After the railroad performed reasonably well during the “summer of hell” in 2017, when trackwork in and around NYPenn Station resulted in a 20% reduction in service to the railroad’s busiest station for 8 straight weeks, MTA Chairman and CEO Joe Lhota pledged that the improved service would be “the new normal”. While the LIRR finished off 2017 much stronger than the first half of that year, that “new normal” lasted about three months before the railroad seemed to fall off the wagon. The LIRR posted one of their worst on-time performances in January and didn’t dramatically improve in any of the following months. The LIRR’s overall system OTP declined more than 1% over the prior year, with practically all of the performance metrics pointing in the wrong direction.
The railroad made some changes in the first half of the year to try and turn around performance, including new leadership and a new performance improvement plan dubbed “LIRR Forward” to try to turn a sinking ship around. The statistics below compare the LIRR’s reliability in all of 2018 to the prior year…the same statistics are repeated on a later page for just the months of June to December, to see if “LIRR Forward” made any difference. The figures below are as accurate as they can be based on the delay information the railroad makes available. Figures that are comparisons to the prior year include 279 additional delays in June around the Belmont Stakes and the US Open at Shinnecock Hills that the railroad excluded from their OTP numbers, to even the comparison.
Full year comparisons
The number of passengers finding themselves at their destination late also markedly increased over the prior year. When the list of delayed trains is compared to the LIRR’s ridership book, 1.2 million more LIRR trips were delayed in 2018 over the prior year, an 11% increase.
In the decade spanning January 2007 to December 2016 (the first 10 years for which I have monthly OTP data for), the LIRR’s system OTP fell below 90% just five times (August 2010, January 2011, January 2014, February 2015, and July 2016). In just the twelve months of 2018, the railroad failed to meet that mark five times as well (January, March, July, August, September, and November)—the same as the entire first 10-year period.
Service in the PM peak period, traditionally markedly worse than the morning rush hour, did improve slightly. The number of trains late decreased by 242, and the number of passengers getting home late improved by a little over 9%.
The number of delays the railroad blamed on the railroad increased by 52% (more on this later). The rest of the railroad’s miscellaneous delays (those pinned on “other” or “third party operations”) was the only category that saw improvement, largely driven by a large reduction in delays caused by Amtrak, which were high due to some issues in the first half of 2017. The number of delays the LIRR tried to pin on the public, a favorite in recent years, increased a much more measured 3.5%, driven largely by delays caused by “special events”.
The impact of “LIRR Forward”
After the railroad’s record low performance in the month of January, railroad officials began to put together a “performance improvement plan” to in response to calls for better service. While work on certain elements was begun right away, the plan, renamed “LIRR Forward”, wasn’t unveiled until May. I wrote some initial impressions of the plan in June after its release, but now the question is, after finishing out its first year, did “LIRR Forward” make any difference?
Despite promises of improvement, and a plan to do so, the number of trains late still increased by 23% after “LIRR Froward” was unveiled. The number of trains more than 15 minutes late increased by 28%. The average delay increased 3%. The total number of passengers late since “LIRR Forward” increased by 1.5 million people.
The only real quantifiable improvement in reliability since “LIRR Forward” was unveiled was two fewer cancelations. Every other mark moved in the wrong direction.
The number of delays blamed on the weather increased by 48% compared to the same period in 2017. The number of delays due to “other”, third parties, or the public did not improve, but did not get that much worse. Altogether, 68 more trains were delayed due to these reasons over the same period in the prior year.
The sharp increase in the number of controllable delays is very disappointing, but not all that surprising. My first impression of “LIRR Forward” when it came out was that it was a largely palliative plan that treated the symptoms, and not the real root causes of what is impacting LIRR operations, and lack of overall forward progress from the railroad in recent years. The plan has been light on substance and detail since it was first released—all that appears on the MTA website is the short PowerPoint presentation from when it was unveiled in May, a summary press release, and another PowerPoint update from September.
8 months after “LIRR Forward” was unveiled, there is still no detailed list of actions to be taken, no success or failure criteria established, and the railroad has not yet shed any light on when riders might be able to expect some actual results when it comes to improved reliability.
While the LIRR has had some accomplishments under “LIRR Forward”, like upgrading switches or installing delineators at grade crossings, they are just small parts of the overall equation. Grade crossing delineators are great, but the proof is in the pudding…and the figures do not look good. The LIRR’s problems will need much more than talk, or other relatively superficial improvements that any normal functioning railroad would’ve done years ago. The railroad will need to undertake real, substantive modernizations to bring operations more in line with its peer systems elsewhere in the world.
In September, the railroad highlighted how 77% of broken rail joints had been welded, and there had been zero incidents due to broken rails. But since then, there have been at least 18 broken rails that have impacted service, as recently as two this morning near Cold Spring Harbor and Bridgehampton. Are these the part of the 23% that weren’t welded, or did the repairs under “LIRR Forward” not stand up? Who knows.
When it came to mitigating the impact of weather-related delays, another hallmark of the plan, the railroad did not quite hit it out of the park. During the LIRR’s first winter weather test in November, there were 280 train delays, including 139 trains more than 15 minutes late, canceled, or partially canceled. There were a number of issues due to “weather-related switch trouble” that caused systemwide delays, and resulted in the suspension of westbound service between Jamaica and NY-Penn Station for about an hour and a half, and the full suspension of rush hour service in both directions into/out of New York from just after 6:00p for a time. Service into and out of New York was restored just in time for the LIRR to suspend service to/from Brklyn-Atlantic Terminal in both directions. Full service on all lines was restored by the end of rush hour, but not before the whole situation devolved into a confusing mess of delays and cancelations. When it came to the slip slide mess, despite unquantified claims from officials that “aggressive efforts to combat low adhesion” made conditions better than if they had done nothing, there was no shortage of complaints about trains running with not enough cars.
While things may continue to improve with time, the railroad has set no expectations as to when we might be able to see things improve. Will we see an improvement in reliability this year? In 5 years? In 10 years? How much money do we need to funnel into this program before we get some results at some unspecified date?
After more than two years of reliability problems, there still seems to be no light at the end of this tunnel. It’s disappointing, but not surprising. There have been no measurable improvements in reliability (it’s gotten worse), communication is better in some regards but worse in others, and our fares are very likely going up in the next couple months… All that seems certain is LIRR riders being asked to pay more for service that continues to worsen. The LIRR needs improvement, and riders deserve results. The lack of results from “LIRR Forward” will hopefully trigger a redoubling of effort to bring about real, substantive modernizations…more than just a couple of grade crossing delineators, or a couple of new switches, and claiming things are getting better. Only time will tell.
