Starting on Thursday, more than 2,000 station agents will leave their positions in the city’s subway booths, putting an end to a long-standing but no longer necessary part of the city’s transportation network.
According to New York City Transit President Richard Davey on Tuesday, commuters will discover free-roaming service agents outside their kiosks this week to help with a range of customer care needs around the city’s stations. Their responsibilities will include assisting clients in locating their routes, assisting clients with impairments on the underground, and reporting maintenance problems like broken elevators.
The metal and glass enclosures won’t be taken down, according to Davey, but employees are welcome to visit them whenever they choose, even during breaks.
In order to provide customer assistance to all of our underground stations across the system, all 2,200 of our station agents will be permanently outside of the booths, according to Davey, who spoke at a news conference at the Fulton Street station.
Despite the fact that the MetroCard made the primary responsibility of station agents, processing ride tokens, obsolete, they have nevertheless been restricted to booths.
The MetroCard is currently being phased out in favour of OMNY, a payment system that is connected to a credit card or smartphone.
For the shift, which was preview in December with the Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents station agents and other transit workers, workers received additional training.
We want to create a secure atmosphere here, Davey added. Yet, as I’ve already stated, our station cleaners are out every day in the station environment, working, mostly, very safely. It is vital to have police in the stations as well.
In October, Mayor Eric Adams ordered extra police to swarm the public transportation system, which according to officials has significantly reduced crime. According to NYPD statistics released in early March, underground crime has reduced by 19% since the beginning of 2023 when compared to the same period last year.
