Study: 60 Percent Of Subway Delay Announcements Are A Mess

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The Straphangers Campaign released their annual survey of subway announcements today, and while the MTA performs well when there are no issues, they seem to cave under pressure. According to the survey (below), taken from January 26th to June 25th last year, found that 83 percent of basic announcements (like upcoming stops) were clear and accurate. A one percent improvement over last year! However, that number drops when there's a delay. The survey found that 60 percent of announcements about delays or disruptions were unclear, inaudible or just inaccurate.

Naturally, all of the lines with the clearest announcements use automated announcements, and the B train had clear basic announcements just 55 percent of the time. But the clearness and accuracy of delay announcements dropped drastically since last year, from clear announcements 55 percent of the time to just 40 percent. "A failure to make delay announcement means more stress and confusion for riders," said Jason Chin-Fatt, Campaign field organizer. MTA policy also says if there is a delay, conductors "must make an announcement immediately [and again] within 2 minutes after that."

Sometimes, the announcements were just meaningless, like, "we have a red signal" or, "the local is now an express" without further explanation. What about that one time we got, "It is raining outside. Don't leave the subway" on the Q train? That was accurate!

2010_Announcements_survey_full

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By Jaya Saxena in News on March 30, 2011 11:31 AM

Comments [rss]

Rammy

I call for complete honesty in all train announcements - "We are being held so that the train behind us can pass because its passengers are for more important than you..."; "We are being held because a homeless guy just passed out in the train in front of us...'; "Suicide attempt at Times Sq...", "Hungover puker...", etc.

Its the vagueness of the announcements that annoys me, we're all stuck, so the conductors should just 'fess up as to why we're sitting there (as they must know the real reason).

kimpossibble

"We are delayed because of train traffic ahead of us" is the biggest load of bs ever. When it's 3 am and you just waited 30 minutes for that train, ain't no train traffic ahead of you! I like your proposal.

cmdrogogov

afaik some stretches of track are shared between multiple train lines, and the train traffic is just a generic notification.

Guest

That's ok. Most of the people on the 7 train talk right over the announcements. Mostly because announcements are made in English. Sort of.

bobchadwick

On a somewhat related note, I hate it when a mic-happy conductor announces stops on a train with automated announcements. If I'm wearing headphones, I can mostly ignore the regular announcements, but if I hear the conductor make an announcement, I assume there's some kind of issue. Unless there's a problem, get off the horn and let the robot do the speaking.

proudliberal1947

Wake up NY, it is not about the inconvenience it is about discouraging you enough so that it can be PRIVATIZED. Look at the mayor (hahaha) if you want to call him that, notice how the disruptions are piled on now start checking the usage of the Mass system, yup, it will be down, get it down long enough run the inconveniences long enough and then you have it Privatized and costs out the roof and a schedule that runs 8-5 because of costs.