After weeks of broken-down subways, delayed trains, inaccurate alerts and frustrated passengers stranded in the cold and snow, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority is looking for a change, according to The Boston Globe.
This has been “one of the most challenging months at the MBTA in recent memory,” said Richard Davey, the MBTA General Manager, to the MBTA Board of Directors.
Among the numerous problems the MBTA needs to address is improving communication with the T riders. Passengers have reported that the T-Alerts, which warn of late arriving trains, have not been announced in a timely manner, leaving many passengers stranded in the cold without transportation.
“My team is focused on streamlining this process by, ‘taking out the middle man’… Starting in March, MBCR’s dispatching facilities will take full responsibility for entering commuter rail T-Alerts,” Davey said. “I have also asked my team to think about creative ways to dedicate staff solely towards ensuring the timely entry of T-Alerts during winter and/or extreme weather.”
The MBTA is also committed to communicating better with riders via social networking sites. In the past month, the MBTA has gained 4,000 more followers on Twitter and experienced record amounts of visitors to their website, with more than 189,000 hits on Feb. 1 causing the site to crash.
“My team realizes that we need to do better communicating with our riders,” Davey said. “As we continue to make improvements, we are going to place an especially strong eye on reliability, specifically during bad weather and other situations when our customers need information the most.”
Davey also said he aims to improve customer service, especially on the inconsistent commuter rail.
“While the weather has certainly played a factor, we believe MBCR can, and must, do more to improve service,” he said.
The MBTA has scheduled to meet with the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail Company next week to resolve the commuter rails challenges. Meanwhile, the MBCR is cleaning snow and ice off the tracks and the MBTA has put two new train cars into service to increase efficiency.
“We are doing our part,” he said. “The number one reason for a delay on commuter rail is due to locomotive failure.”
The MBTA has also begun clearing bus stops themselves, instead of relying on the city to clear them. They are planning on creating a new operating system to clear the most regularly used bus stops more effectively.
“Working together with MassDOT and our municipal partners, our bus customers should experience improvements in future storms and coming winters,” Davey said.
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