MTA Inspector General Releases Report Warning Of The Dangers Of ‘Self Evacuation’ Of Passengers On The New York Subway

New York Transit Subway

MTA

NEW YORK –– The Inspector General responsible for the New York Subway, Daniel G. Cort, announced this week that incidents of passenger self evacuation must be reduced.

From 2015 to 2024, the OIG said that there were 46 passenger evacuations, posing great danger to the passengers either being electrocuted or hit by another train. The report showed that some of these evacuations were taking place after as little as a two-minute delay. The main point of the OIG report is that better communication between train crews and passengers is needed, along with improved public messaging by New York City Transit.

During one incident, a collision and derailment on the 1/2/3 line in Manhattan on January 4, 2024, one train was derailed and two others were stuck between stations, and some passengers from all three trains chose to self-evacuate and walk on the tracks to the nearest station without any instructions from the crew or first responders.

IG Daniel Cort said “It’s alarming that passengers are going on to the tracks, where they risk electrocution or getting hit be trains. Evacuation between stations should be an absolute last resort and only after receiving instructions and guidance from New York City Transit personnel or first responders.”

After the January 2024 derailment, the OIG began its audit. The office wanted to get a better idea of the extent to which this had happened over the past decade, along with the quality of NYC Transit’s onboard emergency communications to passengers.

OIG Audit Findings

• From 2015 to 2024, there were 46 self-evacuation incidents, with approximately one-third occurring on the 4/5/6 lines.
• Self-Evacuation Incidents by Line Group (January 2015 to December 2024)

• Passengers risk electrocution or being struck by a moving train by going onto the railbed
  without instruction. Such action also leads to increased service delays, as NYC Transit
  personnel must ensure those passengers are no longer on the tracks.
• Passengers who self-evacuated often did so soon after the delay began. In 18 of the
  reviewed incidents, passengers self-evacuated within 30 minutes of the start of the
  delay. The shortest interval before self-evacuation was two minutes.
• Train crew members did not always remind passengers to remain on board during
  emergencies or warn passengers of the dangers of self-evacuating.
• Most NYC Transit train personnel with whom OIG spoke were not aware of the
  requirement that during emergencies a train operator must make passenger
  announcements when the conductor is unavailable to do so.

OIG made six recommendations to NYC Transit to help reduce self-evacuations and improve
communications with customers. They include how NYC Transit should make better use of its
incident data to monitor self-evacuation patterns and increase efforts to educate the riding
public about the dangers of exiting a train onto the railbed.

NYC Transit accepted four of the recommendations and is reviewing the other two.

You can download and read the full report below.