Objective

To determine whether the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) implemented train service to Grand Central Madison (GCM) terminal in a manner that addressed customer needs. We also determined whether LIRR addressed passenger concerns in General Order #202 effective September 5, 2023. This audit covered the period from January 2021 through November 2023.

About the Program

MTA is responsible for developing and implementing a unified mass transportation policy for New York City and Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester counties. MTA carries out these responsibilities directly and through its six agencies and MTA Headquarters, including LIRR. As the busiest commuter railroad in North America, LIRR reported carrying an average of 200,000 customers each weekday on 947 trains as of August 2024. It operates trains 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with limited service during the overnight hours. LIRR comprises over 126 stations and 700 miles of track on 11 branches. It stretches from Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island and extends to major NYC terminals, including Penn Station, GCM, Atlantic Terminal, and Hunterspoint Avenue, through a major transfer hub at Jamaica. The Port Washington branch does not pass through Jamaica.

MTA’s East Side Access (ESA) project connected Queens with Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan at a cost of approximately $11 billion. The planning phase of the ESA project began in 1998, and construction began in 2001. Construction to connect ESA to an existing tunnel between Manhattan and Queens began in 2007. Shuttle service to GCM, part of the ESA project, began on January 25, 2023, and full service was implemented on February 27, 2023.

GCM was constructed as a new eight-track terminal with four western and four eastern tracks built to extend LIRR service to the east side of Manhattan. It was projected to cut commute time by as much as 40 minutes per day (round-trip) for some customers and ease overcrowding at Penn Station. The MTA Grand Central Madison Concourse Operating Company is responsible for managing the terminal.

A General Order on a railroad contains changes to rules, timetables, or other instructions. General Orders are issued and signed by an authorized official and cover regulatory requirements such as reporting railroad accidents; clearances for side and overhead structures, parallel tracks, and crossings; and posting railroad timetables and changes. LIRR’s Service Planning department’s General Order Implementation Timeline includes a process of negotiations with the Maintenance of Equipment, Engineering, Transportation, and Customer Engagement departments. Each department provides information such as availability of equipment and crew, scheduled track work and infrastructure, union guidelines, and customer feedback to help Service Planning plan its service. Service Planning also uses ridership data (number of riders, not ticket sales) in its planning. During our audit period, LIRR issued four General Orders:

• #101 – May 23, 2022 through February 26, 2023
• #102 – February 27, 2023 through May 21, 2023
• #201 – May 22, 2023 through September 4, 2023
• #202 – September 5, 2023 through November 12, 2023

Key Findings

We found that, in preparation for implementing the initial GCM service on February 27, 2023, LIRR officials used passenger ridership data, consultant survey information, and other factors to develop the timetable. MTA/LIRR officials also solicited customer feedback on the proposed schedule at public hearings held from June 23, 2022 to August 11, 2022. The feedback reflected customer need for more LIRR service, service availability issues, the desire for the schedule to remain unchanged, customer service improvement suggestions, and issues with Atlantic Terminal service. However, there was no documentation of what LIRR officials did to address any specific customer needs voiced at the public hearings beyond those regarding the Port Washington branch—described as the most vocal branch—which LIRR officials noted and documented as being addressed in a timetable revision.

LIRR officials touted that post-GCM implementation, they were offering 41% more train service—up from 665 trains to 936 trains. However, we compared the prior General Order train service to the newly implemented service and found only a 23% increase in service across all branches. Of the 271 trains added, only 153 trains represented increases in branch service. The remaining 118 trains were shuttle trains to Brooklyn and did not provide additional branch service. LIRR changed how Atlantic Terminal service was delivered by stopping direct service trains to the Atlantic Terminal and instead offered shuttles, which enabled riders to transfer in Jamaica to the Atlantic Terminal.

Further, while LIRR officials stated they take passenger concerns into account when making changes to the schedule, the changes implemented may not support customer needs, as some passengers may have been required to change their travel times, increasing wait times and adding more steps to their trips where direct service was eliminated. LIRR also did not document and could not support that changes made adequately factored in passenger feedback. We noted the top, most common customer concerns remained the same between the public information sessions and the customer feedback received after the implementation of GCM: desire for more service/issues with availability of service, specific service improvement suggestions, and Atlantic Terminal service concerns.

Overall, the new timetable did not always address passenger needs as LIRR officials said it would. For a sample of five LIRR branches, in the new timetable from September 5, 2023 to November 12, 2023, there was not always adherence to the 60:40 ratio (60% of LIRR customers prefer to go to Penn Station and 40% prefer GCM), and service frequency did not meet the level of service required during General Orders #101, #102, #201, and #202.

The implementation of train service to GCM has addressed some of the concerns expressed by its ridership, but additional actions are needed to address the recurring concerns.

Key Recommendations

• Develop a formal mechanism for documenting the receipt and assessment of comments from the public regarding proposed train schedules or other service-planning issues.
• Document actions taken to revise or adjust service and/or the decision not to take action in response to customer feedback.
• Revisit the process to identify the feedback essential to service-planning decisions and document all essential decisions to ensure the efficiency of future decision-making.
• Document the practices used by Service Planning to prepare the timetables to establish policies and procedures.