This past week, I actually saw supervisors checking up on some of the off-peak QM5/6's that are chronically late and people have complained about. The 
may be taking this more seriously now.
Nearly one in three M.T.A. express buses fail to leave stops at their scheduled times, according to an audit released today by city Comptroller Scott Stringer.
The audit, which examined 12 express bus routes from Oct. 2013 to Dec. 2013, found that buses were either too late or too early over 30 percent of the time, resulting in commuter wait times between six and 28 minutes. The audit also revealed insufficient inspection practices for wheelchair lifts on the observed bus lines.
“When one out of every three buses is not on time, it impacts every borough and hits at our city’s economic competitiveness,” Stringer said in a statement.
Staten Island’s X1 and X17 buses were the least reliable of the audited lines, running too late or too early approximately 35.9 percent of the time. Brooklyn’s BM1, X27, and X28 buses missed schedule 33.7 percent of the time, while express routes in Queens and the Bronx missed schedule 32.1 and 20.3 percent of the time, respectively. The majority of these delays occurred during the afternoon rush hour, although Queens saw its largest spike in delays during the morning rush.
Reports of delayed buses make up nearly 40 percent of the M.T.A.’s express bus service complaints, Stringer said.
Express buses also lacked adequate practices for inspecting wheelchair lifts, according to the audit. The M.T.A. requires weekly inspection of wheelchair lifts, but does not have a standardized inspection procedure, resulting in inconsistent practices across bus depots.
The audit only examined 12 of the city’s more than 60 bus routes during a three-month span in 2013. Still, Stringer said the numbers are applicable to current bus patterns.
“I believe the data is as relevant today as it was when we were conducting the audit,” Stringer said in a press conference.
In response to the audit, Stringer’s office advised the M.T.A. to create more reliable bus schedules, create on-time performance standards, and update its policies for wheelchair lift inspection.
M.T.A. spokesperson Adam Lisberg said the agency would comply with Stringer’s recommendation to update wheelchair lift procedures. But Lisberg disputed Stringer’s claim that on-time performance standards would reduce bus delays, stating that the best way to reduce wait time would be to run buses at consistent intervals, rather than to enforce scheduled departure times.
“Our goal with ALL of our buses is to achieve faster travel times, more evenly spaced arrivals, and overall better service for our customers. Buses are scheduled in accordance with MTA Board approved loading guidelines that are based primarily on customer demand. We conduct regular ridership reviews of bus routes to ensure that they operate within guidelines. While we use On-Time Performance (OTP) data internally to assist us in benchmarking our service management and schedule making, OTP is NOT the best measure of the customer experience so we focus more on the evenness of service, or wait assessment. In other words, how long a customer waits for a bus. Wait assessment is what we will continue to focus on, not OTP, because customers generally arrive at their boarding locations at a continuous rate and their primary concern is that we have even service, not if specific buses are meeting their scheduled times. In addition, there are other extraneous factors such as traffic and road conditions that we unfortunately have no control over,” Lisberg wrote in a statement.
Lisberg also pointed to a recent M.T.A. push to inform riders of bus schedules in real time, using mobile devices to tell riders when buses will arrive.
“We also completed a system-wide roll-out of MTA Bus Time in April 2014, which customers now use to get real-time information on every bus and every route on their cell phone, tablet, or computer and save time by going to the stop when they know that a bus is approaching. AND as part of our efforts to actively provide more automated bus information, the MTA has launched a number of initiatives including providing next bus information on our ‘On the Go’ kiosks, NYC Wayfinding machines, intermodal solar powered signs, and is currently working with NYCDOT to install LED/LCD signs providing bus real time information at bus stops,” he wrote.