The MTA is considering installing new technology that will alert officials if a rider ends up on the subway tracks, the agency’s chief said today.
Called “intrusion detection,” the system would use sensors to determine if someone is in danger of getting hit by a train — which would sent off alarms at the Rail Control Center, who can tell subway operators to slow down.
Another option is to install a flashing light on the platform that would notify riders, MTA employees, and subway operators that someone is on the track, said acting MTA chief Thomas Prendergast.
He also panned the $1 billion idea — suggested by politicians — that the MTA install sliding doors throughout the system that separate riders from the subway tracks.
“There are technological issues we would need to overcome,” he said at the MTA’s transit committee meeting yesterday.
Those issues include retrofitting platforms in the century-old system and finding doors that could accommodates the several different types of subway trains in use.
However, the MTA is moving forward with plans to install sliding doors at one L train station as part of a pilot program.
“What we know we can do, we can focus efforts right now on changing customer behavior,” he said.
That includes an expanded safety campaign warning people to stay away from the tracks.
In February, every single subway car will have a poster telling people to “stand back!”
Those posters will remind riders that 141 people were hit by trains in 2012 and urge them “not to become a statistic.”
That number includes people who were struck by a train while on the platform.
Over a third — 38 percent — of people hit by subways last year tripped and fell.
Thirty-three people — 23 percent — were hit after intentionally jumping onto the track for things like trespassing or retrieving dropped property.
Another 33 people were hit in a suicide or attempted suicided.
Other causes include leaning over the platform edge — six percent — and medical condition that leads to falling onto tracks or into train, which happened three percent of the time.
Two percent of people fell between subway cars.
Here’s the annual breakdown of injuries and deaths from riders who come in contact with trains:
2001 – 110 incidents, 31 deaths
2002 – 136 incidents, 46 deaths
2003 – 188 incidents, 37 deaths
2004 – 158 incidents, 35 deaths
2005 – 151 incidents, 44 deaths
2006 – 109 incidents, 38 deaths
2007 – 110 incidents, 55 deaths
2008 – 107 incidents, 34 deaths
2009 – 136 incidents, 49 deaths
2010 – 127 incidents, 51 deaths
2011 – 146 incidents, 47 deaths
2012 – 141 incidents, 55 deaths