To repair station intercoms, a long wait or just a high average?

The MTA is gearing up to install a series of intercoms every 150-200 feet along platforms at stations without agents, but what happens when this technology goes down? That’s the question Pete Donohue at The Daily News asks in a story on intercom repairs today.

Donohue leads with a number: Currently, he reports, the average repair time for MTA intercoms sits at 11 days, and a few MTA Board members aren’t happy with the news. “That’s just terrible,” Andrew Albert said. “It’s unacceptable. There’s a real safety concern. What if someone is attacking you, God forbid.”

But the numbers tell a different story. Many times, intercoms reported broken are working just fine, and a few balky units have brought down the systemwide average. Writes Donohue:

Between January and June, reports of faulty intercoms led to 1,264 “trouble tickets” requesting attention by repairmen, according to data NYC Transit provided last week. Workers doing the followup inspections found the equipment actually was functioning 72% of the time, according to the agency data. Inspections confirmed malfunctions 350 times, or 28%, according to NYC Transit.

A spokesman late yesterday indicated the problem was not as widespread as the data suggested. Intercoms near turnstile banks are fixed on average between 36 and 48 hours after a problem is reported, the spokesman said. The systemwide repair average of 11 days was inflated by problems with aging units in five stations, the spokesman said. The agency has begun replacing the 20 to 30 units in one station and plans to do the others in the coming weeks, the spokesman said.

Of course, questions still remain over the effectiveness of intercoms, and much depends upon one’s own concept of personal safety. Having intercoms along the platform edge in spots that were generally not visible to station agents should increase safety on deserted platforms. But these intercoms must be working, and someone who can dispatch emergency responders must be on the other end of the “talk” button. What works on wide-open college campuses can work in the subways as well.