The City of Edmonton

Mgmt. 4419

1. In order to complete your final assignment paper, you will consider yourself a consultant.

2. You will be using all the information that you gathered in your first paper to make :
(A) Recommendations that increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.
(B) An Implementation Plan for your recommendations.

3. Your Recommendations and Implementation Plan:

• Must be based on the data that you gathered in your first paper.
• Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization
• Must be timely
• Must be cost effective
• Must be feasible
• Must make sense to the company and the reader

4. SUBMISSION
In order to write your paper you will:
• Provide company background. You are allowed to include the Company History from your first paper.
• Select an Image (s) of Change and write the paper using that/those perspectives (e.g. As a Director I recommend…)
• Use core concepts from the text and the course
• Discuss possible Resistance to the Recommendations and Implementation Plan – do not state that there won’t be any resistance!
• Limit the paper to 14 pages not including Prefatory and Reference Pages

ANSWER

Edmonton Transit Service

Introduction

Change management is considered as an organized strategy and use of tools, information, and resources to handle change. This includes adopting and defining the corporate structures, approaches, processes, and technologies that are effective in handling changes in both internal and external settings within the business atmosphere (Slattery, 2013). Considerably, efficient change management goes past technical tasks and project management to organizational variations that involve leading individuals to facilitate alteration within the organization. The key objective of every change management is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization through the implementation of new business strategies, new processes, products as well as minimizing the negative outcomes (Cameron and Green, 2019). An organization needs to ensure that change is conducted effectively since it impacts the outcomes of the business as well as affects the organization’s mission, vision, objectives, and goals which have a great impact on the organizational success. This paper focuses on Edmonton Transit Services’ change recommendations and implementation plan. Therefore, the paper will include the company history, the images of change, recommendations, implementation plan, and resistance to change.

Company History

Edmonton Transit Services (ETS) is a public transit service that is operated and owned by the City of Edmonton in Alberta. ETS operates both light rail and bus systems. ETS was founded in 1908 with a primary founding mission and aim being to serve the needs of the growing transportation and transit needs of about 19,000 people in Edmonton. ETS has been described fully as a progressive, fully integrated, and easy-to-use public transit system that offers services to over 80 million rides annually.

The goals and objectives of ETS include enhancing Active Modes of transportation and Public Transit as per the strategic goals of the city. The goal of ETS is to maximize sustenance and preservation of the environment through lowering GHG emissions and minimizing city congestion through improving ecologically sustainable operations and systems. ETS also aims at ensuring the community safety and safety programs implementation in buses, transit centers, bust stops, stations, and LRT. ETS has remained committed to offering transit that is reliable, accessible affordable, safe all the while ensuring that the customers get a generally positive experience.

Edmonton transit system is part of the transportation system that includes moving goods, services, and people on Edmonton rails, roads, sidewalks, and light rail transit. The system has significance in supporting and providing infrastructure and services that influence the community’s wellbeing and shape Edmonton’s urban as well as being a major contributor to Edmonton’s financial, environmental, and social sustainability. The organization has been guided by three pillars, including infrastructure, service, and technology. The services provided include U-Pass programs and regional bus services that are quite affordable thus offering services to university students that are traveling within the city municipalities. The infrastructure includes transit and vehicle status that create adequate and significant space for both ETS employees and customers. The third pillar is a technology whereby ETS has invented new technologies that maximize employee and customer services, satisfaction, and experience.  For instance, the Smart Bus technology, electronic payment model, smart fare, auditory-visual announcements, and electric buses.

Images of Change

In the current world, organizations have constantly changed in their processes, strategies, and procedures in response to the dynamism of business operations.  Organizations have been faced with external and internal pressures that have led to the demand for change. Ideally, change is revolving around the conditions of the environment and is triggered by the demands within the organization. The image of change that will be used throughout the recommended changes at Edmonton will be director and director theoretical underpinning. Ideally, a director is an image of management as control and change outcomes. The director has the mandate to control and direct the organization to produce the desired results. The director’s theoretical underpinning entails how the director relies on different models that highlight the different steps that need to be used for organizational changes to occur smoothly.

The director’s image is grounded on an image of management that controls and ensures changes are achievable. Therefore, the change manager must ensure that they have directed the organization in a certain manner to ensure that they achieve the right change. The image of a director makes the change leader command the change process. This is because the director designs the tactics and strategies that need to be adopted by the organization to attain the required outcomes. Therefore, the director will maneuver, manage, manipulate and monitor the activities of the team in the desired direction of change. The director offers a clear and well-defined mission and vision of what needs to be achieved. This will effectively guide the change due to a clear understanding of the direction of the change and the direction in which the order of the change will occur. Ideally, the change manager will rely on n-step models such as Kotter’s 8 step model which increases the ability of the individual to change and improve the success of the change.

Recommendations

Improve the transit system to boost customer services (High-speed transit, Bus Rapid Transit, and electric buses)

As a director, I recommend improving the user experience for the Edmonton Transit system to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the transit system. One of the most important things that need to be implemented is the wayfinding signage. Ideally, the wayfinding signage is considered as a comprehensive process that enables the road users and visitor to familiarize with the physical space as well as get directional assistance to get from one point to the other. The messages that are offered on the exterior and interior wayfinding signage minimize the visitor’s confusion while navigating through an unfamiliar or new city. The signage system and the wayfinding design work together to ensure that they have created a comfortable environment for visitors and road users. Legible and clear messages must be in the most appropriate location and visible to all despite their physical ability and language. The transit system requires way-finding signage for the river valley and downtown core to ensure that they are consistent and easier for the citizens to use and identify.

Another major recommendation would be the use of a rapid transit system. Conventional transit system technologies such as high speed and rapid urban transit systems need to be implemented. Considerably, the high speed and rapid transit system influence the urban dynamics. High-speed networks are considered an effective alternative to lower congestion on highways. With the substantial growth of traffic, high-speed transit systems have become essential. This improves the conventional urban transit system and its significant velocity is the reason behind the considerable improvements in locomotive performance. The high-speed rails and electric buses have been among the most effective rapid transit system. The high-speed urban systems will effectively move larger capacities of passengers reliably and safely (Erokhina and Brega, 2020). These will mitigate congested roads since they can offer services even in adverse conditions. In terms of energy, they will be cost-efficient since they consume less energy as compared to the conventional transit system. They are considered to be more sustainable due to the use of electric power and land use structures that are denser.

High-Quality Transit System

A high-quality transit system is defined by its ability to effectively meet the mobility needs of the users. For the users, a high-quality transit system has to be fast, accessible, affordable, attractive, and reliable. A high-quality transit system plays an essential role in benefiting the users, environment, and businesses. Ideally, the high-quality transit system is both frequent and fast. As a director, I recommend a high-quality transit system that will achieve beating congestion and reduced energy consumption and low gas emissions. For instance, dedicated bus lanes can triple the bus speeds as well as allow individuals to move faster. Considerably, offering high-quality services in public transportation is significant in reducing dissatisfactions that stem from congestion and noise. The well-organized transit system will reduce the use of private cars and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.

From an environmental perspective, the system will operate efficiently including the use of high-quality buses that will lower emissions and high occupancy rates. Additionally, successful management and improvement of the transport network services require examining the key factors such as efficiency, the number of trips, and the occupancy rates.  A high-quality transit system will be the backbone for a sustainable urban transport system. This is because this will improve the conditions for walking and cycling as well as attract the car users to have efficient modes and energy use.

Improving Technology

As a director, I recommend the implementation of innovative new technologies that have the opportunity to boost the experience of the users and passengers. These innovations will introduce emerging technologies in the transit system thus bringing a difference and solving many problems in the transit system. The new technologies have provided better modes of transport that will cope with transportation needs as well as improving the current transit system. Some of the bus technologies that I would recommend for the Edmonton Transit service system include the smart fare, smart bus technology, and autonomous pilot program. For instance, Smart Bus technology will change the way the transit system delivers, plans, and responds to incidents. By offering real-time information directly to the riders, the technology will improve the experience of the transit (Ingvardson and Nielsen, 2018). This is because the transit system will be able to plan trips while lowering missed connections and waiting times. The users will also be able to have real-time planning thus improving reliability, safety, accessibility, and predictability.

Smart fare technology is an account-based electronic fare payment system that will ensure that paying for transit is more convenient and easier within the Edmonton region (Bublyk, Matseliukh, Motorniuk, and Terebukh, 2020). Considerably, the transit users within Edmonton will benefit from the new form of the payment system. The transit users will rely on a smart card that they will use to pay a flat fee for their trip. The tap and go fare system will allow the use of credit cards and other compatible cards that will make the payment system simple and allow the uses to travel comfortably the region in Edmonton.

The autonomous vehicle program will offer the passengers transit services without a driver in the vehicle. The program will combine software and sensors to navigate, control, and drive the vehicles.  The autonomous cars will be controlled by an automatic driving system that does not have a physical driver. The program will be effective since it will lower congestion, reduce crashes, pollution, and fuel consumption. For instance, the electric autonomous shuttle is among the electric autonomous cars that can be used in Edmonton since they can operate on-demand and fixed routes as well as operate in the current roadways without any additional infrastructure required.

Implementation Plan

To offer smart services for passengers while applying innovations, it is important to build an optimal transit service and network. Edmonton will establish a smart transit system that will include a high-quality transit system with innovations and technologies that will boost the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization. The smart transit system will be processed from tactical planning, strategic planning, and operational planning. The implementation plan will include three stages to represent a more realistic, detailed, and dynamic design. These include the planning stage), the intermediate stage, and the evaluation stage

Planning Stage (1 to 6 months)

• Describing the change and aligning it to the organizational objectives.
• Developing a communication approach.
• Implement weekly meetings to listen to employee feedback concerning the value of the change as well as offer the most appropriate support and communication needed.
• Developing supporting structure

Intermediate stage (1 year +)

• Employee involvement to empower employees through growing their knowledge about the procedures and changes that will occur
• Training of employees to increase effective knowledge
• Preparing the change management team
• Developing change management approaches
• Taking action and implementing change

Evaluation stage (3 months)

• Reviewing and monitoring the results
• Gathering and analyzing feedback
• Addressing any issues related to the changes
• Managing resistance and diagnosing gaps
• Implementing corrective actions and celebrating successes.

Resistance to Change

Considerably, individuals tend to resist change when they fail to understand the benefits and purpose of the proposed changes. Some of the reasons that to resistance to change included organizational politics, loss of job security, and fear of failure. Misunderstanding the need for change and having the reason for the change being unclear were other major reasons for resistance to change. When the users do not trust or feel confident about the change, this can create a great barrier due to a lack of confidence in the change-makers. However, to effectively diagnose and manage resistance to change, employee involvement, empowerment, and training were effectively utilized to boost the confidence and trust in the change process. Training, trials, and education are effective in meeting the staff needs and implementing change altogether.

Conclusion

Research has shown a concerning trend in transit systems which has led to the demand for change in Edmonton Transit Service. Following the adaptation of the current Transit strategy, Edmonton Transit Service demands a detailed redesign and innovation of the transit system. Change management is a series of steps that the change management team needs to follow to implement change effectively. The recommended changes will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the Edmonton Transit Service. The implementation plan indicates the stages that will facilitate an effective change management process.  Successful change managers need to focus on adequate planning, communication, engagement and focus on external and internal pressures.

References

Bublyk, M., Matseliukh, Y., Motorniuk, U., & Terebukh, M. (2020). Intelligent System of Passenger Transportation by Autopiloted Electric Buses in Smart City. In COLINS (pp. 1280-1294).

Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2019). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools, and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.

Ingvardson, J. B., & Nielsen, O. A. (2018). Effects of new bus and rail rapid transit systems–an international review. Transport Reviews, 38(1), 96-116.

Slattery, J. (2013). Change management. Journal of Strategic Leadership, 4(2), 1-5.

Erokhina, O. V., & Brega, A. V. (2020, March). Intelligent transport technologies in “smart” cities. In 2020 Systems of Signals Generating and Processing in the Field of on Board Communications (pp. 1-5). IEEE.