MTA touts 4 straight months of improved subway service

[kosciusko]

From amNY: Vincent Barone

The MTA on Tuesday touted four straight months of improved subway service, with on-time levels reaching their highest point in years.

While still struggling with reliability and continuing ridership declines, the MTA’s head of subways, Sally Librera, credited the nascent improvement in part to a new “SPEED team,” assembled  last summer to focus on quickening trains by addressing unnecessary speed-limit restrictions and faulty signal timers that were artificially slowing service.

“As we’ve consistently said, we know we have more to do, but we are making significant progress and these statistics reflect that progress,” Librera said Tuesday at an MTA board committee meeting.

Those stats include hitting an MTA goal of reducing delays each month by 10,000; there were 45,418 weekday delays in December, compared  with 61,441 during the same month in 2017. Weekday on-time performance across the subway system, which measures the share of trains that reach their terminal within five minutes of their schedule, increased to 72.6 percent last month — the best figure for weekdays in more than four years.

Since focusing on train speeds, the MTA has identified 68 locations across the system where speed limits could be as much as doubled, or eliminated completely. The authority has also found 320 inaccurate signal timers — totaling about 16 percent of all its subway signal timers — that have been unreliably enforcing those speeds. The faulty equipment has created a culture of distrust among train operators that has led to slower service, workers and the MTA have said.

So far, the MTA has recalibrated 59 of those signal timers and implemented 24 of the identified speed-limit changes. Librera and MTA officials have also credited the Subway Action Plan as another factor in stabilizing service. The plan focuses on maintenance of tracks, signals and train cars and was the subject of an intense funding battle between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Lisa Daglian, the executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, believes the trends are stemming from a confluence of management- and service-related initiatives under NYC Transit President Andy Byford, who has  headed the agency for a year. But she noted that there was still a long way to go for service to reach a high quality.

“We’re finally beginning to see real tangible results of what [Byford’s] been talking about in terms of looking at root causes of delays — signals, track speeds and, in some cases, things that can be affected by human behavior, which are still a large part of where the delays are,” said Daglian.

[CenSin]

They’re going slowly enough that it hasn’t been noticeable to me. The  in the vicinity of 36 Street and Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center is still a sore point. They trains shouldn’t be slowing down at 25 Street and Union Street respectively.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

I watched the MTA Board meeting. It was cute, especially the bus segment. They used nice percentages to talk about gains in bus speeds, but failed to specify a quantitative number for said gains. It's easy to give a percentage, but a percentage of what?  Are we saying a 10% gain in terms of increased speeds based on 6mph? 8mph?  

[Bay Ridge Express]

28 minutes ago, CenSin said:

They’re going slowly enough that it hasn’t been noticeable to me. The  in the vicinity of 36 Street and Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center is still a sore point. They trains shouldn’t be slowing down at 25 Street and Union Street respectively.

For some reason, I feel this on the  but not on the  , which is why I started taking the  more. Not to mention it actually connects to  trains unlike the  , which can be a pain sharing tracks with the  and having the  go first, thereby missing the  and then having to wait 10 minutes for another one.

[Around the Horn]

Yeah I haven't noticed any difference in the  or  train speeds. I think operators either don't know about the speed increase or don't trust it.

[B35 via Church]

43 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I watched the MTA Board meeting. It was cute, especially the bus segment. They used nice percentages to talk about gains in bus speeds, but failed to specify a quantitative number for said gains. It's easy to give a percentage, but a percentage of what?  Are we saying a 10% gain in terms of increased speeds based on 6mph? 8mph?  

Of course they're not going to give a quantitative number in that instance, because that number is embarrassingly LOW.... It's why I never put stock in percentage gains/losses by itself, regardless of what's being analyzed.... I trust no one that touts percentages without context...

[Via Garibaldi 8]

2 hours ago, B35 via Church said:

Of course they're not going to give a quantitative number in that instance, because that number is embarrassingly LOW.... It's why I never put stock in percentage gains/losses by itself, regardless of what's being analyzed.... I trust no one that touts percentages without context...

That was my point, hence why I said it was "cute".  lol The guy doing the presentation basically had a let's run through this attitude.  Just rushed through everything. Half @ssed as usual...

[Italianstallion]

3 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

I watched the MTA Board meeting. It was cute, especially the bus segment. They used nice percentages to talk about gains in bus speeds, but failed to specify a quantitative number for said gains. It's easy to give a percentage, but a percentage of what?  Are we saying a 10% gain in terms of increased speeds based on 6mph? 8mph?  

This post is about train speeds.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

7 minutes ago, Italianstallion said:

This post is about train speeds.

Yeah, and?  Tell me something I don't know.  As I said, I watched the entire meeting. The subway segment was just regurgitated crap about train speeds that had been discussed previously by them. I haven't noticed a difference.  Trains are still held and I'm delayed. 

[Italianstallion]

3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yeah, and?  Tell me something I don't know.  As I said, I watched the entire meeting. The subway segment was just regurgitated crap about train speeds that had been discussed previously by them. I haven't noticed a difference.  Trains are still held and I'm delayed. 

You were going on about bus speeds.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

9 minutes ago, Italianstallion said:

You were going on about bus speeds.

So shoot me... I know what I posted.  As I said, nothing in that meeting about either was earth shattering.  You wanted to hear about train speeds... I said my piece.

[CenSin]

You know… As usual, you should understand that there is the MTA definitions and the commuter definitions of what’s good service. Take the numbers with a grain of salt.

[itmaybeokay]

http://dashboard.mta.info/

Literally no metric on that dashboard shows 4 months of improved service - so uh, you know, wait what? 

[MysteriousBtrain]

9 hours ago, itmaybeokay said:

http://dashboard.mta.info/

Literally no metric on that dashboard shows 4 months of improved service - so uh, you know, wait what? 

Compared to January? That's probably their "improved service". Going from over 100k delays a month to just under 70k is a huge deal. 

And with the exception of one month being near 70k (November) after the summer, that's celebration to MTA eyes.

[NoHacksJustKhaks]

I’ll say the ’s improving when they can commit to their goals long term, once the buzz and hype wears off. It’s still way too early to toss statistics at others faces, they’re fatuous no matter how nice they look.