Policy changes after the June 5 incident
MTA to Ditch Pre-Recorded Messages in Favor of Live Announcements of Delays
NEW YORK CITY — Who would you rather deliver the news that you’re trapped in a steamy, airless subway car? A human or a robot?
The MTA is slated to do away with some prerecorded messages for routine communication, as well as during stalls and delays — an effort to better communicate with riders in the wake of a June 5 incident where straphangers were trapped in a stalled F train for nearly an hour without air conditioning, agency officials said Monday.
“While announcements were made both on the train and in the affected stations during the incident, this messaging did not meet the needs of our customers,” Wynton Habersham, the acting vice president of the MTA’s Subways said at a Monday meeting of the MTA’s board.
He described the nightmarish incident where riders were trapped in a steamy, southbound F train for 48 minutes with no air or electricity when multiple backup systems failed as, “something that did not go so well.”
“We are moving to improve communication with our passengers both on a regular basis and the case of an incident,” he said. “In doing so, we are eliminating many of the repeat recorded announcements and are making greater use of live announcements from the train crew themselves.”
On June 5, when the lights and air flickered and then cut out about 10 minutes after the F train had stalled, the MTA conductor was informing passengers there was train traffic before they eventually entered the cars to admit to riders that there was a “severe” mechanical issue, Gothamist reported.
