It’s been a while. I went into a coma after my last post about trains breaking down got called “a lovely statistical manipulation that makes things look better for everyone except commuters”. Here’s another post about trains breaking down.
When NJ Dot Com publishes their annual story saying NJ Transit is the worst, they don’t include the full rankings. If you want to compare your friendly local public transit agency to others, now you can.
Click here to skip what I have to say and just view the rankings.
Keep in mind that this is 2019 data, the latest made available by the FTA. (I cleaned it with this code. Any mistakes are probably mine.)
The actual worst commuter rail in the country (highest breakdown rate) is run by the Connecticut DOT. Or, if we just look at the 10 largest commuter rail systems (those with the most passenger car miles traveled), Denver Regional Transportation District is the worst.
Among all 26 commuter rail systems, NJ Transit’s has the 16th highest breakdown rate. That’s better than SEPTA (14) but worse than other regional peers: LIRR (19), Pennsylvania DOT (23), and Metro-North (25). Among the 10 largest systems, NJT is 5th worst, right in the middle. The real issue isn’t that NJT is the worst, but that the LIRR and Metro-North’s trains break down half as often. Other data confirm this.
The City of Albany has the actual worst commuter bus. Among the 10 largest bus systems, Kings County DOT in Washington state is the worst.
NJT bus has the 237th highest breakdown rate out of 457 total bus systems. Not bad. Among the 10 largest bus systems, NJT breaks down the 9th most often, behind only the MTA. NJT must improve its buses in other ways, but they just don’t break down as often as some alarmists want us to believe.
But this blog post mustn’t be boring. I’ve got an exciting twist you won’t find on NJ Dot Com or anywhere else.
There are 23 light rail systems in this dataset. The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority’s is the worst. Or, among the 10 largest, the City and County of San Francisco’s light rail is the worst.
As for NJT, first look at total breakdowns, like NJ Dot Com did. NJT has 2 light rail systems. The River Line and Newark Light Rail together have the 19th most breakdowns (they’re combined in this dataset because NJT operates both directly) and the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail (considered separately because it’s “purchased transit”) has the 20th most. Looks like our light rails do pretty well, right?
Ready for the twist? Look at their breakdown rates: The River Line and Newark Light Rail’s is the 4th highest. According to NJ Dot Com, these lines are among the best light rail in the country, but they’re actually among the worst! But wait, this lovely statistical manipulation of mine (dividing one number by another) was supposed to just make NJ Transit look good. Drats!
The Hudson-Bergen Light Rail truly doesn’t break down that much. It has the 20th most breakdowns and the 19th highest breakdown rate. It’s good.
(I wonder: How often does the state highway system experience breakdowns? How does it compare to public transit?)
That’s all for now. Keep a close eye on public transit and demand better. Fight austerity. That’s what got us here in the first place. Finally, say yes to the proposed Glassboro-Camden Light Rail.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).