New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has unveiled the first electric vehicles to join the Access-A-Ride paratransit fleet. The pilot, which includes 15 electric vans and costs approximately $3 million, has begun making trips throughout the five city boroughs.
“Just in time for Earth Day, Paratransit is getting greener in another example of our commitment to reduce the emissions by updating facilities, transitioning fleets and using energy efficiently,” says New York City Transit President Richard Davey. “Access-A-Ride customers demanded reliable service that gets them where they needed to go faster, and our Paratransit team continues to deliver with improved on-time performance and lower wait times.”
“Between this electric vehicle and the wheelchair securement system we debuted last year, our customers are seeing constant improvements being made to Access-A-Ride,” adds MTA New York City Transit Vice President of Paratransit Chris Pangilinan. “That shows in the growth of our customer satisfaction, which hit a record high of 79% in March 2024 as ridership grew 15.3% compared to March 2023, with most days above pre-COVID levels.”
In March 2024, Access-A-Ride set a record for booked trips for a seven-day period. Between March 8 and March 14, Access-A-Ride logged a record 213,512 booked trips. The record high included 36,469 booked trips for Wednesday, March 13 alone. This achievement builds on a strong 2023 in which Access-A-Ride saw on-time performance at an all-time high and wait times plummet. Booked trips on an average weekday have increased from 31,500 per day to 33,800 per day in March.
Between July 2023 and March 2024, MTA Paratransit cut its call answer times from 50 seconds down to 15.