The train game

Last month, MTA bosses were proud as punch to announce a subway system-wide on-time average of 83% for January, touted as the best performance in seven years. The trains may be improving, but the measure transit bigs are using, the percentage of trains arriving at their final stop within five minutes of schedule, is the wrong way to gauge progress. And that’s not just because, as the Daily News explained yesterday, the numbers have been inflated thanks to changes in schedules.

Years ago, the MTA told us that that the metric in question wasn’t useful since hardly anyone takes the train from one terminal, say in the Bronx, all the way to the other end, say in Brooklyn. Yet they still relied on this “terminal on-time performance” as one of their

“key performance indicators.”

So a pattern took hold that continues to this day: When the number looks bad, they pooh-pooh it. When it looks good, they tout it.

Meanwhile, statistics that are more reflective of the customer experience aren’t showing gains as big as the flawed numbers do.

As The News reported Monday, several subway lines have been given more time to complete their runs over the last few years. While the new times may been more realistic and improved management on those routes, the change also had the effect of goosing on-time percentages.

“The data doesn’t lie. Subway service is demonstrably better,” MTA Chair Pat Foye said late last year. It might not lie, but it sure doesn’t tell the whole truth.