Report: MTA’s Announcements Easier on the Ears
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“Ladies and gentlemen, the train is delayed. …”
Subway riders often have difficulty making out the garbled and crackling announcements relayed via the intercom, but according to a report by the Straphangers’ Campaign, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has made an overall improvement in the clarity of the announcements versus last year.
The nos. 4 and 6 lines are models of keeping passengers informed, with 98% of announcements made when indicated by MTA protocol, the report says. The W line comes out the worst, with only 58% of basic subway announcements being made, the report says.
The MTA was quick to emphasize that a more important figure was hidden in the campaign’s report: During the 6,600 service observations made by surveyors, only 203 delays were announced. That amounts to about 3% of the total rides.
“While not quite the mark NYC Transit strives for each day, a 3% rate is impressive by anyone’s standards,” the MTA said in a statement.
Basic car announcements were made 77% of the time systemwide, an increase of 4% from last year, according to the report. The straphangers attribute the change to an infusion of modern trains with automated announcements to the MTA’s fleet. The 4 and 6 lines have automated messages.
On the downside, the report said, announcements of train delays and disruptions either were not made or were “inaudible, garbled or incorrect” 65% of the time. “We’re glad basic subway car announcements are improving, but disappointed most riders are being left in the dark to cope with delays and reroutings,” the campaign coordinator who oversaw the survey, Neysa Pranger, said.
MTA officials said conductors don’t always know the reason for delays, which prevents them from communicating problems with passengers.
One subway rider on the no. 6 line at Brooklyn Bridge station yesterday said that if the MTA wants to enhance the statistics on announcements, it need only automate messages on all trains.
The straphangers used 75 staffers and volunteers to test the subways between January 2 and May 9 last year. Each surveyor completed a survey each time they rode a subway during the period. The survey was constructed to test the MTA by its own standards for when announcements were supposed to be made. The margin of error is 2%, according to the survey’s methodology.
