BY MADELINE NELSON
After a disappointing and record high year of delays and cancellations, the Long Island Rail Road issued on Monday a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) to the MTA Board detailing how they plan to prevent the significant and numerous delays and cancellations experienced in 2017.
The LIRR listed 60 actions which focus on three overarching goals: service reliability, seasonal preparedness and customer communications.
The service reliability plan focuses on targeting investments that will deliver the most improvements such as improving fleet reliability and maintaining and upgrading critical infrastructure, according to the PIP. This plan includes improving tracks systemwide and improving the ties at Queens high-speed crossovers.
The seasonal preparedness plan mentions improving recoverability from weather-related service disruptions and preventing weather-related delays with preparation. The plan indicates specific spring, summer, autumn and winter adjustments and developments, while also listing three year-round additions such as signal system grounding, signal personnel and overnight track emergency crews, and drainage systems.
LIRR’s third primary goal is improving customer communications, which they plan on doing by providing customers with more timely, accurate and easily accessible information during service disruptions. This includes increasing coverage, visibility, branding and tools for customer ambassadors and ushers at Penn Station, Jamaica and Atlantic Terminal. The goal also mentions enhancing the LIRR’s public engagement to improve their communication based on customer feedback.
“This plan lays out the steps toward doing everything we can to prevent incidents that can impact service and when incidents do occur, to recover service faster by improving our response times to the issues impacting us and our customers,” said LIRR President Patrick Nowakowski.
The railroad will provide monthly details to the MTA Board and the public about the progress the LIRR is making toward these goals.
