(The Associated Press circulated the following on July 3, 2010.)
BALTIMORE, Md. — Amtrak is telling workers to focus on passengers’ well-being during breakdowns after the recent stranding of hundreds of MARC passengers on a sweltering train exposed problems in planning for such situations.
“We’re changing procedures to put passengers first,” Amtrak CEO Joseph Boardman said Wednesday at a MARC “Meet the MARC Managers” event at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The problem with the train that broke down near the New Carrollton station last week was that workers thought about the equipment instead of the people, he said. On Monday, another MARC train overshot the stop in Odenton.
MARC, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating why the train broke down shortly after departing from Washington, trapping passengers in the train without air conditioning in 90-degree temperatures. Maryland has a $40 million per year contract with Amtrak for the commuter rail service.
The state provides the trains and manages the service, and Amtrak provides engine and train crews and maintenance. In April, MARC ridership reached an average of 34,617 daily boardings.
Boardman and several Maryland transportation officials at Wednesday’s event heard from frustrated riders of the commuter rail service about ongoing problems with late trains and lack of communication.
MARC rider Bedell Terry, who commutes from Baltimore to Washington, told Boardman that he has used MARC since 1994 and it’s not getting better.
There may not have been another major incident since last week, Terry said, but trains he has traveled on had less dramatic problems.
“They didn’t have people passing out, but they were late every day,” he said.
After last week’s stranding, Amtrak officials looked for procedures they already had to deal with breakdowns like this, Boardman said.
“We found pieces of plans that need to be knit together,” he said.
In the meantime, Amtrak is telling workers to focus on caring for passengers first with a new emphasis on customer service. That effort includes frequent announcements to keep passengers informed and communication and incident response training.
To avoid stranding passengers in a similar situation, Amtrak is keeping a backup train in Washington in the afternoons and will no longer allow trains that can accept passengers to pass disabled trains if passengers need to be transferred. If a train is disabled without heating or cooling, Amtrak said it will now cancel the next scheduled train and use it to rescue passengers.
Maryland Transit Administrator Ralign Wells said state officials are encouraged by Amtrak’s changes in procedure.
“We hope that they continue this level of commitment,” he said.
Maryland Transportation Secretary Beverley Swaim-Staley told the MARC Riders Advisory Council that she is asking Amtrak for daily reports, including on-time performance and explanations for any trains that are more than 15 minutes late, breakdowns of railcars or locomotives and transfers of passengers from one train to another.
“They’re running the service,” Swaim-Staley said. “But we need to be advocates for our passengers.”
Yesterday at the BWI Rail Station in Linthicum, U.S. Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger introduced a proposed federal “Commuter’s Bill of Rights” to protect the safety and comfort of passengers riding mass transit. The proposal would requires public transit operators to:
Provide food, water, restrooms, ventilation, medical services, and critical information to passengers on a disabled train or other form of public transportation.
Give passengers a time frame for when they will be allowed to exit a disabled or delayed vehicle.
Distribute information about how they will be redirected to their final destination in a timely manner.
Submit an emergency plan to the Department of Transportation or face a fine
Establish a hotline for passenger complaints.
“Public transportation must be safe, reliable, convenient, and affordable for it to be effective,” Ruppersberger said in a prepared statement.