(Terminal)ogy

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is North America’s largest transportation network, and it moves approximately 2.4 billion New Yorkers a year on its subways, buses, railroads, bridges and tunnels. The MTA provides service for one-third of the transit riders in America, employs over 67,000 workers, covers an area of approximately 5,000 square miles, and moves 8.7 million customers a day. It is, quite literally, the primary engine of the largest regional economy in the richest country in the world. The region’s population is beyond 23 million, more than the total population of Australia. MTA transit ridership exceeds the next 16 largest American public transportation networks combined.

Source: keepnyontrack.org

This summer, I was tremendously grateful to have worked for New York City Transit (NYCT), within the Department of Subways, for the Division of Finance’s Performance Analysis Unit (PAU). The PAU was created to improve the performance of the subway system while remaining close to day-to-day operations. PAU specializes in adhoc studies and analyses, using databases, site visits, and interviews to determine the cause(s). They make recommendations and assist with implementation, support operations by collecting and reporting performance data, help operating divisions identify performance indicators and set targets, and evaluate high priority initiatives and pilot projects, such as platform controllers.

The view from my office! (Riel, 2015)

I am a student, so I have a lot more to learn, but I’ve already gained some experiences. I got to visit the Coney Island Overhaul Shop, Westchester Yard, and 36th-38th Street Yard, and I also became track certified, so that I could observe track work and the flagging processes with the team. I have also been on the Track Geometry Car, and I’ve been to the Rail Control Center (RCC), the Second Avenue Subway, and the City Hall Loop. Moreover, I’ve had signal training, so that I can understand the functions and operations of the signal system’s equipment. Over all, it’s been good to gain a technical understanding of the MTA’s operations, from wait assessment (WA), on time performance (OTP), headway, CBTC, and dwell time frequency issues, to how the MTA’s operations are organized in such a large public organization. As Jarrett Walker has stated, frequency is freedom for a public transit user!

I updated performance indicators for MTA.info

Source: web.mta.info/persdashboard/performance14.html

Track Geometry Car (Riel, 2015)

While I cannot share any confidential specifics, I was working with PAU in order to analyze, organize, and update reports and databases in order to improve subway performance. Broadly speaking, the great majority of delays can be attributed to three main causes—crowding and ridership, ongoing maintenance needs, and unplanned work on the right of way—and most of the increase in delays is due to changes in subway operating conditions that affect these three areas. Plus, weather contributes somewhat, since even though many segments are underground, they are interconnected with outdoor segments, and the network is interconnected. (Though, compared to airlines, weather has a marginal impact; no doubt, Hawaiian Airlines has a high OTP because Hawaii’s weather is excellent for flying).

In New York, the heydays of ridership in the 1940s have returned, and even though the city had extended platforms between now and then, the city also demolished quite a few track miles. More importantly, there is also a greater emphasis placed on safety, which is a good thing, but when it comes to doing maintenance work, it slows down trains dramatically.

As written by Eric Jaffe at City Lab:

Crowding and ridership: 40 percent of delays in 2014. Ridership is up—way up. That’s great for revenue but tough for crowding. Even a short delay of a rider holding open a door can set a train behind schedule and cause it to bunch up with another train behind it. With 15 of 20 lines at track capacity, there’s little the MTA can do to alleviate this type of crowding.

Ongoing maintenance: 26 percent. These are things like repairing aging infrastructure. Sometimes this maintenance is done during off-hours or route closures, but much of it gets done during regular service operation, which requires trains to slow down through work zones.

Unplanned work: 22 percent. These delays are the result of incidents like power outages or signal failures that need immediate attention.

Also, feel free to view this public presentation, and some of its visuals below:

Ben Kabak on Second Avenue Subways also wrote a good piece:

Thomas DiNapoli has served as New York State Comptroller nearly as long as I’ve run this site. He’s outlived governors and MTA Chairs alike at this point, but he’s still chugging along. One of the problems I’ve had with his “audits” of the MTA is that, for those who pay close attention to these sorts of things, they aren’t too insightful. He hasn’t identified the key problems plaguing the agency — namely, the insanely high capital construction costs and lack of productivity for the dollars — and his reports generally take public information and condense them into soundbites. His latest audit is no different, but it’s worth spending some time with it and the MTA’s response.
In his latest report — the PDF is right here — DiNapoli took all of the MTA’s on-time performance numbers the agency shares once a month at its board meetings and determined what Transit officials have been saying for some time: The subways’ on-time performance has been dreadful, and it’s getting worse. In 2013 and 2014, Transit had set an on-time performance goal for itself of over 91 percent, but weekday trains were on time 80.5 percent of the time in 2013 and just 74 percent of the time in 2014. Instead of combatting the problem, the MTA has instead lowered its on-time performance goal to 75 percent, far below national average.
“The subways are New York City’s arteries yet on-time performance continues to be an issue,” DiNapoli said. “The MTA has actually lowered its own expectations for addressing subway delays. We’re encouraged that MTA has put more money toward improving the ride for straphangers, hopefully it will help improve on-time performance.”
The audit’s recommendations aren’t much. DiNapoli has asked the MTA to identify the sources of delays, come up with a plan to mitigate these delays and then track performance monthly. Yet again, that sounds like something the transit agency already does even if their mitigation plans aren’t particularly effective.
Things got interesting though in the back-and-forth between the New York comptroller and agency officials responding to the audit. Transit has long maintained that on-time performance — the time a train actually arrives at a terminal — doesn’t much matter so long as even headways are maintained. I believe the agency is ultimately correct, but it’s not a point that’s going to win them much sympathy from a public that, by and large, has no idea what “headways” mean. Riders will hear trains are late; nod their heads in agreement; and sigh in exasperation.
Anyway, in response, the MTA highlighted wait assessment as their primary internal metric of even and reliable service and claimed that they already know why trains are delayed. They cited fallout from record ridership, new flagging rules and ongoing maintenance, and unexpected and emergency maintenance as the main causes. “New York City Transit does not have a single policy or directive on reducing delays and improving on-time performance, nor should we,” agency officials said in response. “Providing high-quality service is our central objective, and it is inherent in everything we do…We do not wish to compartmentalize responsibility for improving service performance. Therefore, it is neither practical nor desirable to condense our performance related activities into one policy (or even several policies).”
DiNapoli, in his response to Transit’s response, noted that wait assessment has also declined and urged the MTA to attempt some sort of root-cause analysis. Of course, the root-cause analysis should recommend more subway lines and faster upgrade to a technology that allows for more trains per hour. That recommendation carries a high price tag and a multi-year lead time that won’t do much to solve the current problem. Thus, it’s not one designed to appease politicians who must run for office every few years.
Ultimately, no matter how you slice or dice it, performance has suffered, and the MTA hasn’t been able to overcome ridership that isn’t showing signs of doing anything other than increasing. DiNapoli may have pointed out the obvious, but sometimes, the obvious needs pointing out. Is it going to get better? Can it?

Investing in Communication Based Train Control Testing on 7 Line (Riel, 2015)

Investing in Communication Based Train Control Testing at Corona Yard (Riel, 2015)

Signal Training (Riel, 2015)

Signals! (Riel, 2015)

I’m amazed at how complicated it can be to keep the subways running smoothly. There are so many terminologies and factors at play, but most importantly, so many people involved — from operators, conductors, dispatchers, and superintendents, to IT, track gangs, ROW, and MOW engineers, and so on and so forth. Transportation is about moving people, but it’s also about communication, which is especially necessary with an increasing urban population and increasing ridership on a system that requires constant maintenance. It is an intricate web of steel with plenty of stories, secrets, nooks, and crannies dating back to the late 19th century.