Rhode Island

Audit faults MBTA for CharlieCard misuse by transit ambassadors • Rhode Island Current

Published

3 months ago

July 8, 2024

Audit faults MBTA for CharlieCard misuse by transit ambassadors • Rhode Island Current

BOSTON — The MBTA knew as early as 2019 that some of its transit ambassadors were using agency-issued CharlieCards for personal use, but the transit authority has failed to address the problem, according to a new state audit.

The ambassadors, who work for a private contractor that operates under the name Block By Block, help passengers buy tickets and navigate stations and also serve as the T’s eyes and ears monitoring safety hazards and maintenance needs inside the subway system.

“The MBTA should hold Block By Block accountable for inappropriate use of these cards,” said the report from Auditor Diana DiZoglio’s office.

The report also found that the T could not verify that ambassadors were fully trained before assuming their posts and that spot checks of station infrastructure (elevators, escalators, and other equipment) were not being conducted at agreed-upon twice-per-hour intervals.

The audit — covering the two-year period from January 1, 2021, to December 31, 2022 – was released on Sunday, which is unusual. A spokesman for the auditor’s office said the audit was released over the weekend to reduce overlap with another audit or audits scheduled to be released this week.

According to the audit, the problem of ambassadors abusing T passes first surfaced in April 2019, when the MBTA decided to replace CharlieCards assigned to specific stations with passes assigned to individual transit ambassadors.

In a communication at the time to transit ambassadors and Block By Block, the T said the change was needed because there had been a significant increase in what it called “courtesy taps” with the CharlieCards and not all taps were being reported. The communication also reiterated that the CharlieCards were to be used for work only and their use would be closely monitored.

Three months later, the MBTA shifted gears and went back to the system of assigning cards to stations and not individuals, in part because high turnover of transit ambassadors made it difficult to track card usage.

Nevertheless, the audit said, the three-month experiment “revealed signs of misuse of the courtesy taps (e.g., BBB employees letting people in for free and cards being used at locations not covered by those employees).”

At the end of the two-year audit period on December 31, 2022, the problem had not gone away. The audit said the station-based cards were used for more than 2.5 million taps over the two years, but only 669,547, or 27 percent, were reported by transit ambassadors along with specific reasons for the taps.

“Failure to properly record courtesy taps, at a rate of $2.40 per transaction, increases the risk for significant lost revenue,” the audit said. “Our analysis also identified 83,990 instances where these fare access cards were used at different MBTA locations than the ones where the cards were assigned. In 445 of these instances, the fare access cards were used on an MBTA bus, indicating a high probability that the card was used for personal use.”

Transit ambassadors reported that they used their passes to let riders into the subway system in many instances because of problems with passenger gates, faulty fare passes, and mixups involving riders unfamiliar with the system.

But the cards were also used to let in members of the military (48,038 taps), customers experiencing homelessness (75,532 taps), customers who didn’t have enough money for the fare (92,492 taps), and for station checks (113,295).

The audit included a response from the MBTA, which disputed the suggestion that ambassadors were tapping in customers and costing the T significant fare revenue.. The T said many of the taps not reported by ambassadors were related to infrastructure checks, mostly for elevator inspections. The agency also said the CharlieCards are secured in station booths and instances where passes are being used “at an abnormally high rate” are investigated by the T’s fraud department.

The audit, however, said the T’s deputy director of fraud detection and analytics revealed that his team does not monitor courtesy taps. The audit also said on-site monitoring of ambassadors indicated the passes are not confined to a station booth but typically carried by the ambassadors themselves.

The audit urged the T to set a specific threshold for courtesy taps that, if exceeded, would trigger an investigation.

“It is also important to investigate instances that exceed the established threshold or when station-assigned fare access cards are used at locations other than where they are assigned,” the audit said. “For example, as part of our data analysis, we noted that on December 31, 2022, one station-assigned fare access card was used 40 times at the Orient Heights station when it was assigned to the Wood Island station. The use of this pass 40 times in one day in a station where it was not assigned—and certainly not secured in the station booth—and the MBTA’s response to this issue indicates a lack of monitoring and control and a lack of awareness by MBTA management about how its operations are being conducted.”

This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Source link

Click to comment

Rhode Island

Connecticut’s Pratt & Whitney gets $1.3B contract for F135 engine upgrades • Rhode Island Current

Published

7 hours ago

October 1, 2024

Press Room

Connecticut’s Pratt & Whitney gets .3B contract for F135 engine upgrades • Rhode Island Current

This story was originally published in Connecticut Mirror, a content partner with Rhode Island Current. Read the original version here.

The U.S. Department of Defense awarded a $1.3 billion contract to Pratt & Whitney late Monday, giving a major boost to a program that will modernize the engines used in military fighter jets and help protect jobs in Connecticut as well as around the country.

The contract for the F135 Engine Core Upgrade Propulsion System comes months after the East Hartford-based company was named the sole provider of the engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program for at least another seven years.

It will provide support to the RTX-owned company related to design, analysis, testing and product support planning surrounding the upgrades to the fighter jet program for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Navy and “non-Department of Defense cooperative program partners.”

Pratt & Whitney noted the F135 program has supported tens of thousands of jobs across 43 states, which includes Connecticut as well as others in the region like Maine. More than 700 engineers and program managers work full-time on the program, according to the company.

A little more than half of the work will happen in East Hartford, with much smaller percentages in Middletown and Windsor Locks, according to the Pentagon. The department estimated work on the upgrades to wrap up around March 2028. The remainder of the work will be performed in Maine, Indiana, Florida, Illinois and Puerto Rico.

“This contract is critical to continuing our positive forward momentum on this program,” Jill Albertelli, president of Pratt & Whitney’s Military Engines business, said in a statement. “It allows us to continue work in the risk reduction phase with a fully staffed team focused on design maturation, aircraft integration, and mobilizing the supply base to prepare for production.”

As one of Connecticut’s biggest manufacturers, Pratt & Whitney has been producing the engine used by Lockheed Martin’s F-35 aircraft since it was awarded the Pentagon contract more than two decades ago. The company has its headquarters in East Hartford with a facility in Middletown as well as a supply chain that consists of about 100 suppliers. About 11,000 people are employed between the East Hartford and Middletown facilities.

U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, said 38 of those suppliers are in his Hartford-based district. Larson and others in Connecticut’s congressional delegation have worked on the issue for years, which he said in a past interview spanned multiple presidents and four U.S. senators from Connecticut.

Last year, the Air Force decided against continuing the competition to find an alternative to the fighter jet engine. President Joe Biden had also signaled his support for the modernization of the F135 engines in his 2024 budget proposal.

Competitors like General Electric had wanted to open up competition for a replacement engine for the F-35. Both GE and Pratt & Whitney received contracts in 2016 as part of the Advanced Engine Technology Program to develop prototypes. But the expected costs associated with a new program complicated the Air Force’s plans.

That enabled Pratt & Whitney to be the sole provider of the F135 engines. At the end of 2023, the Defense Department announced it would give the Connecticut-based company multiple follow-on contracts to extend the company’s work on the program.

“We know that usually investments in industry — and they are our largest manufacturer — have a 4-1 payback in terms of what it does for the economy,” Larson, who is the co-chair of the bipartisan Joint Strike Fighter Caucus, said in an interview last year following news of the Air Force ending the search for an F135 replacement. He said at the time it could “mean additional employment opportunities” to meet the new demand.

Following the announcement of the billion-dollar contract this week, Jeff Shockey, senior vice president of RTX Global Government Relations, cited the work of key federal appropriators in both chambers of Congress on the issue: U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Last year, DeLauro touted her work as the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee in securing funding for the F135 engine. She also noted that Pratt & Whitney “reduced the cost of the F135 engine by 50% since production began while improving performance to twice its original specifications for years.”

“We are fortunate to have bipartisan and bicameral support from our congressional advocates, especially the Connecticut and Maine delegations led by senior appropriators Sen. Susan Collins and Rep. Rosa DeLauro,” Jeff Shockey, senior vice president of RTX Global Government Relations, said in a statement. “Their steadfast commitment to the F135 ensures it will deliver critical capabilities for decades to come.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

Source link

Rhode Island

Two RI schools and two players are recognized in weekly football announcements; who they are

Published

15 hours ago

October 1, 2024

Press Room

Two RI schools and two players are recognized in weekly football announcements; who they are

Two of the state’s college football teams found their names on FCS poll ballots this week.

The University of Rhode Island continued to climb in the rankings despite a bye week. Brown used contributions by a pair of Ivy League award winners to take a place just outside the national elite.

The Rams check in at No. 20 ahead of their weekend trip to Hampton. The Bears are among teams receiving votes after a Saturday thriller with Harvard.

URI needed a late Malik Grant rushing touchdown — his third of the game — to outlast Long Island entering its time off. The Rams improved to 3-1 overall and 3-0 against FCS foes. They’ll be back in Coastal Athletic Association action against the Pirates before a Governor’s Cup meeting against Brown set for Oct. 12 at Meade Stadium.

More: How will NIL affect Rhode Island Division I college teams? Here’s what local leaders say

More: This just in … college football success is all about the quarterback

The Bears rallied for a signature win against Harvard, their first against the Crimson since 2010. Brown pounced on an errant field-goal snap in the final minute and Jake Willcox threw a touchdown pass to Mark Mahoney with 21 seconds left to cap a 31-28 classic. Willcox fired all three of his scoring strikes in the second half, the last two to Mahoney deep in the fourth quarter.

Elias Archie and Matt Childs were key for the Bears while erasing a 21-3 deficit, and they were honored Monday as a result. Archie picked up conference Defensive Player of the Week honors while Childs earned a Rookie of the Week selection. Both made critical plays on either side of halftime.

Archie’s interception and return to the Harvard 1 set up Brown’s opening touchdown late in the second quarter, as Nate Lussier crashed in on a direct snap. Childs caught a 75-yard bomb from Willcox down the middle for a score in the third quarter, escaping out of the backfield and eluding downfield coverage. The Bears moved to 2-0 entering an in-state home matchup with Bryant on Saturday.

URI is one of four CAA teams ranked this week, joining No. 6 Villanova, No. 12 William & Mary and No. 21 New Hampshire. Richmond, Stony Brook and Monmouth are all receiving votes outside the top 25. Brown and Dartmouth are the only two Ivy teams that appeared on ballots this week, with both the Bears and Big Green off to 2-0 starts.

bkoch@providencejournal.com

On X: @BillKoch25

Source link

Rhode Island

Bicyclist critically injured in Smithfield crash; driver facing DUI charge

Published

22 hours ago

October 1, 2024

Press Room

Bicyclist critically injured in Smithfield crash; driver facing DUI charge

A bicyclist was struck by a car Sunday in Smithfield, Rhode Island, by a suspected drunk driver.

Smithfield police tell NBC10 Boston affiliate WJAR that they responded to a crash involving a bicycle and a car on 135 Pleasant View Ave. around 8:35 p.m.

The 65-year-old bicyclist sustained critical injuries and was taken to Rhode Island Hospital.

The driver, identified as 38-year-old Lance Nicoletti, smelled of alcohol and allegedly failed a field sobriety test at the scene, WJAR reports. He was later arrested and charged with driving under the influence of liquor or drugs resulting in serious bodily injury and driving to endanger resulting in personal injury.

Nicoletti was arraigned and given $15,000 surety bail on the charges in this cause, however he was held without bail as a violator in a separate case, according to WJAR. Attorney information wasn’t immediately available.

Source link