Objective

To determine the extent of implementation of the seven recommendations included in our initial audit report, Selected Performance Measures (Report 2018-S-18).

About the Program

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a public benefit corporation chartered by the New York State Legislature in 1965. There are six agencies of the MTA: Bridges and Tunnels, MTA Construction and Development, Metro-North Railroad (Metro-North), Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), New York City Transit (Transit), and MTA Bus Company (MTA Bus). (The latter four are the focus of this report and are herein collectively referred to as the Agencies.) The administrative arm is known as MTA Headquarters.

The MTA is required under the Public Authorities Law to report annually on its performance including specific performance measures for each Agency, such as ridership and mean distance between failures (MDBF). Performance and other measures are also reported to committees of the MTA Board monthly. Certain measures are also reported on the Performance Metrics Dashboards on the MTA’s website and during public meetings.

The Agencies are required to submit some of these measures to government oversight agencies such as the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for inclusion in its National Transit Database (NTD). The FTA uses this information to allocate federal funding to urban and rural areas in the United States.

We issued our initial audit report on January 6, 2020. The audit objective was to determine whether MTA constituent agencies' performance measurements were accurate and consistent as well as whether MTA used relevant metrics to measure its performance. The audit found that, between January 1, 201­­5 and August 22, 2018, performance measurements were not consistent and accurate among MTA Agencies. There were deficiencies and inconsistencies in the Agencies’ methodology and calculations for the two performance measures examined – MDBF and ridership. For example, MDBF should measure the distance that each train travels before it experiences a mechanical failure. However, the two components used in the calculation – mileage and failures – were not accurate. Mileage was overstated and failures were understated. Additionally, Transit and LIRR do not include failures for incidents that are under the threshold for reporting the train as delayed (5 minutes for Transit, 6 minutes for LIRR). MTA Bus did not include non-paying riders, such as employees. The NTD uses ridership to allocate federal funding; therefore, understating or overstating ridership may result in misleading and inaccurate information being reported and impacting funding.

Key Finding

We found that MTA made some progress in addressing the issues identified in our initial report. Of the initial report’s seven recommendations, one was implemented, four were partially implemented, and two were not implemented.

Key Recommendation

Officials are given 30 days after the issuance of this follow-up to provide information on any actions that are planned to address the unresolved issues discussed in this report.