1. Building Sustainable Transit:
An Environmental Accounting Case Study
Oracle Environmental Accounting and Reporting Webinar
Angela K. Miller
Chief Technology Officer/Chief Sustainability Officer, North County Transit District
Fred Knapp, Program Manager
26-Jan-12

2. The North County Transit District:
Building Sustainable Public Transit
• North San Diego County, operating bus, commuter rail, light rail, and paratransit
systems
• 107 million annual Passenger Miles Traveled
• 9 million annual Vehicle Miles
• 550k annual Revenue Vehicle Hours
• 12.5 million trips

3. The North County Transit District:
Building Sustainable Public Transit
•A governmental agency facing extremely challenging financial conditions
•Sustainability and public transit have a natural synergy – economic, social, and
environmental issues are all inherently relevant to our business model
•Our sustainability plan focused first on cost reductions, then capitalizing on
opportunity, then building the cleanest, most scalable transportation for our
community

4. North County Transit District:
Building Sustainable Public Transit
Strategic Plan
• Make capital investments where there is
a priority for Sustainability and where
there is economic ROI
• Assess our baseline and measure
ourselves against standards
• Incrementally improve our performance
based on economic and sustainability
ROI
Methodology
• Have only .25 FTE dedicated to
sustainability
• Business Case for Sustainability needed
to be determined
• Lessons from American Public
Transportation Association (APTA)
Sustainability Leaders
• APTA Sustainability Commitment

5. Sustainable Public Transit Operations:
Capital Investments
•Installed more than 500 kW of solar
power generation capacity
•Maintenance Facilities
•Demonstration Projects in Rail Right-
of-Way
•Demonstration carport installation
attached to electric vehicle charging
stations at Transit Center
•Built a Green Data Center that was our
first LEED Certified Silver for
Commercial Interiors (registered) facility
•NCTD has converted over 85% of
BREEZE bus fleet to CNG

6. Sustainable Public Transit Operations:
Capital Investments
• Working with our Communities to Foster Transit-Oriented Development
Opportunties
• Integrating Sustainability Goals into Facility design, including a new Bus Transit
Center and a new Platform Extension Project

7. Sustainable Public Transit Operations:
Simple Operational Changes
• Recycling, Lighting Changes, Equipment Operations Procedures
• Health, Safety, and Wellness Policies
• All cleaning – both facility and vehicle – biodegradable supplies
• Bombardier Maintenance Team just achieved 5 years accident-free
• Changed lighting and watering protocols

8. Simple Operational Changes
•Environmentally-Friendly Landscaping, Watering saves resources
•Site team became engaged in the challenge to save resource
•Engaging the employee and contractor teams with visible reminders

9. Sustainable Public Transit Operations:
Assessing the Baseline
•Delivering service on the rails and the streets is our highest emissions-intensive
activity
•Facilities and maintenance activities contribute significantly through energy
consumption, water use, and waste production
•Before the sustainability plan, never measured ourselves beyond California Air and
Resource Board Requirements

10. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
Assessing the Baseline
• Wanted to measure ourselves using Industry-Standard Methodologies
• Became a member of The Climate Registry and filed our first baseline year
• Became a signatory to the APTA Sustainability Commitment and filed our first
annual report
• In order to complete these goals, NCTD contracted with external partners like
Trust Element and Cathy Moran – significant consulting investment

11. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
A Case Study
• NCTD realized that the manual effort to compile data was expensive and risky
• Looked to existing tools investments for opportunities to improve auditability and
cost-effectiveness
• NCTD has used JD Edwards for over 10 years and found a partner in Oracle to
meet our needs

12. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
A Case Study
• Working with Team Cain, we leveraged our JD Edwards Version 9.0 investment
• Had just completed both the upgrade to 9.0 and our new Human
Resources/Payroll implementation project
• Both projects were highly-successful giving us the confidence to invest further in
the toolset
• Implementing Environmental Accounting and Reporting Module
• Also chose to invest in the Real Estate Modules

13. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
A Case Study
Challenges during the Project:
• Public Transit is a vehicle-focused
rather than facility-focused entity. This
presents challenges because most
companies start at facility-level and
NCTD starts at the mode of service
• NCTD is 100% outsourced for all
services and maintenance. Presents
challenges because the original design
of the tool was based on things like
inventory transactions and invoice
processing
• APTA and Climate Registry present
reporting requirements quite different
than the native canned reports and
requires import of several different and
unforeseen data types

14. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
A Case Study
How the EA&R Product Helped to Solve
the Problem:
• We needed to import from a variety of
sources – achievable with these tools
• We needed custom reports tailored to
The Climate Registry, APTA, and the
Federal Transit Administration – the
addition of the OBIEE toolset helped
to overcome this issue
• We needed to streamline the data
reporting – JD Edwards helped us to
build this as a simple add on to core
processes like invoicing

15. Environmental Accounting and Reporting:
A Case Study
• Starting Small with your sustainable operations plan is effective
• Use simple changes to build business case for higher investment
• Taking the time to measure results shows accountability and potentially saves
resources and money
• Investigating possible application for Environmental Management System
• The Oracle JD Edwards Product allowed us to fit into regular accounting
processes, and to save significant consulting dollars to measure efficacy