Remarks of PCAC Executive Director William Henderson
On NYC Subway Performance Indicators
Before the MTA Board Transit Committee
MTA Headquarters, 2 Broadway, New York, NY
September 25, 2017
I’m Bill Henderson, Executive Director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA. We hope that members of the Board had a pleasant summer break and are ready to address issues critical to the MTA’s riders. One issue that we have been actively advocating for over many years is the development, collection, and dissemination of performance measures that meaningfully reflect riders’ experience. Since the release of our 2011 report Minutes Matter, where we examined existing performance metrics and recommended new measures to better reflect riders’ experiences, NYC Transit’s capacity for collecting and analyzing subway data has improved significantly. We believe that it’s time to move ahead on updating performance indicators.
We were heartened to hear Chairman Lhota’s commitment this summer to creating a performance dashboard that will allow riders and other concerned individuals to efficiently access subway performance information. This is a positive step forward, but the indicators in this dashboard must be understandable and meaningful to riders. I’ve often said that terminal on time performance doesn’t show what riders think it does, and riders aren’t really sure at all what wait assessment says about their travel. That why it’s necessary to incorporate indicators that are focused on the riders’ experience. Including in the dashboard indicators such as interim on-time performance, excess wait time and excess journey time, which show the added time that subway riders must allow for their trips, is crucial to give riders and policy makers meaningful subway performance metrics.
We look forward to seeing and working with new information tools that provide an enhanced view of subway performance. We also look forward to working with NYC Transit to refine these tools as improved data and analytical capabilities allow.
Download here: 092517 NYCTRC Performance Metric Dashboard