Meeting with Washington Metro Area Transit Authority

After the deadly crash of a metro train in late June 2009 Coalition members started looking into how the LEP/NEP community was going to be served with important information and notices. One Coalition member in particular noticed that WMATA was using machine translations to translate important information on their website. This created some concern within the Coalition because with machine translations the information is often inaccurate and sometimes even more confusing.

Given the positive relationship between the Coalition and WMATA, the Coalition invited a meeting with them to bring to light the inadequacies of machine translations and discuss other alternatives. WMATA welcomed this meeting and it took place on January 13, 2010. The meeting was very positive and resulted in an improved and more comprehensive plan to service the LEP/NEP community.

For online translations WMATA will now use human translations. At a minimum these translations will cover WMATA's homepage, Trip Planner, Getting Around (which includes complaint information), fares, Smart trip, Rider Tools (the “how to”), E-alerts, and press releases. The translations including the language links will be available in Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese and French. However the new system will also pick up the language a customer is looking for so that they can be aware of the demand. With human translations the information will be updated within a 24 hour period, it will take into account cultural nuances, and will tone down the literacy level. WMATA and its IT team are working on selecting a final bid for the vendor and depending on whom it is the machine translations should begin within 90days.

For in-station accessibility WMATA is focusing on developing standard operating procedures, so that the station managers will be educated on and know how to use the resources available for helping LEP/NEP patrons. They are also developing signs containing pictures that will instruct people on how to use the fare card machines, and are contemplating on using visual translators which comprises of pictograms and commonly used phrases in English and other languages. The visual translators will be used by the station managers to communicate with patrons.