MTA LIRR Mean Distance Between Failures: Rail Fleet Reliability from 2015

Mean Distance Between Failures (MDBF) metrics for the Long Island Rail Road fleet, measuring miles traveled before a mechanical failure causes a significant delay. The data is provided by data.ny.gov and was last updated on 2026-05-15. It includes monthly records beginning in 2015, tracking failures against reliability goals.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in mechanical reliability over time using the Month and MDBFValue columns.
• Compare actual performance against targets by analyzing MDBFValue against the MDBF Goal column.
• Assess failure rates across different fleet types using the FleetType and No. of Primary Failures columns.
• Calculate aggregate reliability metrics for owned fleets using the Fleet Owned and MDBFValue columns.

Strengths

• Includes a clear operational metric (MDBF) with a defined threshold of a 5 minute and 59 second delay.
• Provides comparative data through the MDBF Goal column for benchmarking.
• Offers longitudinal data beginning in 2015, allowing for trend analysis.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

data.ny.gov

Collection Method

Likely collected from operational maintenance and delay reporting systems.

Time Range

Beginning 2015

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-15 15:21:09; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Long Island Rail Road service area, New York, USA