Among the people in the OCC is a Service Information Coordinator (During less busy times — such as early mornings and late nights — we have staff on-call to post alerts). The Coordinator can see the big board of real-time train locations and listen in to the radio call between the operator and the controller.

The threshold for posting alerts is a 10-minute delay during rush hour and about 15 minutes other times — delays shorter than this are often resolved before the alerts can be posted. It’s clear that MAX colliding with a car will result in significant delays, so the Service Information Coordinator springs into action.

The Coordinator already has our service alert dashboard up on their dedicated computer. The dashboard is a simple web-based app that lets us quickly post alerts on our website, the arrival screens on our system and the TriMet Alerts Twitter feed, and to send emails and text messages to our Service Alerts email lists.

Are you signed up for Service Alerts emails or texts?

This app gives us a lot of control over where and how to post alerts — we can put an alert on a single arrival screen on one platform or post a red alert banner on our website, and everything in between.

The Coordinator writes the alert, coordinating with the other staff in the OCC for information on how long delays will be and how long lines will be impacted.