Location: San Diego County

The Objective: Trans-Lang is currently the sole language services provider for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) a public agency that provides bus and rail services directly or by contract with private operators for an estimated 88 million annual passenger trips. The MTS oversees an annual operating budget of approximately $278 million. Many of the riders of MTS system do not speak English as their primary language, therefore it is vital for the MTS to be able to effectively communicate schedules, current events, and future plans with this segment of their ridership.

Unique Challenges: The MTS, as part of its responsibilities, handles 300,000 passenger trips weekly. To handle this demand, the agency schedules 7,000 trips each weekday, and has 128 trolley cars and 800 buses in its fleet. In order to help keep their non-English speaking ridership updated, Trans-Lang translates a range of material for the MTS, not the least of which are daily, holiday, updates and changes to schedules for the MTS system. Trans-Lang also supports the MTS by providing the translation of marketing brochures and flyers that help the MTS communicate important information to the passengers who depend on them for safe and reliable transportation.

Solutions to problems encountered: Trans-Lang understands that many of the riders of the MTS system do not have a secondary source of transportation. Therefore, it is extremely important that the correct schedule information be available in their language on a timely basis. We take great care to adhere to timelines requested by our clients. In the case of the MTS, we know that many people depend on us to translate a variety of information accurately and on a timely basis.

Final outcome: Trans-Lang has been working with the MTS for over a year now and our scope of work continues to expand with regard to the materials and languages we translate.