One Year In

Today marks one year since Shari Spencer was officially named Executive Director of ClasTran. In that time she has presided over the move of our administrative office to the Ash Place building in Five Points South and the many challenges brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

Shari acted quickly at the start of the pandemic to ensure that our riders were kept safe by requiring that masks be worn by all riders and drivers during transit and reducing vehicle capacity so that riders were able to maintain social distancing while onboard. Drivers were also required to sanitize and wipe down all surfaces after transporting each passenger. ClasTran performed critical trips to/from COVID testing and vaccination sites by utilizing separate vehicles and transporting only one client at a time so that the general public were not exposed to the coronavirus. And finally, ClasTran was able to utilize its new scheduling and dispatching software, Ecolane DRT, to provide contact tracing and notify any riders who may have been onboard with someone who had recently tested positive for COVID-19.

By January 1, 2021, ClasTran's administrative office had moved to its new location at the Ash Place building in Five Points South. Shari said that the move was necessary for several reasons, not least of which was to maintain a more centralized office location for our clients. Prior to the move, ClasTran's administrative office had been located in Homewood off of Valley Avenue, and two years prior to that, ClasTran had been located for more than a decade in the 2121 building across the street from the Jefferson County Courthouse. ClasTran's move from its longtime home in the 2121 building was necessitated by major renovations being done to the building at the time.

Shari has led ClasTran through many challenges during the course of her first year at its helm, and there are still many obstacles on the horizon. ClasTran's federal funding has been cut each year for the past three years, and there do not seem to be any other funding sources available that could make up for the lost revenue. At the same time, the nation's economy is trying to recover from the pandemic and businesses, including ClasTran, are facing an unprecedented labor shortage as they try to rehire to meet demand. Still, ClasTran's Board of Directors, management team, and staff remain fully confident in Shari's abilities to steer our ship through this storm.

A New Normal

As senior centers begin to reopen and demand for public transportation continues to grow, we are working to increase trip availability. Social distancing policies have ended, and our vehicles are back to full capacity; however, our fleet is still heavily reduced. We're currently running only about twenty vehicles each day, whereas in 2019, we were running 40+ vehicles daily.

Management is doing everything they can to hire and train qualified drivers as quickly as possible; but we're experiencing the same difficulties that every other business has been experiencing in regard to the labor shortage, a challenge which has been exacerbated by the fact that our federal funding has been reduced each of the past three years.

Please continue to be patient with us as we work to hire qualified drivers and put more vehicles on the road. Trip availability should steadily improve over the course of the next several months. Before COVID-19, 2020 was on track to be our most productive year yet, with more trips performed than ever before. Our mission has not changed, and it is still our goal to increase the quantity and quality of paratransit service provided in the Greater Birmingham area. As the communities we serve work toward establishing a new normal, ClasTran will be there to meet the need.

ClasTran Board Makes It Official

Shari Spencer holds an MBA and has served as ClasTran's Assistant Executive Director for the past five years and as Interim Executive Director since October of last year. ClasTran's Board of Directors officially named her as Executive Director on June 26, knocking "Interim" off her title and expressing their confidence in her leadership.

The Board is optimistic about ClasTran's future with Executive Director Spencer at the helm, and the staff is excited to see her take on the role.

So far under her leadership, ClasTran has implemented new, state-of-the-art trip scheduling software that has led to increased on-time performance and organizational efficiency. More service improvements are slated for release in 2020, including the launch of a redesigned website and more.