Metro News Release

For immediate release: December 17, 2004

Metro moves 230,000 customers during the ING DIRECT free rides promotion on Thursday, December 16

On Thursday, December 16, 230,000 people rode Metrorail for free, between 5 and 9:30 a.m., typical for a normal Thursday morning in December. Overall, 661,034 riders used the Metrorail system. ING DIRECT, an on-line savings bank, covered the cost for Metro riders from 5 to 9:30 a.m. on Thursday morning as part of its "Metro and Save" event that Metro saw as having a customer appreciation focus. "It was a pleasure to work with ING DIRECT on this special promotion," said Metro General Manager and CEO Richard White. "This was a win-win for our customers and for ING DIRECT. Metro was delighted to have the opportunity to offer a special thank you gift to our customers for their continued loyalty to Metro. It was one way for us to show our faithful riders that we value their business, and we hope they will continue to use Metro." To accommodate the anticipated demand, Metro operated 806 rail cars yesterday morning, and ran 10 eight-car trains, with five operating on the Red Line, four on the Orange Line and one on the Green Line. "We had extra rail cars in service yesterday morning because we had our rail mechanics working around the clock to build up the number of rail cars for the day," said Steven Feil, Metro’s Chief Operating Officer for Metrorail. "We also conducted early inspections and early repairs. Also, we were planning to put the extra cars into service to prepare for Saturday’s opening of the Blue Line, so we pressed those cars into service early." Yesterday’s promotion marked the first time that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) partnered with a private company to offer free rides to promote the savings associated with using public transit.

News release issued on December 17, 2004.