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Metro-North set forth 32 initiatives in an attempt to improve safety, communications and reliability. According to the report, 21 of the new initiatives have been fully implemented, seven are currently in progress, two will be put into action following independent reports from outside entities, and the remaining two will be ongoing, long-term priorities.
Improvements have been made in areas including enhancing track inspection and maintenance, installing alerters and video cameras in engineers’ cabs, beefing up the safety and training departments, expanding employee testing programs to ensure understanding of safety rules, creating a computer-based track worker safety system, and implementing a Confidential Close Call Reporting System.
“Metro-North has made major strides in the past 100 days, with concrete accomplishments that have made operations safer, established a safety culture, improved service reliability and expanded our communications,” President Joseph J. Giulietti said in a statement. “Our customers and everyone who relies on Metro-North have seen real accomplishments that have gone a long way toward restoring their faith in the railroad. Our challenge is to keep this relentless focus on improvement that our customers expect.”
On the recommendation of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the MTA is creating a Transportation Reinvention Commission to ensure the Capital Plan it submits by Oct. 1 will adequately account for demographic, ridership and climate shifts that will shape mass transit in this century.
“Metro-North intends to maintain its infrastructure and rolling stock to the highest standards of safety and reliability,” Giulietti said. “This requires ensuring that we have established the appropriate inspection, maintenance and replacement plans and that we have the necessary resources to carry them out effectively. This will require ongoing funding, not only for Metro-North’s operating budget, but also for the railroad’s capital needs in New York and Connecticut.”
Click here to read the full 100-day report.
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