Working as a Ride Guide
Staff Contacts
Mick Rusch
mrusch@cityofmadison.com
Delfina Florencio-Morales
dflorencio-morales@cityofmadison.com
Call/Text: (608) 640-0451
What to Expect
If you still have questions not covered here, let us know at our contact info above.
How long are these trainings?
Please read these webpages and watch the two videos. After that, we’re encouraging people to attend live Zoom question and answer sessions.
We will also provide a Zoom training session on planning your trip on Google Maps.
How many hours can we expect per week before June 11?
We don’t have an exact answer, but we want to get people out there right away. As soon as you attend orientation, we will start scheduling you for work.
Look for an email as to when orientation will be scheduled.
Is it possible to get some sort of a pass to ride on the Metro, to experience it since I have not used it?
Yes, we will provide that at orientation.
Shift Assignments
We are going to schedule people in teams at our various locations. Metro staff may be joining you in certain areas and/or at certain times. We will touch base with you at orientation regarding initial shift assignments. We’ll then touch base with you via email and text after that as we fill additional shifts.
Uniform
We ask that you wear a yellow Ride Guide vest that we will provide at orientation. This will make it easy for riders to spot you in the crowd, and we will be actively promoting “go talk to our Ride Guides in the yellow vests.”
How Will We Access Route and Schedule Information?
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The easiest way to plan trips is on your phone using Google Maps either on our website or through the Google Maps app itself. Look for an email on live Zoom training on how to do that. We are able to provide a $20 month stipend for using your personal phone.
- The Transit App is another good app for trip planning, but we power everything on our site through Google Maps, so that is our best recommendation.
- We’ll provide you an information card with contact phone numbers to Metro staff and QR codes to trip planning screens, apps, and other information.
- We also will have a number of tablets that we’ll distribute as best we can to each location team.If we provide you a tablet at the beginning of your shift, please return it to the same person that issued it at the end of your shift. Metro staff will let you know if you should turn it in to someone else.We encourage you to show others how to plan their trips using their electronic device, but there will be people not comfortable with that.
- We’ll give you trip planning cards, where you can write down trip information for people after you’ve planned it on your phone.
- And we’ll also provide you with booklets of printed schedule information and cheat sheets to describe what to expect at individual stops. Though, it’s our experience a majority of people will prefer to use electronic information.
Bus Stops
Bus stop signs will be updated all the way to June 11. A majority of our signs will be changing from route numbers to letters. People can still board at these stops even after they have been updated.
How far in advance would we be getting our schedules? And how consistent would it be/ would location change weekly?
We’ll set up schedules as far forward as we can starting on the day of your orientation. We’ll try to get your location as consistent as possible, but we may need to ask you to staff different locations based on our scheduling needs.
Will we get transportation to stationing locations?
Unfortunately, we aren’t able to do that. We’ll assign you your location and shift times, and it will be up to you to report to work there on your own. If we need to move you during the day, a Metro staff person will provide transportation.
Contact a supervisor
If you need to contact a supervisor, you can text/call (608) 640-0451.
If you have additional questions on the daily expectations of this position, please email mrusch@cityofmadison.com or send a text.
Watch for dates of our live zoom question and answer session.