(The following article by Michael Lavitt was posted on the Trenton Times website on February 14.)
TRENTON, N.J. — NJ Transit had another down month in December as on- time performance fell below that of December 2004.
Overall, 93.3 percent of NJ Transit’s trains were on time in December, compared with 94.6 percent a year earlier. On the Northeast Corridor, 89.1 percent of trains were on time, versus 90.7 percent the previous December.
Peak-hour trains didn’t fair as well this past December as those that run off-peak or on weekends. That’s normal, because since there are more trains running closer together at peak hours and a delay on one usually ripples through the system to affect others.
The corridor also fairs worse than other lines for a couple of reasons. One is that four other NJ Transit lines feed into it at one point or another. Perhaps more importantly, Amtrak, not NJ Transit, controls the corridor and frequently gives preference to its intercity trains to keep them on schedule.
System-wide, 90.1 percent of peak-hour NJ Transit trains were on time, versus 83.8 percent on the Northeast Corridor, NJ Transit’s most heavily traveled line. Off-peak trains had an on-time performance of 94.9 percent system-wide, while on the corridor 91.3 percent were on time. Weekend trains were on time 94.1 percent of the time, while on the corridor 92.3 percent were on time.
NJ Transit spokesman Ken Hitchner cited a few incidents that hurt the corridor’s peak-hour performance: problems at Portal Bridge on Dec. 8, bad weather on Dec. 9, an overhead wire problem at the same bridge on Dec. 17 and a stalled Amtrak train near New York Penn Station on Dec. 20.
NJ Transit considers a train on time if it reaches its final destination within 5 minutes, 59 seconds of the time on the schedule.