Metro News Release

For immediate release: April 28, 2009

MetroAccess revises No-Show/Late Cancellation Policy

Change meant to help keep drivers, customers on schedule

MetroAccess recently revised its No-Show/Late Cancellation Policy in an effort to help keep drivers and customers on schedule and provide timely service. Metro will begin enforcement of the policy on May 1.

Under the new policy, MetroAccess service will be suspended for customers who book trips and then repeatedly fail to board the vehicle and/or cancel trips less than two hours before the pick-up window.

“MetroAccess is a shared-ride service, so it’s important that drivers and customers are at their designated pick-up locations in a timely manner,” said Selene Faer Dalton-Kumins, Director of MetroAccess. “If a customer fails to cancel a trip, other customers might be delayed since drivers are required to make every effort to locate each customer they are scheduled to pick up.”

Metro recently sent a notification letter about the revised policy to all current MetroAccess customers.

Any customer who has booked 10 trips or more in one month and has no-showed or late cancelled at least 10 percent of the trips will receive a suspension notice. Additionally, to ensure that only habitual offenders are suspended, a customer will have to accumulate three or more penalty points to receive a suspension.

Each no-show is counted as one penalty point and each late cancellation is counted as one-half of a penalty point. A no-show occurs when a customer does not board the vehicle within five minutes of the vehicle’s arrival within the 30-minute pick-up window. A late cancellation occurs when a customer cancels a trip less than two hours before the start of the 30-minute pick-up window.

A customer will be subject to suspension only if both the minimum number of trips booked and the minimum number of penalty points are reached during the calendar month.

The length of a customer’s suspension will be based on the number of his or her violations. A customer will receive a warning letter for his or her first violation in the calendar year. For subsequent violations, service will be suspended from one to four weeks.

Customers who no-show or cancel late because of circumstances beyond their control can call the MetroAccess No-Show Team at 301-562-5360 (option 5) to explain the circumstance and request the removal of the no-show or late cancel. Customers who dispute a suspension under this policy, have the right to file an appeal. A copy of the appeal process will be sent to any customer who receives a suspension letter.

For more information about MetroAccess, visit http://www.wmata.com/accessibility/metroaccess_service/ or call 301-562-4640 (TTY 301-588-7535).

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Media contact for this news release: Angela Gates or Lisa Farbstein at 202-962-1051.

News release issued at 9:54 am, April 28, 2009.