October tested the patience of Portland area MAX riders like no other month in recent memory.

If it seemed like you were waiting longer than usual for MAX trains to arrive at the station last month, you were (if they even showed up).

The on-time performance of MAX service fell off a cliff in October, according to statistics posted on TriMet's "Performance Dashboard" website.

In September, light-rail trains in the Portland area arrived on schedule about 83 percent of the time. In October, however, that basic metric of public transit plummeted to 74 percent of the time. (In other words, on average, more than a quarter of the agency's light-rail trains were either late or didn't show.)

During the same month in 2011, however, the on-time performance was 88 percent.

So what happened?

Blame a couple nasty train-versus-auto crashes on the tracks, a window washer's stray rope and a legion of inexperienced train operators.

"Remember that SUV that crashed into a support pole for our overhead wires on October 26?" said TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt. "That blocked MAX service in Gresham for more than six hours and did lead to train delays."

There were also Oct. 10, when there two incidents that essentially froze large sections fo the MAX system from 10:00 a.m. through the evening peak – about eight hours total. "Both incidents were out of our control," Altstadt said.

First a window washer dropped a rope onto the catenary wire near Old Town as a train rolled underneath. The train’s pantograph became caught up in the rope and broke.

Then, about two and a half hours later, a semi turning off of North Interstate Avenue pulled into the path Yellow Line train that collided with the huge rig.

There was also the BMW that took out the TransitTracker system in the Rose Quarter.



But some of the blame for the MAX's shockingly bad on-time performance falls in October on Oregon's largest transit agency.

In the past two years, Altstadt said, TriMet has had to add a number of new operators due to attrition and the Portland Streetcar's expansion. In fiscal year 2011, for example, the agency hired 15 new bus operators. But in fiscal year 2012, which ended June 30, TriMet hired 146 bus operators.

Light-rail operators must put in time on bus lines before moving to MAX service.

"We've had about 20 percent of our rail operators having less than 12 months of seniority," Altstadt explained. "Additionally, there were another 10 operators who went to rail and operated for a time, but for one reason or another, went back to operating buses."

A vehicle is considered "on time" if it departs a scheduled point no more than one minute early and no more than five minutes late.

An influx of new employees creates a significant learning curve felt through the entire system, Altstadt said. In addition to piloting trains, the rookie rail operators must learn the signals and how to time the interlocks, she said.

"All of this impacts (on-time performance) because it not only effects their own train operation, but it can also impact other trains on the alignment," Altstadt said. "As they gain more experience, we typically see the OTP numbers come back up."

The performance of buses also dragged a bit.

Of course, given that westside MAX service was knocked out for 16 hours after a BMW plunged from a highway ramp into the Sunset Transit Center two weeks ago, November's on-time performance average probably won't look pretty either.

(What is it with BMW's and MAX stations these days?)

Meanwhile, according to TriMet's dashboard site, bus crashes are on the rise again as are MAX's per-rider operating costs. No explanation was given for those trends.

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