Transit Through a New Lens: Metro’s Approach to Customer Experience

On November 13th, 2025, the USC ITE chapter invited Lauren Deaderick, Senior Director of Customer Experience at LA Metro, to share Metro’s current practice on improving service quality. This guest lecture offered our members a unique opportunity to delve beyond the technical components of transportation planning. 

Ms. Deaderick is a USC Price alumna with dual master’s degrees in Public Policy and Urban Planning. She began her career at Santa Monica Big Blue Bus in the Operations team, utilizing her planning background. Then, she moved to the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she oversaw the disbursement of grants. Ms. Deaderick noted that working at the federal level, while fulfilling, was challenging in terms of engaging with local stakeholders and communities, who would be directly impacted. Ultimately, she decided to return to Los Angeles and join the LA Metro Customer Experience team. 

Although the Customer Experience team is relatively new, it has been instrumental in enhancing the public image and perception of Metro. Ms. Deaderick highlighted the Tap-to-Exit pilot programs, combined with the installation of new fare gates, to deter fare evaders and improve safety on trains. Additionally, the team is responsible for coding customer feedback through surveys and presenting these findings to the Metro Board. 

Students learned that Metro collects feedback in several ways. The Customer Experience team advertises on the Transit app, a popular transit wayfinding mobile tool, offering incentives such as a free Metro Bike Share pass to get riders to participate in the surveys. The team also conducts random paper surveys on trains and buses to address potential reporting biases for riders who opt in to responding to surveys. Speaking from personal experience, one time while I was riding the E line to downtown, I was randomly selected to participate in a paper survey. It asked about cleanliness, perception of safety, among other things, as well as if I was a regular commuter or leisure rider. These surveys are quite comprehensive, so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t finish the survey by the time I got to my stop.

Our members inquired about the potential integration of open-loop payment systems, which would allow riders to pay for their ride using any payment source. While she couldn’t reveal too many details, Ms. Deaderick said that open-loop payment systems would eventually come to Metro. Finally, we concluded our conversation with Ms. Deaderick by examining the future of Metro and exploring the potential for integrating customer feedback into future station and route designs. She noted that while the Customer Service and Planning teams don’t often work together throughout the project development phase, the community engagement process creates a valuable opportunity for the Planning team to hear directly from the community.

We thank our members for their wonderful questions. We were delighted to welcome Ms. Deaderick again on campus.