing with board member politicians and then customer and the staff would love to learn more about your leadership style, what kind of a leader you are.

Randy Clarke ([30:54]):

Well, I guess you’d have to ask other people what they think of that, but no, it’s interesting. I think in the US market and all markets are a little different. I think I’d argue the three of the more challenging kind of public sector roles in America would be a school superintendent of a big school district because you got to do with parents and kids and education policy in the US is very complex and emotional. Being a police chief is very hard in a lot of ways. And a transit, CEO and our world is so operational that we touch everyone every day multiple times. So most times people interact with government unless you call 911, you’re probably not interacting with the fire department and unless you’re doing a building permit, you don’t deal with that type of part of the government or if you’re, you know what I mean? So you have to kind of go to it to do a service. We are here all the time. So even if you don’t take the train bus, the bus is going to be next to you as you’re driving down the street or if you’re part of a special event or you own a restaurant or you work at a restaurant or a big system or big city. It’s just the fabric and the news you digest. So again, I think that, and for us, our market is especially we have members of Congress write our system,

Randy Clarke ([32:20]):

We have the FTA, the NTSB, we have national journalists, we have everybody. And so the expectation level is very high, the cleanliness level. And you get someone will send a tweet out where there’s a coke can on the platform and it’s like most cities in the world will be like, that’s the cleanest we’ve ever been and every single thing is judged. So we have to be really high. So my philosophy is pretty straightforward I think, which is I’m going to lead always with integrity and with passion and knowing, I guess hopefully having the humility to know that I’m only here for a moment in time.

Randy Clarke ([33:02]):

Thing is way bigger than me and it’s bigger than all of us. So I kind of try to do the old Athenian code. My job is to leave the place better than it was left. Me and the next person should feel the same way. I am going to make mistakes, but I tell everyone I don’t care about making mistakes. I care about failing and failing really fast learning.

Randy Clarke ([33:25]):

From them and pushing. And so what I try to infuse in the culture here is entrepreneurial thinking, agility and time. The only thing we can’t buy is time we can build. There’s a robot on Marrs that is doing WIFI. I tell people all the time, so don’t tell me we can’t do something. The debate is do we want to allocate that many resources to do that thing? Because time is the one thing I cannot get back this morning no matter how hard I try no matter what I spend. So the urgency that I try to run this place, which is not a let’s run like a sprint because sprinting is not sustainable. So to me, I’ve done a lot of marathons in my life. So the idea here is to constantly build a higher cadence. So if I could run one mile and make it up a six minute mile, but I could run a marathon at eight and I’m currently running a 10 minute mile, my goal is to get to eight, not to get the six

Randy Clarke ([34:27]):

Because sprinting is not sustainable and it burns people out and it freaks people out and all that other kind of stuff. What we wanted to also do is just get a little bit more nimble, a little bit faster. And the only way to really do that is drive collaboration through transparency and data because a people driven and people have to make decisions and every decision of big place like this interacts with multiple departments. And so the only way to move things is to make more people work together faster so they can understand things and make kind of a cost benefit analysis and go, okay, that’s not perfect, but you know what, let’s take the eight every time and not try to get to a 10 because the 10 might take us two more years in this eight months and that opportunity cost is a bunch of people are going to gain from the eight right away. So let’s go and then we’re onto the next eight, in the next eight and the next eight and put some sixes in there, a fives and then a couple tens. And you do pretty well overall. I tell you all the time, the best baseball players run the best hitter in baseball this year got out two thirds of the time they went to bat and they’re the bats. Roger Federer is the greatest tennis player maybe ever. And he only won 54% of all of his points

Jaspal Singh ([35:37]):

Ever. I remembered that speech.

Randy Clarke ([35:38]):

And so you got to, everyone’s too focused on this perfection and there’s nothing close to that in this world. So just like what’s reasonable, and you mentioned safety, security, but what’s reasonable, and some of them annoys me in our industry a little bit, is this kind of overdone concept of safety.

Randy Clarke ([35:55]):

There’s no absolutism and safety, if that’s the case, don’t get out of bed in the morning. We run trains and buses and we need to do calculated hazard analysis and mitigate as best we can in a reasonable way with reasonable costs, reasonable society expectations to get our outcome done. That’s what we need to do. We need to be thoughtful of it, but we also can’t let this policy framework and get in our way of whatever we’re trying to do to better society and safety’s that way. And environmental stuff like electric buses, same to you. Electric buses are great, but when they’re twice as much money and I can’t get one, I’m buying a hybrid bus and I got to get, because the best thing of the environment is more people moving on bus than cars. And I think we just got to get back to thinking about these trade-off analysis and opportunity costs as a society and that’s all we’re trying to do. So a long way of saying leadership style is a little bit of passion. Put your eyes and shoes on the face of it, be the customer and let’s try to accomplish real things that are noticeable for their lives and we’ll do our best. And if it’s not good enough, then we’ll move on and do something else. But I think if we do that, we’re going to be better off at metro and the community’s better. So that’s what we’re just trying to do.

Jaspal Singh ([37:10]):

Amazing. So many lessons I would say, and again, it remind me your point about little thing is big thing, if you just focus on small thing, it automatically make it big. And then

Randy Clarke ([37:22]):

Well, and what happens Jaspal is if you do the little stuff, people will give you the time and space to do the big

Jaspal Singh ([37:28]):

Thing. Yeah, the big thing.

Randy Clarke ([37:30]):

Then they trust you. So when they see stuff working and then you go, Hey, I think we need to build another station there or we need to do this here or one BRT, you go into that conversation with a higher level of credibility because you’re executing. If you’re spending the 5 billion people go, ah, that’s being spent. Well the next 550 million, there’s a factor that we think is going to work, but why are you building more stuff when this stuff doesn’t work? And that’s that circular thing that we’re all caught up on now.

Jaspal Singh ([38:02]):

Yeah, it’s a network effect. In fact, you are one of the, I would say very few transit CEO who take the train and bus every day, like you mentioned 600 trip last year. And also you use social media to directly connect with riders and policymaker directly, which is also very few CEO. But like you said, they have these walls and they say we should not directly interact. There can be some hazard and some problem. Why do you think it’s important for the leader to lead from the front and be open to criticism?

Randy Clarke ([38:31]):

Yeah, well one, your employees are out there. So when I walked through a station this morning, I just did a town hall with a bunch of bus operator this morning and that garage happens to be one that I use a lot of routes out of. I walk in, they’re like, Hey, how’s it going? One, it brings a collegiality and familiarity and I think most employees know I’m fighting for them, right? I’m fighting for the customer. So my expectations of the staff is very high and they know that, but I’m also fighting for them for that. We have good funding, that they have good jobs and that they’re respected and treated and their safety is important to me and their uniforms are important to me and that their hours that they work and the conditions that they work in. So I think they overall, most of them know that I’m fighting for them as well. And you got to have credibility if you never take the system. They know that

Randy Clarke ([39:27]):

We’re a big place. Everyone talks, everyone knows everywhere I go. I think that’s a healthy thing. And then on the public facing stuff, yeah, I’ll tell you, it’s weird. Our world’s all caught up in social media. I actually think social media is probably net negative now than it was that positive. But for us in transit, I think it is a natural type of thing on social media because people want to know delays and other impacts my account. I really just try to provide insight on what’s happening here, things we’re working on, thank elected officials or other partners that we work with because so many people contribute to the success of this place that there’s not me and not the staff, whether it’s funding or their care for it or giving us roadway that’s red paint and on and on and on. So I think it’s really important we recognize them. I recognize employees individually or as groups, which I think goes, there’s a big morale thing when they’re like, oh, the boss put me on Twitter. I’ll go to a thing and someone goes, Hey, put me on Twitter, let’s do a picture. Customers, I think like the responsiveness of if there’s an issue now obviously I can’t do that all day long, but

Randy Clarke ([40:40]):

Trying to be responsive and there’s a big challenge. Explain that. The negative on it is, I guess just be honest with it is, and this market is probably one of the most, the most social media driven markets in maybe the world, quite frankly, the DC market, there is a certain loss of privacy. There is no question about that. And I come to grips with it, but no small fit all just you have different types of audiences. So if someone is thinking about doing it, they have to be eyes wide open that, and depending on how much you do it and how much it gets spread around, we have a high influencer kind of market. It is kind of weird. I go to the grocery store and I’ll have people come up and talk to me. That’s life. I’m basically a public official from that capacity. But it does get a little with all the kind of crazy in the world today and the fear people have, there is that little bit of if you exposed yourself to be the leader and to drive the message, but there is a little bit of you’ve lost your privacy and the expectation that anyone can come up to you about anything is kind of there now. So it’s just the world we live in.

Randy Clarke ([42:00]):

I still think the Net Pro has been good for our agency, which is highlighting the work we’re doing and driving the brand and driving our overall value. But people have to be eyes wide open that the world is complex and layered and not everyone is rational for sure.

Jaspal Singh ([42:18]):

That’s true. That’s for true. No, I can see a lot of people interact with you on Twitter and they tag you for many things, which is very nice of how people interact now with you on social media

Randy Clarke ([42:28]):

Generally. Very good. Yeah.

Jaspal Singh ([42:29]):

Thank you so much, Wendy, for this wonderful conversation. Generally, I end this podcast with a personal rapid fire round. So if you’re ready, I’ll start with this rapid fire.

Randy Clarke ([42:38]):

I am not ready, but let’s do it.

Jaspal Singh ([42:40]):

Okay. So if you were not in the transit space, what are the profession you would’ve selected?

Randy Clarke ([42:46]):

Oh, I mean a professional athlete, of course you live in Toronto. I’d probably play in the center for the least. I would just assume.

Jaspal Singh ([42:55]):

That’s amazing.

Randy Clarke ([42:56]):

Yeah, I grew up in Canada, of course I grew up wanting to be a professional hockey player. But listen, now that I’m older, I’d happy to be a professional golfer too, or professional baseball player.

Jaspal Singh ([43:07]):

But we first good to have you as a best CEO, which is good for the transit industry, which is your favorite city in the world and why?

Randy Clarke ([43:16]):

Oh, well one, I would’ve to say here if I don’t, I get in trouble, but let’s say outside of where I live, my favorite cities, I mean listen, it’s impossible not to love New York. I love New York. My favorite city has always been, and not to go, but it’s changed a little bit. But I love London. I absolutely love London and I have a dream of living in London at some point, but the more I go to Paris, the more I’m kind of liking Paris over London because the weather is just that much better. And what has happened in Paris on the revolution of preventing cars from ruining Paris has been just fantastic. And I love what Andy and the team are doing at tfl, but I think I might be drifting a little bit of Paris over London, but I don’t know. Those cities are amazing, but there’s so many places in this world that are fantastic. But I love all those places.

Jaspal Singh ([44:09]):

That’s true. Both cities are amazing, including dc, which is your favorite book?

Randy Clarke ([44:16]):

Probably my favorite book. I really liked Hamilton. I read a lot of history and a lot of profiles on people and things of that nature. I’ve read a lot on Churchill, a significant amount of trilogies and things of that nature. So yeah, I would say I really enjoyed Hamilton because then the Broadway play came out and I’m like, well, yeah. So I read a lot of that kind of stuff and I thought that’s a thousand page book. So I’ve used to read a lot of that kind of stuff. So I don’t know, I do a lot of that kind of stuff.

Jaspal Singh ([44:56]):

Impressive. And this is my second last question, but what one thing do you wish you should have learned early in life?

Randy Clarke ([45:03]):

Oh, well, geez, we got to start the whole podcast over. As I get older. One, I think physically to treat myself with a little bit more grace about the importance of sleep, although I don’t do much of it, I think that’s important. And then I think if I could do anything over in life, but I don’t live in any regret world is try to listen to what my wife says more often, which is constantly show a little bit more patience, more patience. And it’s a challenge when you’re a getting done kind of person. Like me, I’m very result oriented and I think most people can see those results, but it takes a level of impatience to do that, but that’s also not overall as healthy for yourself and dynamic sometimes. So it’s like trying to find that balance between patience and understanding that life is short and if someone can figure that out, they can ring me up and tell me how to do that because that is the ultimate hard thing to do. But I think as you get older you realize you got to both time becomes more evaporating, but also how do you use your time even to the higher level value?

Jaspal Singh ([46:16]):

Entrepreneur can’t have patience. So this is my last question

Randy Clarke ([46:20]):

If you change the last one was the last question.

Jaspal Singh ([46:22]):

If you can change one thing in life, what would it be?

Randy Clarke ([46:26]):

My personal life,

Jaspal Singh ([46:27]):

Anything you can change, personal, professional, society, anything you want to change? One thing

Randy Clarke ([46:33]):

I think, well, I mean if you could change something in society, I think it would be great if we could all realize that we are the same creature, all living on the same thing that’s rotating to the galaxy and to have more empathy care for each other because the things that divide us are so minimal compared to the things that innately unite us and that too many people use those differences to exploit them for personal gain and benefit. Short term against the real good long term, we are all very lucky to be alive right now. As bad as things seem to different people right now, I find it hard to believe if you took anyone in the history of time and said, could you be living in 2025 or any time for the last couple thousand years? And we have healthcare, we have education, I can get on a flight and I could end up in, literally, I could go to the airport right now and I could end up in Paris tonight.

Randy Clarke ([47:36]):

And before it was the fastest a sale could go or a horse. But the negative is we are currently becoming more and more divisive and letting analytics and robotic machinery and AI drive us to against each other. So again, exploiting that 0.01 difference, while the reality is this is a beautiful planet and we should be protecting this beautiful thing that we have a moment to live on and actually caring about what it will be for the next group. We’re just dust my man at the end of the day. And our job is very limited to make it better for somebody else. So anyway, that just got super philosophical. But anyway, really enjoyed the conversation.

Jaspal Singh ([48:20]):

This is wonderful thought. Thank you so much. I mean, really enjoyed and thank for sharing all your experience and I always see you as an inspiration. Whatever you’re doing still long way to go. I would say sky is a limit for you, but thank you for all your work and thank you for sharing this knowledge.

Randy Clarke ([48:37]):

Yes, Jaspal, great seeing you. Okay, thanks for the chat.

Jaspal Singh ([48:39]):

Thank you for listening this podcast. If you like this episode, please don’t forget to give us a five star rating as it’ll help us to spread our message. If you have any feedback or suggestion for this podcast, please feel free to reach out to us at info at the rate mobility innovators.com. I look forward to see you next time. Take care.