His company, in partnership with PNC Bank and Eldercare Inc., the nursing home company, chartered buses from Krapf's Coaches Inc., of West Chester, and set up a temporary transit system.
The buses, picking up only employees of the three companies, will run along the main SEPTA corridors, and provide shuttle service from those routes to branches and major operations centers, from 3 a.m. to midnight, as long as the strike lasts, a PNC Bank spokesman said.
Krapf also is running rush-hour buses to the CIGNA headquarters in Center City, and from the city to Aetna headquarters in Blue Bell.
The strike hit at a difficult time.
``We've had the I-95 closing and its detours, two ozone action days over the weekend, the storm that has knocked down trees, blocking roads, last night. To have all this to happen in one week is just amazing,'' said Jill Sabest Welch, executive director of the Delaware County Transportation Management Association.
The region's transportation management associations (TMAs), which work cooperatively on local congestion and transportation issues, have played a key role in preparing to cope with the SEPTA strike.
Yesterday these nonprofit groups, which routinely promote and help organize van pools, were scrambling to expand their programs. Among other things, they were helping their members find firms with vans available for lease.
In some instances they were helping expand existing programs under which campanies will, on a reciprocal basis, let another firm's employees use their parking lots to stage car and van pools.
``We've developed programs for the stores in the malls. These involve a number of strategies that, we hope, all taken together add up to something positive,'' said Peter P. Quinn, executive director of the Greater Valley Forge TMA.
A trouble spot, he said, will be the Villanova Station on the R5 (Paoli) Regional Rail line.
