by Marge s
I have a question, Does the RR call the employees and ask them to work OT? If so why should the employee be vilified?
Railroad Forums
Moderator: Liquidcamphor
Head-end View wrote:LOL! What they will probably find out is that all the overtime that was earned was in accordance with contract provisions that the MTA previously agreed to. Then what?NY POST's Nicole Gelinas wrote about those very same contracts which send the OT soaring. The excerpts from the contracts are just enough to incite rage from the readers because they don't have a clue of the operation or history of those same agreements, which can be renegotiated and changed every few years, but arent.
expbusop wrote:Pennsylvania RR if I remember correctly.I was wondering which "highly lucrative private railroad" was benefiting from subsidies from long-distance travel. It certainly wasn't the PRR.
rr503 wrote:Wholeheartedly agree that NYPost's salary shaming is...gross (to put it lightly), but to deny LIRR's productivity problem (which, to be sure, goes far beyond this issue of overtime) is also a bit off. OT is supposed to be used to limit headcount, right? How does that mesh, then, with a railroad whose staffing numbers are up significantly over even 2010 when service provided is about flat?Right now the roster is being inflated to compensate for East Side Access service changes and the large wave of retirement that will be in full swing around completion time. This has to be done now otherwise we'll be getting the NJT special.
Absolute-Limited Advance-Approach wrote: Right now the roster is being inflated to compensate for East Side Access service changes and the large wave of retirement that will be in full swing around completion time. This has to be done now otherwise we'll be getting the NJT special.Interesting details, thank you. I wish this sort of nuanced discussion had made it to yesterday's meeting, rather than all that performative nonsense.
The surplus in the roster gets used to compensate dor PTC training, M9 training and continual retraining. The remainder get sent on jobs that get a lot of overtime. So the extra crews are typically sent out to keep everyone elses OT down. The staffing surplus isnt at a reliable level to accomplish all of those things and keep a constant service on the schedule, so its a liability. That and the service can only realistically run in the midday since 90% of the cars are already needed to rush hour, those midday trains carry a lot of air and I dont see that changing since the island is a relatively low ridership base once the daily commuters are out. Management would surely see it as cost effective to just leave the extra guys on OT killers instead.
rr503 wrote:I wouldn't be so quick to point the finger at the Conductor; I'm not fully convinced that the studies account for human behavior, numerically there may be people who could ride the train but the likely destinations are not near to the lines. This railroad was designed to service freight and long distance travel (in the context of 1870) not intra island travel, as such there is an enormous last mile problem, for that matter it has an enormous FIRST mile problem. Using the LIRR for all practical purposes requires a car so the calculation that someone has to go through is do I A: Drive to the station (pray there's parking after 715am), wait 10-20 minutes for the train get to the station and take then take a cab to my final destination or B: Drive there. If you're poor or very young you may need a bike and carrying your bike on the train is a pretty big hassle, we'll leave that can of worms closed. Most stations don't exist in an area that would even allow midday parking to any practical level, so riders will struggle to use the train even if the nominal trip pairs COULD use the system even if they were somehow able to resolve the last mile problem. People going into The City could possibly be attractedAbsolute-Limited Advance-Approach wrote: Right now the roster is being inflated to compensate for East Side Access service changes and the large wave of retirement that will be in full swing around completion time. This has to be done now otherwise we'll be getting the NJT special.Interesting details, thank you. I wish this sort of nuanced discussion had made it to yesterday's meeting, rather than all that performative nonsense.
The surplus in the roster gets used to compensate dor PTC training, M9 training and continual retraining. The remainder get sent on jobs that get a lot of overtime. So the extra crews are typically sent out to keep everyone elses OT down. The staffing surplus isnt at a reliable level to accomplish all of those things and keep a constant service on the schedule, so its a liability. That and the service can only realistically run in the midday since 90% of the cars are already needed to rush hour, those midday trains carry a lot of air and I dont see that changing since the island is a relatively low ridership base once the daily commuters are out. Management would surely see it as cost effective to just leave the extra guys on OT killers instead.
It's funny you should mention off peak ridership, though. Studies have shown that if you increase off-peak commuter rail service to 20 or 15 min headways in areas with reasonable-enough population density, you actually induce sizable ridership gains. The barrier on Long Island? Labor costs; while the rest of the world has moved to proof-of-payment ticketing and limited on-train staffing, we still use conductors, meaning the marginal cost of adding service (as well as the amount one has to pay for said service) is extraordinarily high. People are really barking up the wrong tree when it comes to efficiency, it seems.
Absolute-Limited Advance-Approach wrote: I wouldn't be so quick to point the finger at the Conductor; I'm not fully convinced that the studies account for human behavior, numerically there may be people who could ride the train but the likely destinations are not near to the lines. This railroad was designed to service freight and long distance travel (in the context of 1870) not intra island travel, as such there is an enormous last mile problem, for that matter it has an enormous FIRST mile problem. Using the LIRR for all practical purposes requires a car so the calculation that someone has to go through is do I A: Drive to the station (pray there's parking after 715am), wait 10-20 minutes for the train get to the station and take then take a cab to my final destination or B: Drive there. If you're poor or very young you may need a bike and carrying your bike on the train is a pretty big hassle, we'll leave that can of worms closed. Most stations don't exist in an area that would even allow midday parking to any practical level, so riders will struggle to use the train even if the nominal trip pairs COULD use the system even if they were somehow able to resolve the last mile problem. People going into The City could possibly be attractedThis breakdown is more complicated. While about 44% of riders do indeed park at stations, 24% of LIRR riders walk to the station, 23% are dropped off, and about 7% use buses or taxis. I'd imagine that during the off-peak, those figures skew much more strongly towards modes that aren't as parking intensive. (If I may, I think this is also an excellent demonstration of why we need to prioritize dense development around stations over sprawling park-and-rides in some areas. TOD has been shown time and again to be a more effective trip generator than park and ride facilities, and also happens to be a more efficient and attractive means of living.)
Absolute-Limited Advance-Approach wrote: Pragmatic considerations to the ridership is, that if the railroad needs 90% of equipment to pass inspection to make rush hour, sending trains down the road carrying a few dozen people (and hoping that there is no incident and hoping they get back to NYK to make rush hour) those trains become nothing but a risk. It's that much longer that a mechanical issue goes unaddressed and its that much longer that train goes without a required inspection increasing the risk that something will need to be canceled during a delay. The other consideration is that Passenger rail, isn't profitable. The only thing that helped with fares in the past was the Freight business which, like anything profitable the government had, was sold to a contractor so they can cut costs and gain a layer of deniability. Which brings us around to your claim of P.O.P being what's in the way since other places do it. Someone did the calculation and the train crew represents about $2.60 of the ticket price. Meanwhile MTA support staff and administration account for 50% of the cost and Debt for the department at large (including PD) at 27%. The amount of farebeating that occurs on a daily basis with current inspection is already at a disturbing rate, every day there are plenty of delays "Conductor requested police account fare dispute train operated 8 minutes late"; I can only imagine how much farebeating there would be if people thought they had a decent chance of not having their tickets checked for an extended period of time. To get up the level of fare inspection to the rate that it discourages extensive farebeating would likely not reduce cost at the ticket level more than a few cents. The systems that are used in the US are generally in effect on low ridership or low milage routes so ther cost benefit calculation can work out. Either way you will have hundreds of people roaming around punching tickets, and the Engineer will need to work that much harder doing things on their own during a disruption such as making reverse moves or brake tests etc.More off-peak service isn't a 'tomorrow' proposal, and current fleet woes shouldn't be used to justify ignoring this potential. That said, it's completely possible to run intensive peak and off peak service with a low spare factor and presentable reliability: the subway was doing it for years before issues of managerial competence overwhelmed us.
Absolute-Limited Advance-Approach wrote: Now why is it different in other places, the answer is the social safety net, in other countries you have less to worry about on the health care and general welfare front. In the US...not so much, so the Union will hold on to those jobs for dear life, as they should. There is definitely an economic consequence to liquidating several thousand good paying jobs, and it far outweighs a $2 benefit on a ticket for a railroad that people are riding because their communities don't have enough to offer them.I somewhat challenge the notion that this would lead to thousands of layoffs. There's certainly an argument to be made that reduced trip provision cost would lead to service increases large enough to significantly offset the loss of positions. Would the union fight this? Absolutely, and it is indeed their duty to do so. Still doesn't make it a poor idea.