It was a rough spring for Metro, says Metro

During the spring and early summer, Metro struggled to have enough trains for rail service and trains frequently ran late and were overcrowded. This isn’t much of a shock, but it’s confirmed by WMATA’s second quarter 2015 Vital Signs Report, which comes out every three months.

WMATA still struggles to supply rail cars for service

WMATA says it were unable to provide 954 cars, the minimum needed for peak service, on 34 weekdays in May and June. Since there were only 42 weekdays during this period, that means WMATA only had enough railcars 19% of the time. This follows the month of April, where the agency was only unable to provide the needed amount on a single day.

WMATA pulled all of its 4000 series cars from service on June 10th due to incidents of doors opening while trains were moving.That meant around 100 fewer cars were available for service between then and when they were returned to service in mid-July.

Ultimately, the number of cars available has a direct impact on how many trains are canceled on any particular day due to equipment shortages. As we reported earlier, there have been significant increases in the number of canceled trains recently, which the 4000-series car shortage only compounded.

Now that those are back in service, we should see the number of canceled trains go down - but we won’t know whether it has until the next quarter’s report is put out. Additionally, Metro has started running the first 32 new 7000 series cars, and more will go into service in the coming months.

WMATA lacked the most train equipment during June

The day WMATA struggled most to provide the railcars it needs for service was June 23:, when there were only 808 cars available—85% of the necessary 954. On that day, 17 trains did not operate as scheduled.

Each canceled train is noted to have caused a 6-minute gap in service, meaning there was a total of 102 minutes of schedule gap that day. Also, everyone waiting on the platform for those 17 trains would then have to wait for the next train, along with everyone entering the station in that time. And cancelled trains can lead to other issues, like overcrowded stations.

The average number of train cancellations for the 12 months through June 2015 is just over 4, so the jump to 17 in a single day is a significant, noticeable decrease in service level.

With fewer trains available to run than needed, the results are exactly what Metro customers might expect: trains don’t run on time.

On-time performance suffers

The lack of spare trains available hurts on-time performance since trains have to run more often with less maintenance and, therefore, can break down more often. The performance report for the quarter reflects what customers have noticed.

WMATA’s target for overall on-time performance is 91%, and the system has not achieved this rate since July of last year.

On-time performance through June for all six lines (except the Yellow Line) finished down from where it was a year ago. The overall 90% on time average in April decreased to 85% in June. The lowest point during that time frame was February, when a harsh winter caused severe train and track issues. But by the beginning of the summer, performance numbers had dipped back toward their low point.

Due to timing, the graph above shows not only a comparison of two years of on-time performance data, but also the data before and after the Silver Line opened late last July. All lines except the Yellow Line decreased in punctuality over the previous year. The chart notes a 3.5% overall on-time performance drop from 92% to 88.5% from 2014 to 2015 over the months measured.

Blue line trains run near capacity

Throughout the Metro system, WMATA has people record data on how many customers are on trains at certain stops to see how full their trains are.Data through May 2015 suggest that crowding on the Blue Line is getting worse, and WMATA calls the crowding levels “challenging.”

The “optimal” number of people a train car can carry without being overly crowded is about 100 passengers per car. Of that 100, there are about 64-68 people sitting in the seats available in the car plus those standing. For March through May, trains in the afternoon at Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom were consistently averaged above WMATA’s “warning” threshold of 100 people per car.

That means a few things for passengers trying to get on at any of the stations with red blocks next to them in the graphic below: first, the trains coming through the station are likely already full. Second, crowds in the station are going to build up as people try (and sometimes fail) to get onto a train. In the worst situations, that may very well mean having to wait for the next available train to service the station before being able to hop on.

The proposal to cut service on Orange/Silver/Green/Yellow and add service to the Blue Line that we heard about in June doesn’t appear to have happened. But the numbers, especially at Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom in the evenings, suggest that more or longer trains need to operate on the line to meet customer demand.

Service continues to suffer with “rebuilding” still going strong

Several years ago, WMATA pitched a significant capital improvement project meant to increase reliability of the system and eliminate years-long work backlogs. That process is still underway, but there have been seemingly few, if any, public results. Instead, riders are faced with increased train train crowding and reliability issues, along with the recent track fastener problems that have some wondering what MetroForward has been doing the past four years. This quarter’s data, at least, does not help to assuage these concerns.