PURPOSE
Pierce Transit is soliciting proposals from firms qualified and interested in providing survey, tabulation, analysis, report writing and focus group services to assess Pierce Transit’s services through December 31, 2005. Possible research needs include data collection of current and potential transit riders in the Pierce Transit Service Area. Data collection efforts beyond the customer satisfaction survey defined as Task Order No. 1 in this document will be assigned by additional task orders as needed. Pierce Transit reserves the right to solicit and contract with other market research firms. The firm awarded this contract and Task Order No. 1 should not construe this award as an exclusive agreement.

For Task Order No. 1, Pierce Transit is soliciting proposals for a telephone survey of its riders to obtain customer satisfaction data. Pierce Transit welcomes firms to propose alternative survey methodologies to collect the data.

BACKGROUND
In the Fall of 1998, Pierce Transit (working with a market research firm) conducted a customer satisfaction survey. The purpose of the survey was to gather baseline data on ridership, overall satisfaction of riders with service components of Pierce Transit and demographic information on riders. The service areas investigated were 1) frequency and schedule of service 2) reliability 3) coach operator characteristics 4) bus characteristics 5) bus stop and bus shelters 6) personal safety 7) fares 8) customers service 9) customer information and 10) transfers.

A total of 1,760 Pierce Transit riders were surveyed by telephone. The average survey length was 15 minutes. The sample of riders was obtained by intercepting riders on-board buses and asking them to participate in a telephone survey. The sample was stratified by core route/route group. Approximately equal numbers of respondents were obtained from each of the 17 routes/groups. These data were weighted using actual ridership counts for each route/groups so that the overall statistics were representative of the population of riders as a whole. The error margin for the entire sample was approximately ±2.8 percent.

Pierce Transit conducted this survey again in the Spring of 2001. The same methodology was used for intercepting riders and conducting a follow-up telephone survey with willing participants. A total of 600 Pierce Transit riders were surveyed by telephone in the 2001 study. The survey had an error margin of ±4.0 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. A copy of the telephone questionnaire is included in Attachment A

SCOPE OF WORK FOR TASK ORDER NO. 1
We are requesting proposals (including cost information and proposed project schedule) for the fielding of telephone surveys that would meet the following objectives and specifications:

• Sample size/Design: Provide sampling schemes to assist Pierce Transit in the selection of a sample at a level of statistical power agreeable to Pierce Transit, that is commensurate with the significance of the data and/or any conclusions to be drawn from the data. Sound Transit Express and Olympia Express service will not be part of this survey. The sample needs to be stratified so as to obtain a response rate representative of local ridership patterns. For example, more riders need to be surveyed on high ridership routes than lower ridership routes. This could entail a sample stratified by route and/or geographically (e.g. Tacoma, Lakewood, Peninsula, Puyallup/Sumner, east Pierce County). A spreadsheet, which provides data on average weekday, Saturday and Sunday ridership is provided in Attachment B. A copy of Pierce Transit’s schedule book The Bus Stops Here is included to provide a better understanding of the geographic areas Pierce Transit serves. The sample size will provide a confidence level of at least 90 percent for comparison between geographic areas.
• Survey instrument design: Design survey instrument to collect necessary information for use in a telephone survey. The instrument will be used to collect data regarding customer satisfaction and other pertinent information, in relation to Pierce Transit’s fixed route transit service. An average survey length of approximately 15 minutes is assumed.
• Pre-testing: Following development of a draft survey instrument for the telephone survey, a pretest shall be conducted to ensure proper data collection and determine that the instrument correctly follows logic and skip patterns.
• Intercept Survey: Recruit, train and manage staff to intercept transit riders to obtain a sample for the telephone survey.
• Telephone Survey: Conduct telephone survey.
• Coding: Provide coding for open-ended and "other" questions.
• Data Cleaning and Analysis: Cleaning and processing of data, provided on disk, preferably in SPSS for Windows format. If unable to provide SPSS file, data will be provided in an ASCII format with documentation relating to formats and values. All data files will be submitted to Pierce Transit.
• Written Reports: A complete written report including background, objectives, survey methodology and survey results shall be provided to Pierce Transit following the telephone survey (all written reports shall be submitted to Pierce Transit in draft form for review and comment prior to final publication).

TERM OF CONTRACT
The contract resulting from this request for proposals shall be for a two (2) year period with options to renew for three (3) additional one-year periods.