NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- Satisfaction among daily users of New York City's subways and buses is waning just as the nation's biggest mass-transit provider seeks to boost ridership and revenue.
About 52% of subway customers surveyed in early November said they were satisfied overall with the system, down from 56% of riders polled in May, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city's subways, buses and commuter rails.
The dip in confidence comes from riders who use the system five to seven days a week. Such frequent users are more likely to come across people behaving erratically or individuals without housing, two key issues that customers cite as what needs to improve on the subway, according to the latest survey.
"The more regularly you ride, the more likely you're going to have someone disrupting one of your trips," Jon Kaufman, the MTA's chief of strategic initiatives, said Monday while presenting the survey results during a committee meeting of the agency's subways and buses.
While overall customer satisfaction has diminished, riders are more at ease on the subway following a post-pandemic trend of violent incidents on the system. About 54% of those surveyed felt safe on the trains, up from 50% in May and 38% in June 2022. In subway stations, 51% of customers polled felt safe, up from 48% in May and 34% in June 2022.
The MTA's biannual customer survey was conducted between Nov. 6 and Nov. 20, before two subway derailment incidents occurred in the same week earlier this month. One accident involved two trains colliding at a slow speed, resulting in 23 people with minor injuries and disrupting subway service.
The MTA aims to increase overall transit satisfaction to 70% in 2024, Rich Davey, head of the agency's subways and buses, said during Monday's meeting.
"We're laser-focused on delivering on that," Davey said.
MTA officials are also seeking to boost the subway's on-time performance rate to 84.6% in 2024. Last year, the subway's average weekday on-time performance rate was 82.9%, the highest in more than 10 years, according to MTA data.
The system needs more riders as the MTA's future budgets rely on an increase in farebox revenue. The subway serves about 3.5 million weekday trips, or 70% of pre-pandemic ridership. The MTA is also working to reduce fare evasion, which increased since the pandemic and costs the agency nearly $700 million a year in lost revenue.
