Hey, MTA, Can We Talk About Your “Disabled Trains” and “Mechanical Issues”?
If you ride the MARC, Metro Subway, or Light Rail in Baltimore, you know that the Maryland Transit Administration’s (MTA) trains are late on a daily basis.
And if you follow @mtamaryland on social media, you no doubt have a collection of tweets describing “mechanical” issues “late equipment,” or “disabled” trains.
Late trains are one thing, and to be fair, that’s not necessarily MTA’s fault — weather and emergencies are beyond the agency’s control.
But “disabled” and vaguely defined “mechanical issues” seem to be occurring more and more frequently, amplifying MTA tardiness and stoking riders’ distrust.
In fact, a quick search of @mtamaryland ‘s tweets (key words “disabled ” or “equipment” or “mechanical”) shows significant delays and cancellations across MTA’s rail modes every day. Here’s what February, 2020 looked like in terms of emailed Rider Notices or tweets about service delays on Light Rail and Metro Subway.
2018 Data Shows More of the Same
2018 was another bad year for MTA rail failures.
When the Transportation Alliance recently examined the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) breakdown data for 2018 (released in December of 2019) we found that MTA’s rail systems have the highest breakdown rates in the country.
The FTA collects the financial, operating and asset condition of every transit system in the country and reports it in the National Transit Database (NTD). One data set in the NTD contains information on how many breakdowns a transit system experienced in a year.
According to our analysis, MTA’s MARC service had the highest breakdown rate per 100,000 revenue miles of all commuter rail systems; MTA’s Metro Subway had the highest breakdown rate per 100,000 revenue miles of all heavy rail systems, and the Baltimore Light Rail had the highest breakdown rate per 100,000 revenue miles of all light rail systems.
You can check our work HERE.
MARC experienced 14.9 breakdowns per 100,000 revenue miles, which was almost five times the median breakdown rate:
Metro Subway experienced 28.7 breakdowns per 100,000 revenue miles, which was almost four times the median breakdown rate:
Light Rail experienced 59.7 breakdowns per 100, 000 revenue miles, which was six times the median breakdown rate:
Major Mechanical Failures are defined by the NTD as: “A failure of some mechanical element of the revenue vehicle that prevents the vehicle from completing a scheduled revenue trip or from starting the next scheduled revenue trip because actual movement is limited or because of safety concerns.”
We’re calling them breakdowns for simplicity and to be consistent with the name of NTD’s data set.
Train Revenue Miles is a measure of the amount of service provided to riders. Dividing by Train Revenue Miles lets us compare breakdown rates across agencies that are larger or smaller. In other words, we can compare our Metro Subway to D.C.’s WMATA better than if we just looked at total numbers of Major Mechanical Failures.
In just looking at total numbers, WMATA is obviously going to have more breakdowns overall, but their system (as measured by Train Revenue Miles) is 12 times bigger than the Metro Subway.
What’s Causing the Breakdowns and Delays?
MTA provides detailed reports to the MARC Riders Advisory Council every month. These include the number and causes of delays and cancellations. You can read the reports for 2018- 2019 here. However, to our knowledge, MTA does not make similar reports available about Light Rail or Metro Subway delays. This makes it difficult for us to assess the exact causes for why MTA’s rail services breakdown so often.
Many breakdowns are likely related to the age and condition of the vehicle fleets. The Metro Subway cars have reached the end of their useful lives, and MTA is procuring an entirely new fleet of subway cars, while the Light Rail vehicles are in the process of receiving “mid-life overhauls”.
But a Capital Needs Inventory that MTA released in July 2019 suggests deeper problems than simply old vehicles. The report acknowledged that over the next decade MTA has $5.7 billion worth of capital needs, which include tracks, signaling, stations, and other facilities in addition to vehicles. Unfortunately, the report finds that there is only $3.7 billion of anticipated funding, leaving a $2 billion shortfall.
Such under-funding will mean that MTA is not able to fully address the maintenance backlog or ever expect to achieve a state of good repair. Unless we take action now to properly fund MTA, riders can continue to expect breakdowns and service delays for some time to come.
