New Audit Finds Excessive Work Hours for Rail Employees Pose High Risk to Safety

NEW YORK — A new audit released by the MTA’s Office of Inspector General found that excessive work hours for rail employees pose a high risk to their safety.

The study looked at fatigue that can cause delayed reactions and poor decision making among workers who are not covered by Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) regulations that limit the hours of work allowed for staff railway.

According to the audit released Thursday, many LIRR workers in the engineering department, specifically in the track division, work long hours, often consecutively, which can lead to excessive fatigue and increase the risk of accidents. The audit details that engineering department employees worked 7% of their reported hours at risk of severe fatigue with 20 employees with the most frequent long shifts (all rail employees) working 37% of their assigned hours at risk of severe fatigue. These 20 employees also spent 39% of their hours working 24 hours or more, with 1,055 such shifts.

The OIG study covered an 18-month period ending in June 2022. The OIG studied which groups of LIRR workers tended to work long hours, the factors that increase the number of hours worked in excess, and what the LIRR can do to reduce these hours.

Overall, the study found that 267 track employees worked 24 hours or more on 4,375 occasions. The study also found that an employee worked continuously for 24 hours or more 64 times. Another employee was on duty for 84 consecutive hours on one occasion.

“Fatigued workers put the safety of railroad employees, the public and property at risk, and we must not continue to normalize the situation,” said MTA Acting Inspector General Elizabeth Keating. “The railway administration is also concerned and plans to take constructive steps to vigilantly manage excess working hours.”

To get their point across, the MTA OIG cited a tragic incident that took place in June 2017, in which a track foreman was fatally struck by a passenger train near Queens Village Station. A subsequent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that the work schedules of both the foreman and the watchman prevented them from getting adequate sleep for two consecutive nights before the incident. The FRA found that both were fatigued.

The OIG notes that changing the work environment to reduce excess hours “will be a Herculean task,” as the LIRR has a number of challenges that can prevent these changes, including agency directives, contractual rules, a freeze prior hiring and the consequences of the pandemic leading to low staffing levels.

The FRA recognized the urgency of addressing employee fatigue. The LIRR is currently in the process of developing its fatigue risk program, which it expects to submit to the FRA next month.

In a statement responding to the OIG study, MTA spokesman David Steckel said: “The LIRR will never compromise employee safety and has increased its efforts to reduce excess hours by filling open positions and starting the process to establish a centralized manpower office to better plan and coordinate work shifts. LIRR is always looking for opportunities to work with its union partners to identify opportunities to decrease consecutive hours and improve safety.”