The City of New York Office of the Comptroller
Bureau of Management Audit

Audit Report on Vendor Contracts with New York City Transit to Provide Access-A-Ride Services

ME09-078A
July 28, 2009

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

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This audit determined whether the New York City Transit Authority (NYCT) adequately monitored Access-A-Ride vendors’ compliance with certain key contract provisions.  Access-A-Ride provides door-to-door transportation for people with disabilities who are unable to use public bus or subway service.  Service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week (including holidays), throughout the five boroughs.  While NYCT’s Paratransit Division administers the Access-A-Ride program, private carriers under contract with NYCT provide the service.  During Calendar Year 2008, NYCT contracted with 14 private companies.  (Contracts with three of these vendors were not renewed by NYCT for Calendar Year 2009.)  In Calendar Year 2008, the total cost of the program for the 14 carriers was $242.8 million for approximately 5 million completed trips.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

The audit concluded that 6.3 percent of the 5.8 million assigned trips were no-shows. Otherwise, NYCT generally monitored the compliance of its Access-A-Ride vendors with certain key contract provisions.  Our review of on-time performance reports generated by the ADEPT system found that these reports were generally accurate.  We reviewed 448 trips for 50 routes and found that although vendor-recorded vehicle-arrival times, driver-recorded arrival times, and automatic vehicle locator system-recorded arrival times varied, the times were sufficiently similar so as not to affect the calculation of on-time performance.  We also found that Access-A-Ride drivers had valid licenses that authorized them to drive Access-A-Ride vehicles.  Furthermore, Access-A-Ride carriers were ensuring that its drivers complied with Article 19-A regulations. 

However, NYCT’s monitoring of no-shows reported by Access-A-Ride vendors had significant deficiencies.  The 14 NYCT Access-A-Ride vendors had 362,587 no-shows in Calendar Year 2008, or 6.3 percent of the 5.8 million assigned trips during this period.   While NYCT identified instances of vendors incorrectly classifying contractor no-shows as either customer no-shows or no-fault no-shows, the agency is not able to specify the number of no-shows reviewed and the percentages that were misclassified because it does not adequately document its reviews.  Consequently, neither NYCT nor we could determine the extent to which no-shows were misclassified and whether the instances identified were indicative of a much larger problem.  By not ensuring that vendors accurately report the number of contractor no-shows, NYCT may be allowing vendors to provide an inflated view of their performance, resulting in NYCT not being able to determine whether contractors are receiving incentive payments they are not entitled to, or avoiding penalties for which they are liable.

Finally, although NYCT tracks customer complaints against Access-A-Ride vendors and has procedures in place to investigate and respond to those complaints, there is insufficient evidence that the agency regularly discusses complaint trends with each vendor or that vendors take corrective action to address identified problems.  Consequently, opportunities to reduce customer complaints—and improve customer service—appear not to be consistently used by NYCT.
               
Audit Recommendations

                To address these issues, the audit recommends that NYCT:

• Prepare written guidelines to ensure that no-shows are reviewed in a systematic and consistent manner.

• Enhance its monitoring of no-shows to ensure that each vendor is reviewed continually. 

• Include the total number of no-shows that are reviewed in its no-show reconciliation-review reports so that the error rates for vendor no-show classifications can be determined.

• More closely monitor analysts’ no-show reviews to ensure that questionable no-show classifications by vendors are adequately identified and reclassified.

• Ensure that its contract managers more effectively utilize complaint-tracking data by discussing negative trends with vendors and requiring them to take necessary action to correct the identified problems.

• Ensure that its contract managers more clearly document their discussions with vendors on performance issues.

Agency Response

                NYCT did not provide a formal response to this report.