Working Together

The applied skills of our team give terms like "Strategic Visioning" and "Public Mobility" value and purpose. On balance, the work we do and the results we achieve are attributed to the dedication and focus of our staff. Each project we do makes demands on management and associate alike, leveraging the broad experience and expertise offered by our team.

Our team profile includes a broad spectrum of transit industry experience that spans the globe. Several in our senior management spent numerous years at transit agencies, bringing the value and equity of long-term commitment and hands-on experience into the mix. With first-hand knowledge transit systems across the United States, and of several abroad, the collective experience of our team adds value to our practice.

At TMD we screen our people carefully so that we can offer our clients the benefits of shared expertise, a fresh and innovative approach to our work, and a promise to expect nothing short of the best from our employees.

Russell Chisholm

President

Russell Chisholm has developed, implemented and operated urban transit services for over 30 years within a variety of international and domestic operating environments. He spent the first half of his career in senior management and technical positions at some of the transit industry’s most innovative transit systems. Mr. Chisholm founded TMD and has built the company into an industry leader in both innovative sustainable transit service development and efficient transit operations.

Strategic and Tactical Transit Planning

Mr. Chisholm has widespread experience leading both short and long range transit planning at transit systems including DART’s suburban system in Dallas, Metro Moves Strategic Plan for Cincinnati’s SORTA, SANDAG Transit First, as well as major Transit Plans for the cities of San Francisco, San Diego, Tampa, Nashville, Cleveland, St. Louis, Denver, San Jose, Tucson, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Connecticut, and Saudi Arabia. With a focus on increasing transit use, walking, and biking, sustainable mobility and intermodalism remain a foundation of Mr. Chisholm’s planning work.

Transit Service Redevelopment

Mr. Chisholm is a leading expert in the redevelopment and revitalization of transit networks and services through market-based planning and transit service design that is effective, efficient, and sustainable. He has served as Project Manager and Principal for projects that range from large multi-modal, multi-operator systems to smaller bus operations. This work encompasses a variety of rail, bus, and small vehicle operations in both traditional fixed and innovative flexible modes. Highly successful restructuring projects include systems in San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, Orange County, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Connecticut, St. Louis, Dallas, Reno, Tampa, Charlotte, Buffalo, Alexandria, Orlando, Bellingham, Lake Tahoe, Palm Springs, Spokane, Baltimore, Tucson, Nashville, Santa Fe, Denver, Cincinnati, Ventura County, and Saudi Arabia. He has a proven track record of project implementation success for clients.

Bus Rapid Transit Development and Implementation

Mr. Chisholm is a leader in the development of Bus Rapid Transit, including taking the acclaimed LA Metro Rapid from concept to implementation to a 29-line network, as well as developing BRT strategic plans in Detroit (SpeedLink), Vancouver, Edmonton, and San Diego (Transit First). He also provided BRT market, service, and operations planning in Los Angeles (Orange Line), Reno (Virginia Street), and San Diego (I-15 BRT/HOT).

Operations Optimization

Mr. Chisholm advanced efforts to retain and restore industry knowledge and capabilities in efficient and effective transit operations. This leadership involved the preparation of the industry best practice manual in bus and rail scheduling (TCRP Report 30), the development of techniques to maximize operator utilization, improve supervisor effectiveness, headway-based arterial bus services, and multi-hub timed transfer operations.

Full Resume

Joe Forgiarini

Senior Manager

Joseph Forgiarini, a Senior Manager with TMD, has over 20 years of transit service and operations planning experience. Since joining TMD in 2005, Mr. Forgiarini has led major projects Including: the Los Angeles Metro Rapid Mid-Term Review, the LA Metro Connections Plan, the Wilshire Bus Speed Improvement Project, the San Diego I-15 BRT Operating Plan Project, BART Station Campus bus operations planning for VTA (San Jose), and a review of the San Francisco Transbay Terminal Bus Deck Operating Plan. He also served as Deputy Project Manager for the comprehensive restructuring of LRT, streetcar, cable car, Trolleycoach, and Motorcoach services for the Muni system in San Francisco.

Prior to TMD, Mr. Forgiarini worked at Brisbane Transport (BT) for sixteen years. He is currently leading a review of the SANDAG Early Action Plan transit initiatives, an I-15 corridor interregional commuter alternatives study (also for SANDAG), a Route and Fare Structure Review for NFTA (Buffalo. NY), a major Mobility Plan rethink for NCTD (North San Diego County), a Comprehensive Operational Analysis Study for IndyGo (Indianapolis IN), and the Los Angeles Metro Countywide Bus Speed Improvements Study. During his tenure at BT as the Regional Planning Manager West, he performed continuous reviews of efficiency of routes/schedules that meet customer demand and minimize associated costs.

Service Restructuring

Since joining TMD, Mr Forgiarini has been involved in many service restructuring studies, including Deputy Project Manager for the restructuring study of San Francisco Muni and the San Diego MTS Operations Review, and is currently completing such studies for IndyGo (Indianapolis, IN), NCTD (North San Diego CA), and NFTA (Buffalo NY).

Prior to joining TMD, Mr. Forgiarini conducted many restructuring projects at BT, including a full review of Brisbane Transport Route Network in 1998-1999. This led to implementation of a significantly updated network with resulting increased ridership. In the five years prior and following the the full review, he conducted annual reviews to identify poorly performing services and recommend network restructuring to improve efficiency and reduce costs. His work has saved in the range of $3 million and was recognized with a Lord Mayor’s Excellence Award from the Brisbane City Council.

Mr. Forgiarini’s work with the Brisbane Transport Network involved significant restructuring and simplification of many bus routes, new products, extensions of services at marginal cost to key regional attractors, including two major university campuses, and a new route numbering system.He also developed enhanced operating plans for key transit facilities, including the underground Myer Center Bus Station and the South East Busway and many suburban retail center transit stations.

Scheduling

Mr Forgiarini has led a number of Scheduling Services projects for TMD, including for Riverside Transit Authority (CA), Long Valley Coach (NJ), and Summit Stage (CO). He has also completed scheduling tasks for Baltimore MTA and a schedule review for two of AC Transit (Oakland CA)

As Regional Planning Manager West, Mr. Forgiarini performed the analysis, planning, and scheduling of resources to provide the public transport services for the Western Region. He reviewed the results from HASTUS 5 (the automated scheduling package used at BT since 2002) to ensure it met network operational efficiency requirements.

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Jack Reilly, Ph.D.

Senior Manager

Dr. Reilly is the project manager for a number of transit studies, including development of a five year service plan for the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), and a transit plan for the Ann Arbor (MI) Transportation Authority (AATA). He also manages TMD’s involvement in Bus Rapid Transit planning for the Detroit-Ann Arbor corridor and the introduction of technology for senior citizen identification in Pennsylvania.

Professional Activities

Chair, Committee on Transit Capacity and Quality of Service, Transportation Research Board, 1998-2002. (Chair of editorial board for transit counterpart to the Highway Capacity Manual)

Panel Chair, Implementation Guidance for Bus Rapid Transit Systems, Transportation Research Board, currently chair of research study on applications of Bus Rapid Transit sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration. (1999-present)

Member, Selection Committee, Transit IDEA Program (Ideas Deserving Exploratory Analysis) 1992-2005. (grant program sponsored by Federal Transit Administration to identify promising technologies for transit applications)

Chair, Committee on Synthesis of Current Transit Practices, chaired editorial board for a series of reports documenting the state of the practice in a number of transportation management and analysis areas. 1989-1998.

Member Conference Committee, Critical Issues for the Future of Intercity Rail Transportation in the United States, 1998.

Advisory Panel Member, International Comparison of National Policies and Expectations Affecting Public Transit, research study sponsored by the Federal Transit Administration, conducted by the Transportation Research Board 1998-2001.

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Bruce Behncke

Senior Manager

Bruce Behncke, Senior Manager with TMD, has over 30 years of experience in transportation and public transit. He accumulated this experience through a “hands on” role in key management positions with progressive transit systems. This has provided him with a solid basis of experience and understanding of all key phases of transit system planning, operations & maintenance as well as strategic planning and budgeting.

Service Planning & Scheduling

Participation in the development and implementation of short and long range planning has been an integral part of Mr. Behncke’s career. Early in his career he served as Director of Planning and Scheduling for Queen City Metro (QCM) in Cincinnati, Ohio where he initiated service expansion, the development of a new maintenance facility and worked on two voter initiatives to expand QCM’s funding base. He has been an integral part of Comprehensive Operational Analyses conducted during his tenures in Cincinnati, Tucson and Indianapolis. He also represented the respective transit agencies on the Technical Committees associated with the long range planning efforts

Facilities Development

Mr. Behncke was SunTran’s project manager for the planning and development of three transit centers. The centers were built in succession and successfully facilitated SunTran’s efforts to expand the system and increase ridership. While at Indianapolis, Mr. Behncke was IndyGo’s project manager for a downtown transit center study. The study concluded that three transit hubs would best serve the downtown as well as future rail plans. As a result of the study, grant funding was obtained for the first of the planned centers.

Maintenance facilities have also been a focus during his career. He has been involved in planning for new facilities or major renovations for existing facilities in Cincinnati, Tucson and Indianapolis. As project manager for a utility fleet management project, Mr. Behncke represented the Fleet Services group in a facilities consolidation effort, which reduced the number of operating facilities by 15% in a fleet that contained 2400 units operating in two states. One new maintenance facility was built during a second consolidation phase of this effort.

Operations Management

Operations Management, including maintenance and operations, have been another focus of Mr. Behncke’s career. He has over 15 years of experience directly managing operations and maintenance functions, which range from 125-vehicle systems to a utility fleet with over 2400 units. As a result of these efforts he understands the dynamics of service delivery and the key elements of providing high quality transit service to the public.

Finance & Community Support

Mr. Behncke has participated in transit funding initiatives ranging from fare increases to voter initiatives. He worked on two funding initiatives while with SORTA and one with SunTran. SunTran successfully passed a municipal bond initiative which included funding for a second maintenance facility. He also assisted IndyGo the issuance of bonds to fund local projects. Assisting in generating support for the respective financing efforts and participating in the efforts has provided experience working with stakeholders and members of the community which are important components in any financing initiative.

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Marie Lewis

Senior Associate

Marie Lewis has a strong academic and professional background in transportation planning and operations. She graduated with a B.A. in geography from UCLA and received a Masters of City and Regional Planning with a concentration in Transportation from the University of Pennsylvania. Through her academic experience Ms. Lewis has gained a strong grasp of the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the transit field. She joined TMD in 2007 and has worked on transit service redevelopment, passenger facility planning, and transit policy development.

Transportation Planning & Operations

Ms. Lewis has technical and supervisory roles in numerous projects at TMD, including most recently:

• Santa Monica Big Blue Bus Line by Line Analysis
  –Deputy Project Manager
• Broward County Comprehensive Operational Analysis
  –Deputy Project Manager
• San Joaquin RTD Comprehensive Operational Analysis
  –Deputy Project Manager
• Denver RTD On-Call Service Planning
  –Project Manager
• Tampa HART Professional Planning Services
  –Deputy Project Manager
• San Francisco MTA Transit Effectiveness Project
  –Project Coordinator

In these projects, Ms. Lewis has played a part in almost every aspect of the planning process, from data collection, analysis, and mapping, to the preparation and presentation of final reports. As a transit planner for the San Francisco TEP, Ms. Lewis has analyzed transit performance data, contributed to bus and rail service restructuring, as well as assisting in the preparation of the Market Assessment and Service Analysis reports. She regularly coordinates data analysis and mapping tasks, and helps design public presentations. Her efforts aim at improving service for current and future San Francisco transit riders, along with providing financial stability to SFMTA.

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China Dungfelder

Senior Associate

Ms. Dungfelder leads TMD’s data collection and service analysis (SAS) practice area in addition to her project management, task supervision, and client relations responsibilities at TMD. She graduated from the University of California San Diego in Urban Studies and Planning.

Transportation Planning & Operations

Ms. Dungfelder has served in management, supervisory, and senior technical roles on the following projects:

• OCTA Systemwide Transit Study – Deputy Project Manager
• OCTA Go Local Project S & V (Subregion 3) – Project Manager
• IndyGo Comprehensive Operational Analysis – Deputy Project Manager
• Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (Buffalo) COA – Deputy Project Manager
• Norwalk Transit Line-by-Line Analysis – Deputy Project Manager
• Santa Clarita Commuter & School Day Service Analysis – Deputy Project Manager
• SunLine COA Update – Deputy Project Manager
• San Francisco MTA TEP – Service Analysis (motorcoach, trolleycoach, LRT, streetcar, cable car)
• LA Metro Rapid Review – Service and Operations Analysis
• Santa Clara VTA COA – Service Analysis
• Summit Stage SRTP – Field Data Collection

As a transit planner for multiple projects, Ms. Dungfelder has analyzed transit performance data, contributed to bus and rail service restructuring, as well as assisting in the preparation of the Market Assessment and Service Analysis reports. She regularly coordinates data analysis and mapping tasks, and helps design public presentations. Her efforts aim at improving service for current and future transit riders, along with providing financial stability.

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Tom Shook

Senior Associate

Tom Shook, a Senior Associate with Transportation Management & Design, Inc., focuses primarily on transit service analysis, transit data compilation, transit priority, impact assessment, and multi-modal facility planning.

He graduated with a B.A. from UC Berkeley after studying Transportation Planning and Engineering. Upon graduation in 2006, Tom worked at Urban Crossroads, Inc. as an Assistant Transportation Engineer where he managed various types of traffic engineering and planning projects. Through his academic and professional experience, Mr. Shook gained a strong grasp on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the transit planning and GIS fields. Since joining TMD in 2009 to pursue his interest in sustainable transit mobility, he has worked in senior analysis and coordination/ supervisory roles on several major transit restructuring projects.

Transit Planning and Operations

Tom has served in senior analysis and supervisory roles on several TMD transit system redevelopment projects including:

• LADOT Restructuring – Deputy Project Manager for the comprehensive rethinking of LADOT’s DASH, Commuter Express, and Cityride programs to address a ten-year $350 million deficit.
  
• Santa Clara VTA BART Station Campus Bus Interface Planning – Analyzed station access/egress for bus and shuttle transit, reviewed pedestrian connections, and assessed operating time and cost impacts.
  
• SunLine Transit Agency COA – Conducted the detailed line and system level analysis of ridership and service performance. Currently serves as the deputy project manager for on-call service planning for SunLine.
  
• San Joaquin RTD COA –Conducted comprehensive service and operations analyses, prepared network service improvements, and led the preparation of the final COA document.
  
• Norwalk Transit – Conducted the detailed line and system level analysis of ridership and service performance.

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Kelly Helming

Business Development Manager

Ms. Helming is a multi-disciplined communications, marketing and graphic design professional who comes to TMD with almost two decades of experience in her chosen field. She understands the principles of compositional layout, color theory and typography and her intuitive grasp of the governing dynamics behind public perception of brand and subsequent receptivity to outreach fuels her accomplishments. Her specialities include brand development, project management, client continuance and strategic implementation of marketing and the development and execution of visual communications.

While a member of the Preferred Vendor Program at Microsoft® Corporation, Ms. Helming gained the knowledge of and skill in presenting the Microsoft® brand through the creation and implementation of quarterly marketing efforts to raise the organization’s visibility to IT professionals throughout the region.
As a communications and design specialist, Ms. Helming oversaw results-oriented advertising outreach efforts for the Center for Surgery of Encinitas and Darton Sleeves USA, where she also implemented successful brand invigoration strategies. In addition, her retail packaging designs for AquaLung® US Divers brought excellent reviews from staff and dealers. Her communications and branding approach is a wholistic one that addresses paper and digital deliveries alike and in a cohesive manner.

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Barry George

Senior Scheduler

Barry George, Senior Scheduler at TMD, has over 30 years of experience in scheduling urban transit services. Mr. George has developed and optimized transit schedules and rosters in a variety of operating environments, across all bus and rail service modes. As Manager of Bus & Tram Rosters, Mr. George is one of the foremost experts in the planning and operation of Melbourne’s extensive public transport system.

Mr. George has vast experience in the planning and scheduling of transit services, for buses, light rail, Metro rail, and intercity rail. He served as Manager of the Melbourne PTC Scheduling Group for 11 years. During his time with TMD, Mr. George has worked on the development of schedules and services in Los Angeles (bus and Metro Rapid), Melbourne (bus and tram), Chicago, San Diego, Santa Clarita (CA), Montebello (CA), Glendale (CA), and Albany (NY) as well as for British Rail in Great Britain. For the past 3 years as required as principal scheduler for Yarra Trams, and assisting in revising Melbourne’s private bus sector operations, involving approximately 1,000 buses for numerous operators. Mr. George is an experienced user of the Hastus computerized scheduling system.

Transit Planning, Operations, and Scheduling

Mr. George served at the officer, senior officer, and manager levels at the Public Transport Corporation in Melbourne. He oversaw the implementation of computerized scheduling (Hastus) at the PTC. He also worked extensively with Serco’s bids for the Melbourne Tram and rail network. As an independent consultant, he advised on the development and planning of schedules for coal train operations in Newcastle. His recent experiences with TMD has involved the completion of scheduling work in over a dozen different transport systems, in Australia, the United States, and England.

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Tim Baker

Data Analyst/Scheduler

Scheduler/Software Developer Tim Baker has over 20 years of experience in scheduling urban transit services, and in the development of transit-related information support systems. Mr. Baker has extensive experience in the development of vehicle and crew schedules, in both manual and computerized environments. He has developed a number of information systems and applications to support the scheduling and service planning functions. He is also skilled in database design and software development.

Transit Planning, Operations, and Scheduling

Mr. Baker has over 20 years experience as a scheduler of trams & buses at the Public Transport Corporation, Yarra Trams, & TMD. During his tenure at the PTC, he participated in the implementation of computerized scheduling (Hastus). He has also worked extensively on run-time setting methodologies, including implementation of operationally viable run-times at Yarra Trams, which led to significant punctuality improvements.

Transportation Information Systems

Mr. Baker developed various systems to achieve the following goals: streamline scheduling & service planning processes; produce reports; and interface with computerized scheduling systems. He has produced an application to generate optimal in-service running times using AVL data. Other accomplishments include the development of a program to take data directly from Hastus systems and use that data produce timetables for stop poles. He has also developed a system for importing patronage data, & producing proposed service levels.

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Gary Ward

Senior Scheduler

Gary Ward recently concluded a 30-year career at AC Transit and joined TMD as a Senior Scheduler in April 2008. His tenure at AC Transit is filled with years of hands-on scheduling practice as well as project and staff management experience.

Project Management

Early in his career at AC Transit, Mr. Ward assisted in the conversion from a fully manual scheduling process to the then State of the Art, computer assisted, “Teleride-Sage Mini Scheduler” application. He subsequently managed conversions to, and upgrades of, both the Trapeze and Hastus systems. Working with the developers, Mr. Ward assisted with installing, customizing and testing the “Ramcutter” crew scheduling software. He also became a principal user of the software, producing optimal, cost effective runcut solutions. In 1998, Mr. Ward managed the “Blockbuster” installation project which replaced the “Ramcutter” with a micro-computer based runcutter. AC Transit became the beta site for this new software allowing Mr. Ward to be involved with and influence software design and development.

Vehicle & Crew Scheduling Experience

While serving as AC Transit’s Manager of Scheduling, Mr. Ward directed the daily activities of department staff which required a “hands-on”, functional knowledge of scheduling concepts, practices and technologies. As Superintendent of Scheduling and Manager of Scheduling, Mr. Ward became familiar with several platforms of computer aided scheduling, blocking and runcutting. AC Transit recently proposed a 132 hour increase to “In-Service” hours designed to improve reliability and “On-Time” operation. With assistance from TMD, Mr. Ward incorporated blocking and runcutting strategies allowing these changes to be implemented with an added cost of 85 daily platform hours, and 115 pay hours. Overall driver requirements were decreased by 9 and peak vehicles by 3.

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Dolores "Dee" Brehm

Senior Scheduler

Dolores Brehm has over 35 years experience in public transportation with an emphasis on bus scheduling, and project management. Ms. Brehm entered the public transit industry in 1969 upon joining the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority. She held progressively responsible positions in the Schedule/ Transportation Department which led to her promotion to Superintendent of Schedules. She also served as KCATA’s Siemens’ Radio/ITS Project Manager and System Administrator. As the ‘budget specialist’ for the Transportation/Schedule Department, Ms. Brehm was responsible for coordinating and preparing the annual Transportation Operating Budget. She also served on the KCATA labor management committee, and participated in several labor contract negotiations and arbitrations during her career.

Vehicle & Crew Scheduling

As Superintendent of KCATA’s scheduling department, Ms. Brehm led the effort to improve efficiency in schedules and crew scheduling by reviewing the schedules and runcuts for the agency’s 235 peak vehicles and 400 operators. Ms. Brehm used data obtained from KCATA’s first AVL system to analyze run times and reschedule several of their routes which resulted in a savings of 5% in operating expense on seven major routes without reducing service or effecting system reliability. This was a savings of $1.4 million in operating expense. In addition, this also enabled the KCATA to remove eight peak vehicles from service. Ms. Brehm also instituted an ongoing program of systematically analyzing a number of route and crew schedules on a quarterly basis to optimize efficiencies in scheduling operators without impacting service on the street. Ms. Brehm has nine years experience in using GIRO’s HASTUS Vehicle and Crew modules. She was responsible for creating and maintaining the HASTUS databases and setting up HASTUS AVL data for the Siemens’ AVL/Radio Project at KCATA.

Project Management

Ms. Brehm was the project manager and administrator for the GIRO HASTUS software project. She was responsible for writing the scope of services for the RFP acquiring scheduling, and operations software for KCATA. She also was assigned the task of project manager and administrator of the Siemens Radio/AVL Project during its three year implementation.

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