Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

Giving funds to firms that already have open contracts with the agency as part of its superstorm Sandy “Disaster Recovery Program.”

Transit advocates and commuters questioned the agency’s claim of a 91% on-time rate for November, when Superstorm Sandy impacted the coast line for weeks, putting many trains out of operation. The system is also facing criticism over how it calculated its 96% on-time record for last year.

Three hundred and forty-two railcars and locomotives were actually damaged by the Superstorm and the cost of the storm to the agency has risen to $450 million. Originally, 323 pieces of equipment were reported as damaged and the cost of the storm was thought to be $400 million.

Would build them far from where the storm-surge waters from Superstorm Sandy swamped the agency’s upper Hoboken and Meadowlands Maintenance Center yards. Nearly one-quarter of the agency’s fleet was damaged by flooding. Storm recovery aid allocation could be a deciding factor.

Additional trains on the North Jersey Coast Line restored service levels into New York to 100%. Systemwide, the agency’s rail division reached 94% of its pre-Sandy service level, operating 658 of the 700 weekday trains scheduled prior to the storm.

The agency incorrectly used software provided by the National Weather Service that could have warned against a decision to leave hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of equipment in a low-lying rail yard before Superstorm Sandy struck and damaged nearly one-third of the transit system’s fleet.