would -- if i may, i would offer to bring both the operating people and myself and the project people to talk about how that will impact. but right now, if the chair pleases, i think it would be better if we stuck to what we have today. i could be much more specific in the future on the central subway. supervisor mar: let me ask it differently. is that line that goes to the missoni center to the caltrain station and into chinatown at washington and stockton, is that considered an extension of the t-line? >> yes, it is. supervisor mar: at some later time, it would be valuable to find out how that may impact the t-line, especially as we're talking about the effectiveness and efficiency of the line. that would be very helpful for

the future. >> it will impacted, and i would be pleased to come back with the project people to talk about that. some of that is part of what we're working on a collaborative lieely right now, looking at hoe maximize the benefit of the system that we have while we extend it. ok, if i may, and again, i just want to recap very quickly on the ridership, because this is some 30,000 boardings a day out of a total of about 150,000 boardings on the subway. my apologies if this does not distinguish between the two. the point is, if you go on the left side, moving towards town, the green ones are people that are getting on. the clear ones are people getting off. the message on this is that as

you look at the line in itself, you have got kind of a bi direction of rush-hour. the green line's are people getting on comic going up first to city college, and then to work. and eventually into town. and the same thing on the other side, people going into the town or coming into work in the morning, and what you see is a lot of people to ingleside going in and in the reverse direction, not a lot of people getting off. although there are some people in the business district. what we wanted to point out here was to say the potential to grow the existing rights -- ridership, and it is a combination of commuters and people going to work, as most of the other lines have as well, as some on and off traffic and the

central business district. the other thing that i think is not reflected accurately in this is the fact that the number of riders the detectives special events over the ballpark. in the corridor itself, the ridership since 2006 in what is covered by the bus lines has increased from 2006 to 2010 by some 12% at the same time that the sister ridership increased at 4 % -- increased at 4% over that time. with a combination of things, we can continue to grow the ridership on this very important line. supervisor cohen: i have a question before we move on. can you explain one more time the designation between these circles, these questions? -- these crescents?

the next slide, please. >> i did not mean to go so fast. the greens are the ons, riders getting on. clears are people getting off. the reason i speak with such confidence about the numbers behind the blogs is this was ridership data that came out of our program. it was developed over a number of years. it was validated. a gives a trend of both specific -- it is down to a stop-buy-stop level. it gives us a snapshot of to is going where, who is getting off at what times, and how that travel patterns influenced. the point i want to make here, because this is the longest line in the system. the running time is 76 minutes. supervisor cohen: how many

minutes? >> 76. so there is not a lot of people that are getting on, say, in the morning at balboa park and then writing to sunny delaware. the line breaks down for ridership -- and then riding down to sunnyvale. what is interesting about this is that it is from a rush-hour perspective, you have got workers, for the most part, and some students, coming in from both the ocean avenue side and from the sunnyvale side, coming into downtown to work in the morning. of course, you have also got various activity coming out of downtown, going down third street and down ocean avenue. but the greater and the river sunday evening. during the mid days, you have got some people getting off. as you can see, on and some of the -- when you go past the ballpark part of it, on the third street site, some folks that are going to the central business district along third

street. supervisor mar: for the audience that is not familiar with the lingo of the mta and muni, tep is the transit effectiveness of project. some of the data that goes into these graphs and other things you're using are based on community meetings, studies, and analysis based on the tep or the transit effectiveness project. >> yes, and my apologies for using an akron that without adequate explanation, but you are right on point. supervisor cohen: i know this is everyday knowledge for you, but you have got to slow down. this is the first time many of us are hearing this information. it is important for us to have this valuation. for a point of clarification about the tep program, you say you collected data. it is a curious to know if the data was disseminated, the questions or disseminated in any

other language, any language other than english? >> if i may, i believe it was. but let me defer the question to julie. >> yes, the tep materials were prepared in english, spanish, and chinese. when we were developing the recommendations, we had workshops across the city providing translation in spanish, english, and chinese. in our visitation valley workshop, we also had mandarin. in our district one workshop, i believe we did just cantonese. supervisor mar: i was at its session at the jewish community center, and a number of consultants held out to make it very multilingual and very sensitive to communities. supervisor cohen: thank you, ok.

>> ok, if i may, the question had been asked of -- what kind of systems have been put in place to work on improving the service? one of the things i wanted to point out, the single biggest customer complaint that we get about this service, in general, but including the rail services is about travel time and why we cannot go faster. interestingly enough, the t- line is, in fact, the fastest line in terms of travel speed. again, i said earlier that the t-line may be a model for the way we design lines. it is faster, even though it has cut congested areas in part, because we have got exclusive right of way.

we have got a signal priorities. it has less stops than the other lines. in fact, while it does have some segments that can slow it down, not just mission rock to folsom in that area that is highly congested threw the ball park, but when you get down on the third straight line, when you clear the bridge, you have the fastest rail travel in the system. i think it was important that one of the things went third street was designed and implemented, part of what we tried to do was to get out of the way of the traffic as best we could. from a travel perspective or travel time perspective, we're headed in the right direction. at the same time, the on-time performance for the t-line is

58%. that is not where we would like to be. and again, part of the reason i walk you through the scope of the line and where people are getting on and off and said it is 76 minutes travel time is some of the biggest issues on on-time performance, for example, we measure it at west portal. the biggest delay on this particular line, on the the k-t line is if we have a gap in service or if there is a train missing or a train is significantly late. normally we try to make an adjustment. when you go from west portal, there is no switch or no physical plant that allows us, beyonce st. francis circle -- so from st. francis circle to balboa, you would not be able to make an adjustment in the train service to put it on time.

that is significant, especially when you look at the bottleneck in the travel, the stock plans -- the stop signs and lights along ocean avenue, that has a significant impact on the on- time performance of the whole line. i think part of the other bottleneck for congestion on on- time performance is the area around fourth and king, not just because of the ballpark, but because we are occasionally impacted by the bridge going up, and some of the congestion that occurs around caltrain and off the freeway. in terms of operating challenges, there are some bottlenecks on that the system from traffic and congestion. there is some flexibility that exists on the third street site, but not on the k-t side in terms of our ability to adjust the service. the biggest operating challenge we have right now, not just on

this line but the whole subway system, is the age and condition of our fleet. i wanted to show you this. this is the last five months of delays. the total delays greater than five minutes is 302. what is significant about that is if you go back to the front, you will see how many trips that is. you'll see the impact of that. what is significant here is if you take of those 302 delays, over 200 --there is one listed as automatic train control, which has to do with the interface between the train control system and the equipment, and those are chiefly responsible for the delays. this is something that is within our control. it is not something that is caused by anything other than

the aged and conditions of our fleet. we purchased the the fleet all at once. beginning in 1997, the cars did not have a midlife overhaul. we want -- we run rail service some 21 hours a day. the level of service has increased, not just for a third street, but over time. we have a number of programs that we're putting in place in terms of overhaul programs. we want to fix some of the lrv's that are wrecked, and we're also introducing a program to do a key component rebuilds. on a typical weekday, we have some 15 delays per day that are caused by problems with our vehicle systems. the principal cause of 40% of those delays have to do with

doors and steps. doors and steps. our equipment is particularly complicated in the sense that it is unique, and when it operates on the surface, it is in full control by the operator, and the doors and steps, except on third street, are low. when you get into the subway, the doors and steps are up by an automatic train control. it is a very complicated system, and it has become, as the equipment has aged, it has become a problem. that is something that we need to get after. we will talk about that in a moment. when we have delays, and i have talked a lot about -- talked to various supervisors in committees about switchback. we provide a monthly letter about switchback as simply a

service management technique that is available to us to try to recover from a delay. we do not have things like express tracks. we do not have the extra cars were we can store trains and plug in if we have delays. if we have a significant delay, what we can do is make an adjustment. the thing i would like to point out, two things to point out. number one, we do switchback a relatively small portion of powertrains, number one. number two, if you look on the box this says off-peak, what that tells us is the overwhelming number of switchbacks occur after the rush hour. so we're trying to get people to and from work and then it rebalance the line. get the trains in the right place. supervisor cohen: can you tell us what the hours are for rush-

hour? >> yes, generally what we consider to be rush-hour is 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in the morning, and the evening is a little bit longer, generally from 4:00 p.m. tuesday 6:30 p.m. or 7:00 p.m., depending on the line -- to say 6:30 p.m. or 7:00 p.m., depending on the line. >> we're talking about the t- line. i am curious to know which one it is, 6:30 p.m. or 7:00 p.m.? >> i would say 7:00 p.m. and one of the things that i also want to point out and go back to is what i was saying earlier about the design, the way that third street was perceived. on third street, there are, on what i described as third street proper, went to get over the bridge, there are four places where we can make switchbacks. that gives us considerably more flexibility in management -- in

managing service than we do have on other lines. that is simply a service management technique, and we do not have a goal with switchbacks. what it tells you is the less switchbacks, and this is what we talked a lot about, the need to do a switchback is a reflection on the quality of service. so the less switchback you have, generally the better the service. that means you do not have delays. you do not have spaces or what we call it gaps in its lines. if a vehicle is supposed to be there every 15 minutes or 10 minutes, it comes. but at the same time, with the collaboration and oversight of your board and its members, we have been able to double-your colleagues and you have done an excellent job of holding as accountable, so that we now have much better defined protocols

for when we do switch frames, we have adjusted signs in the subway to make announcements. no more than five minutes behind it is a train so that passengers are off-loaded and get on a second train. we will continue to follow-up and report on our progress with that. the biggest challenge would switchbacks for us that remains is making sure that we help the operators of the passengers know what is going on as early as possible. we're doing it to the extent we can with signs, but that is an area where we need to continue to emphasize and make improvements. supervisor cohen: i have a question. supervisor mar: please slow down. supervisor cohen has a question. supervisor cohen: thank you. >> i am sorry. i do not have another appointment. i did not want to dominate the time. i am sorry.

supervisor cohen: no, no we invited you here. i have all afternoon. we're in no rush. you talk about switchbacks and how you notified the passengers. how do you notify passengers that do not speak english if your operators only speak english? >> a couple ways. what we did, i guess during the holidays, december-january, because this was something that has been an ongoing problem. what we do is try to use the existing systems, like next muni in the trade patrol system to get real-time information to manage the system. there are two things of significant that have helped us a great deal with switchbacks bit of the first one was in december or january, we finally have the destination sites on the cars, the overhead signs in

the station, and then that woman's voice from new york who comes on and says "next train is coming in two minutes." they are in sync now. that was an ongoing problem for a while. the point of that is not just to notify people, but to try to notify them as early as possible. because sometimes if we make a decision -- say a train is leaving in embarcadero, if we make the decision to switch the train back, we can let people know at embarcadero, so they know that either they are going to be asked to get on it the following train at balboa or 19th avenue, wherever. so that is one thing. the second thing is that we had -- and this has allowed us to monitor and report to you on a monthly basis, the fact that the

biggest complaint about switchbacks was that it put me off my train and i had to wait 10 minutes for another train, and that does not seem right. what we have done since then is that, and we're able to track this with something called the line management center, which is a new real time management technology that we have, for the first time, the ability to see where every train is. so when we make the switch back of a train to adjusted, we're able to see where the second train is. we will not offload a train if there is not a train no more than five minutes apart. the third leg of the stool in this is to have the control center talk to the operator and have the operator, as early as possible and as frequently as possible, make announcements to say this train is going to x, not going all the way. supervisor cohen: i would like

to interject. i understand, and this is a good that it if you speak english. but if i speak cantonese, how my notified? >> again, i think in terms of the languages, that is something that we need to look at. we have done a number of things on an ad hoc basis, special events, to get people out. but i think in terms of on a regular basis, that is something -- i think that is something that i would like to come back and talk a little bit more about what we might be able to do to improve that. supervisor cohen: from this point on, you can continue with your presentation. i will not ask any more questions. i will save them for the end. supervisor mar: that is an

important issue that i would have expected the mta staff to be able to respond to in much more specifics. because how terrible it would be for somebody of limited english- speaking ability to have to deal with that and not know where they are. i really commend supervisor cohen for bringing that up, at the hope that mta comes up with a much better response for that. >> ok, i hear you, and we will be back to you with a specific plan on that. the point i was trying to make was that, i think for the first time, we have got an infrastructure in place, and we have trained ourselves that part of any service management practice is the customer notification goes to the top of the list. not that we're perfect or not that there's not room for improvement. you are smiling, so you would agree that we're perfect? supervisor cohen: i am is smiling because i agree that

you're not perfect and that there is room for improvement. [laughs] be my guest. you can continue. >> ok, are we ready to go back? supervisor cohen: we're ready to go back. >> all right, thank you. the next one is -- well, maybe we're not ready. ok, we had been asked just to generally touch on a safety and security. i will leave this one alone. mr. mason is here if you have questions about that. i would be happy to support him from the service side. but just a quick overview and looking at how our fair inspectors and transit assistance work on the line. in their part of the overall service team.

finally, i think, while we're very pleased with some of the things that are going on, there is, in fact, lots of room for improvement. and i think that, first and foremost, as the data indicates, the single biggest area for improvement would be high and the acceleration of improving the reliability of our vehicles. i am is suggesting a number of things that are in place and we're putting in place, and that is again doors and steps. they are part of a longer-term overhaul program. our feeling is that with the quality of service right now, that we have to a accelerate that program. there is approximately 137 cars

that are active fleet. we need to move to replace the doors and steps and rebuild them within a year, because that will give us the biggest bang for the buck. they represent 40% of our vehicle pleas. second, the next two really have to do with some of the quirks or uniqueness of our system, and that is to put more of what we call mechanics, and you may see them on the platforms during rush hour at places like embarcadero or civic center, but there what we call a mobile response unit. they are people who are very good at supported operators and troubleshooting trains. right now, they're spread too thin throughout the system, and it takes us to long to respond to late. when you have a train every couple of minutes in the subway as we do, it is very important that you make the decision to

take corrective action very quickly and not spend any more than a couple of minutes trying to remedy a train. it is better to try and move a bad train at. we need to look to both our deployment and the numbers of mobile response to the third thing related to that is to support the operators in terms of helping them with things like travel trees or to help with some kind of in-service equipment issue, items number two and three balance that. the other thing we need to do is we are experiencing what i would describe as we are in a catch-up mode in terms of getting back to the number of operators we need, and the most important thing to improve the services to have enough people to get it on the streets. we're moving aggressively with our training program to get operators trained, and we're moving forward on that. the next kind of set of actions that we could take a look at is

to look at places on the line that we talked about that are particularly congested, especially on the ocean avenue side, with the idea -- we have at least two blocks that have more than one stop. in some cases, we got two stop signs. they're there for a reason. we would not do this into a deadly or instinctively. we look into the necessary analysis. but there also locations that we believe can be candidates to help with this. the third thing is, i think that this is not meant to be a universal answer for service issues on rail lines, but the answer to most of our issues, as i have pointed out, has to do with our vehicles. right now, we probably should be scheduling 125 + cars a day.

we only have 114 that we put out, given the cars that we have. we are in the process of doing the best we can to overhaul them, increase those programs, increase the frequency. at the same time, there are not a lot of new cars coming in. the problem is across the rail system, but is mostly on the 30 n-line, and which -- but mostly on n-line. for that reason, last monday week launched the n-express service. during the peak periods, we run limited top -- limited stop or express trains downtown, and then we reverse it in the evening. it is one week, so i would temper my comments with the fact that it is one week. but it has