It was a full room at TransLink’s 2012 annual general meeting (AGM) at Chuck Bailey Recreation Centre on May 29, 2013!

Roughly 80 people were in attendance. Bob Paddon, Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Public Affairs, kicked off the meeting.

Nancy Olewiler, TransLink board chair, spoke about the function of the board and acknowledged the challenges of 2012. Those challenges included TransLink opening its books several times and having to make tough decisions that had to be made to ensure TransLink is fiscally responsible. She concluded by talking briefly about the funding discussions TransLink is currently having with the province, the mayors of the region and the people of Metro Vancouver residents.

TransLink’s Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice-President Finance and Corporate Services, Cathy McLay, took to the podium next. Cathy spoke about how TransLink focused on efficiency in 2012. That focus on efficiency built on measures which were already underway previously. Those efficiencies included the following:

• Reduced management and professional positions (since 2008)
• Reduced overtime and labour costs
• Decreased fuel use by using more fuel-efficient vehicles
• Locked in fuel contracts up to a year in advance making fuel costs more predictable
• Reduced the cost of buying goods and services
• Optimized our bus service
• increased ridership revenue – in 2012, we had 3.5 per cent growth in total transit revenue

Interspersed between speakers three of the four real rider stories were played. Here’s Myra Buenaflor’s video:

Ian Jarvis, TransLink CEO, was the last to speak. Ian spoke of the value TransLink brings to the people of the region. He spoke of the number of people TransLink moves, improvement to service and reliability and how critical the transportation network is for people who live here and the Metro Vancouver economy. Ian finished with his vision for the future, TransLink’s role in planning for the region and asking the question of where we want to be in the future.

Here are a few of the highlights of TransLink’s 2012 results:

• 239 million transit trips delivered in 2012, ­ six million more than the previous year ­by better matching service to travel demand.
• Customer satisfaction reached an all-time high of 7.7 out of 10.
• Transit productivity was up, with boardings per service hour reaching their highest level of the last five years.
• Operating costs per revenue passenger were lower in 2012 than five years ago ­ down by nearly 10 cents per customer to $3.76.
• TransLink’s vehicles travel farther before they need major repairs, with a 128 per cent improvement in rail since 2008 and a 78 per cent improvement in bus operations. This means fewer spare buses are needed and costs are kept down.
• Crimes against people on the transit system were down 8.75 per cent compared with the previous five-year average.

View the webcast online

If you weren’t in attendance at the meeting, you can watch the live webinar! This webinar link is the best way to watch the meeting since it’s split screen, so you can watch the live meeting alongside of the slides.

I’ll update this post when we upload the AGM to our YouTube page. UPDATE: Here’s the YouTube link to the webcast!

Questions

We had a lot of questions from audience members at the AGM. There were a few about HandyDart as well as questions about hours of operations, level of service and access to power for personal electronic devices on transit.

We also had a good amount of questions that came in online. We’re still going through all of them and finding answers. Please be patient!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the AGM! See you next year!