MBTA officials will pay its troubled commuter rail operator at least $66 million more over the next six years — and $15 million more this year — to run and maintain more trains, a costly move they say is necessary to deal with rampant canceled and delayed service.

The proposal, approved by the MBTA Fiscal Management and Control Board yesterday with little public discussion, comes as commuters are facing higher fares — up as much as 10 percent — on the network of lines snaking into Boston.

Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack said the current $2.68 billion contract, under which Keolis Commuter Services is due $327 million this fiscal year alone, “was not producing the performance that we wanted.”

“We are convinced that without investing more money … we’re not going to see the performance that we think our customers deserve,” she said. “These proposals to the board are the staff’s way of saying that we think the best bet is to double down on our relationship with Keolis.”

Keolis’ first two years of running the MBTA’s commuter rail system has been marked by a number of financial issues. The MBTA has hit Keolis with repeated fines for delays, and the French company reported a net loss of roughly $30 million in 2015 alone.

“For the time being, we are still in the red, but we are absolutely dedicated to turn this business around,” said Franck Dubourdieu, Keolis’ deputy general manager. “And it looks like we have the support of the MBTA. … What we are here trying to do is to bring the service to a higher standard.”

State data shows Keolis has improved in delivering more on-time trains since the disastrous 2015 winter — save for last month, when in the wake of the planned overhaul of its train schedules, just 87 percent of its trains were on time, its worst month in the last year.

But MBTA officials will now pay Keolis $11 million more a year over the last six years of its contract to take on more work. The extra costs, which the T would pay out of its operating budget, would cover:

• Adding nine more locomotives and 12 more coaches the MBTA already owns to the daily fleet Keolis operates, at a cost of $4.2 million;

• Spending $3.7 million for Keolis to perform more maintenance work on the system’s newest locomotives;

• And an estimated $3.1 million the T contractually owes Keolis for changing its schedules.

In addition, the T is also planning to pay Keolis another $4.3 million this year out of capital funds — pushing this year’s added cost to $15.3 million — to pay for a pilot program to staff Keolis maintenance workers seven days a week, up from the current five-day schedule.

The T, for the second year, also plans to pay an extra $5 million to beef up staffing on some of its lines, though that’s covered solely by the fines it’s hit Keolis with since 2014.

In what Pollack called a “carrot-and-stick approach,” the T under the proposal would also be able to impose a number of new fines, up to a combined $1.8 million a year, if Keolis fails to deliver despite the increased payments.

Keolis won its eight-year commuter rail contract in 2014, beating out the former operator, the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co., by offering to do the work for far less. T officials noted that under MBCR’s proposal, it would have been paid $350 million this year, or $23 million more than it’s paying Keolis before the proposed changes.