Audit Report on New York City Transit’s Maintenance and Repair of Subway Stations

Audit Report In Brief

This audit assessed the adequacy of New York City Transit (NYCT) efforts to identify and repair defective conditions in commuter areas of its subway stations.

NYCT is the largest agency in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) regional transportation network.  It operates 27 subway lines consisting of nearly 6,500 subway cars that travel over 660 miles of track connecting 468 active stations throughout four of the five City boroughs.  The subways serve an average of 4.5 million riders daily.  In addition, NYCT operates bus service throughout the four boroughs and rail service on Staten Island.  In Fiscal Year 2008, NYCT had more than 48,000 employees and an operating budget totaling $7.9 billion

NYCT’s Division of Station Operations (Division of Stations) is responsible for ensuring that all subway stations and station facilities are properly maintained in a clean, safe, and sanitary condition at all times.  The Division’s Maintenance and Support Unit (MSU) operates eight maintenance shops that are directly responsible for maintaining the stations and related facilities within each of their geographic regions.  In Fiscal Years 2008 and 2009, the shops employed a workforce of approximately 1,000 employees, including skilled-trade workers (i.e., electricians, ironworkers, masons, and carpenters) that are responsible for providing scheduled and unscheduled maintenance at stations throughout the subway system.  In Fiscal Year 2008, exclusive of capital projects, NYCT spent approximately $144 million on station maintenance, of which the City reimbursed $81 million for the operation, maintenance, and use of the stations.

This audit focused on the Division of Stations’ efforts to address unscheduled maintenance activities, particularly those related to reported defects (trouble calls) in areas of subway stations accessible to commuters.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

NYCT does not adequately inspect and repair defective conditions in commuter areas of the subway stations and does not adequately ensure that all existing defects are identified and reported to maintenance shops, and subsequently repaired.  Consequently, defective conditions that constitute a danger to the public, including trip hazards and potential exposure to lead paint and asbestos, remain unrepaired for extended periods of time.

More than two-thirds (or 99) of the 144 defects we initially observed at the 50 sampled stations between November 6 and December 12, 2008, were not reported by NYCT station supervisors to the maintenance shops for follow-up.  In addition, we found that NYCT lacks a clear standard for the frequency of station inspections, and it does not routinely use inspections reports or keep them on file.

Moreover, based on our review of 425 sampled trouble calls at the 50 stations, we found that when defective conditions are reported to the maintenance shops, they are not always repaired.  Sixty-three (15%) of the defects associated with trouble calls that we observed at the sampled stations had not been repaired, despite being reported to the maintenance shops well over 60 days prior to our station inspections.  Of greater concern was that the NYCT trouble-call database showed that some of the unrepaired conditions had been closed out as completed, when we observed that the conditions had, in fact, not been repaired.

While we noted that there are procedures governing how trouble calls are recorded, assigned, closed out, tracked, and reported, we found weaknesses in those procedures. Furthermore, NYCT lacks a modern, reliable computerized system to manage and assess maintenance activities and facilitate accurate record keeping, data collection, and analysis.  Last, there is a general lack of accountability and supervisory review of maintenance work performed.

Audit Recommendations

To address these issues, we make 16 recommendations, among them that NYCT should:

• Ensure that station inspections are appropriately performed by station supervisors and that all observed defects are reported to the maintenance shops.

• Establish a minimum requirement for frequency of station inspections and include this requirement in the Station Supervisor Training Program Manual and other applicable operating procedures.

• Ensure that required inspection and frequency reports are used to evidence inspections and establish record maintenance requirements for such reports.

• Establish minimum requirements for supervisors to randomly review the work performed by maintenance personnel and to report on these observations.  These reviews should be used as part of employee evaluations.

• Consult the Information Technology-Information Systems (IT-IS) department within the agency to discuss the weaknesses and needs of the MSU in tracking trouble calls.