February 27, 2007
BLAMING THE VICTIMS
NB: Following the publication of this article, it was brought to my attention that the numbers I was using were totally misassigned and not at all representative of the actual statistics released by the MTA. Also, I was unfair in implying that the MTA was attempting to deflect blame for service delays to riders themselves. Please see APOLOGIES TO THE MTA. BOO ON THE SUN, 2/27/07, for apologies, clarification, and extended griping.
Ah, the beautiful uses of selective statistics and their release with no context by which to evaluate them! One has to love it. A good example can be seen in today's New York Sun, although I have to say I'm surprised they ran what is essentially an MTA press release with little critical analysis. The paper's normally better than that. The article in question is titled 'Delays by Rowdy Riders Soar on Subway Delays'. It's short, so I'll just give you the three paragraphs in their entirety:
Unruly riders on subway trains were among the top causes of train delays last December, new statistics from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority show.
A 45% increase in delays caused by customers who got into verbal or physical altercations on the trains brought December's total up to 313 incidents from an average of 195 per month in 2006. [First off, comparing a single month's delays versus a year's monthly average is fairly meaningless. A meaningful comparison would compare December 2006 with December 2005.]
"Accounting for the rise would take a sociologist," an MTA spokesman, Charles Seaton, said. Track work was the number one cause of delays, followed by signal trouble, guard light malfunctions, and sick passengers. Unruly riders ranked eighth.
It's the last line that is laughable. Subway delays for the month of December were up 61% from the monthly average and the one figure that MTA's spokesman releases to the press is the eighth-ranked cause of delays? Mathematically speaking, if overall delays are up 61% and customer-caused delays were up 43%, there must have been another category or categories that were a much more significant contributors to the increase. Why break out that one category? Because then the MTA can blame riders for the hardships they themselves are enduring.
I did some back-of-the-envelope figuring and am betting that since there were 313 delays in December 2006 and customer disruption was only the 8th-ranked contributor, that category probably grew from 22 to 32 incidents* (a 46% increase). I guess the MTA figures that ten additional incidents by customers are worth blaming for an abysmal individual-over-average monthly comparison.
This is speculation of course. I searched high and low and couldn't find any press release mentioning these statistics or how they broke down by category. I contacted the MTA earlier today about the numbers, but the fact that there is a ready link to make a Freedom of Information Act request on the MTA's site does not augur well.
*Originally, I wrote that customer-caused delays likely would have increased from seven to ten. That is based on customer-caused delays being the 8th-ranked source of increase, not overall incidents. That makes no sense as I was then figuring the increase in increase. The current figures reflect the increase of customer-caused delays as portion of total delays.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at February 27, 2007 4:12 PM
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