More people packing into already sardine-like subway trains and an increase in repair work has caused a spike in delays over the past year, new data shows.
Weekday subway delays have risen over 51 percent– and weekend delays are almost up 40 percent in the past 12 months, the MTA said Monday.
However, the MTA said on-time performance has not been as impacted because some delayed trains can make up the time on their route and reach the terminal within five minutes of when they were scheduled to arrive.
On-time performance has slipped from 81.1 percent to 74.3 percent, an almost 7 percent decrease. Weekend and weekday waits on the platform are only slightly up.
Workers have been doing more repair work because of Superstorm Sandy, as well as greater overall infrastructure repair work.
On seven days in October, subway ridership climbed to over 6 million people packing into trains– a record since the MTA began tracking ridership.
Average weekday ridership has spiked 140,000 riders a day in the last 12 month– and it is taking longer for trains to load and unload passengers. Weekend ridership is also up 102,000.
The MTA is using a new system called i-track to look electronically at what causes delays on the lettered lines, which has a less modern signal system than the numbered lines.
It was introduced last year, and is part of getting the lettered lines ready for countdown clocks.
The digital program is more precise and has been able to calculate more than 5000 delays a month than the traditional system, which used paper and pen.