I-Team: A Look At MBTA Commuter Rail On-Time Performance
Updated: February 19 at 4:15 p.m.
BOSTON (CBS) -- Thankfully for commuter rail riders, a signal problem has been fixed and service has resumed for trains at South Station.
Keolis, the operator of the commuter rail service, said Thursday's travel headache was out of its control. The Amtrak signal issue had an enormous ripple effect on all the other MBTA commuter rail trains that share the tracks.
However, the I-Team took a closer look at weekly performance data available for 2016 (Jan. 4 thru Feb. 14), and found the commuter rail service is consistently not arriving on time.
According to six weeks of 2016 figures available on the MBTA web site, commuter rail trains are arriving "on time" at an average of 86.7 percent during peak hours, the time period most commuters rely on the system to get to and from work.
However - the numbers posted on the MBTA site have not been adjusted for delays considered outside of Keolis' control, such as trespassers or police activity.
Thursday's travel headache was a perfect example. The actual on-time performance numbers will look a lot different than the adjusted figure, considering the long list of delays and cancellations were attributed to the Amtrak signal issue.
Keolis spokeswoman Leslie Aun told WBZ that the adjusted numbers are not available for only the peak-hour service. However, Aun reported the adjusted on-time performance figure for all commuter rail trips in January was 94.26 percent.
"While we know we still have more to do to increase the overall reliability of the service, we are pleased that our adjusted OTP continues to improve, thanks to the hard work and commitment of people throughout our organization," Keolis General Manager Gerald Francis said.
Recently, a press release announced Keolis enjoyed its best on-time performance in 2015 with a 92.4 percent mark in December.
Ryan Kath can be reached at rkath@cbs.com. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
