The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), as a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, operates the fifth largest commuter rail in the nation and serves an average of 1.3 Million daily weekday passengers, and 300,000 weekend daily count. The Authority maintains a 270-person Transit Police Department which patrols 145 Transit Stations within five core subway/bus lines, and responds to incidents, having full jurisdiction, among 175 Cities and Towns throughout the Commonwealth.
In the Spring of 2016 the Transit Police Department implemented a strategic patrol plan that aimed to align police patrols with ridership patterns and deploy more resources during periods associated with heightened crime activity. The strategic patrol plan proved to be highly effective and resulted in significant benefits in the form of a 31% reduction in certain crimes and reduced police overtime by 26%. The police department however, sought to make even greater strides by finding innovative ways to reduce operating expenses.
At the time, the Transit Police Emergency Dispatch Center was staffed with highly skilled Transit Police officers that performed the duties of Telecommunicators. The MBTA and Transit Police leadership desired to replace the police officers with qualified and experienced emergency dispatchers, thus freeing-up 15 MBTA Police officers for system-wide duty.
The MBTA hired IXP to provide a managed services solution whereby IXP provides trained, qualified and accredited emergency telecommunicators to operate the Transit Police dispatch center on a 24/7 basis. This solution provides substantial cost savings, integrated levels of service, financial predictability and provides for a net increase of police officers back onto the system. Under this solution, IXP provides:
IXP is providing a solution to the MBTA that delivers considerable cost savings for operating their emergency communications center. IXP now provides trained and certified staff on a 24/7 basis allowing for skilled police officers to return to patrol functions and increases the number of officers on the system. This allows scheduled police staffing levels to remain stable regardless of staffing in the communications center. A fixed cost contract provides the MBTA with long term visibility for budgeting and planning purposes.
Benefits the Transit Authority has received from our Managed Services solution are: