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NJT is indeed quite awful with OTP (83%[^1]), train cancellations[^2], reliability[^3], and transparency. However, through-running is also an opportunity for this to improve because, while bad in many ways as well, the MTA is well a class above NJT. The MTA publishes live GTFS-RT feeds of all of its trains, NYCT, LIRR, and MNRR. There is also https://radar.mta.info/, which shows a map of the entire MTA's commuter railroads' network with every single train, including both MTA passenger trains, Amtrak trains, out of service trains, and work trains. It shows their location, their current speed, their train number, their car length, how late they are, their past and future predicted schedule adherence, and how many people are in each car on the train. The MTA's TrainTime app, which shows much of this information, too, is also leagues better than the NJT app. So while through-running and integration is an opportunity for NJT to degrade the MTA, it is also a massive opportunity for NJT to improve, especially with regards to data and transparency, which is less of a physical issue. For example, Amtrak's transparency is a lot worse than the MTA's, too, and yet they show up on radar.mta.info all the same, albeit with a bit less info (like passenger counts per car, as their cars don't have automatic passenger counters). [^1]: The MTA's OTP for LIRR and MNRR are a lot higher (98.5% for MNRR, 95.65% for LIRR). However, these are based on heavily padded timetables, padded by as much as 50% on the New Haven Line (a GCT-Stamford express, Stamford-New Haven local takes about 2:00 today, but could do it in about 1:20 with normal 7% padding and no artificial (non-geometric) speed limits: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/02/19/new-york-new-h...). So they essentially add in expected extreme delays so that they never appear late. However, NJT does this, too, and still has much worse OTP. [^2]: https://www.curbed.com/article/nj-transit-commuter-train-ser... (https://archive.is/smk68) [^3]: Besides the NEC catenary, which Amtrak owns and is in an awful century-old state, NJT trains themselves have terrible mean distance between failures (MDBF), averaging about 49k miles (https://www.njtransit.com/improve/on-time-performance/rail#:...) compared to about 800k miles for Metro-North's M8s, 16x worse. |