Rail transit breakdowns: major mechanical failures by agency, 2022 to 2025
US heavy rail, light rail, streetcar and commuter rail systems reported 14,633 major mechanical failures in 2025, or 12.3 per million vehicle revenue miles, down from 13.4 in 2022.
Key numbers
- 14,633Major mechanical failures reported on US heavy rail, light rail, streetcar and commuter rail in 2025, over 1,192 million vehicle revenue milesSource: FTA National Transit Database, report year 2025
- 12.3Major failures per million vehicle revenue miles across those systems in 2025, against 13.4 in 2022Source: FTA National Transit Database, 2022 and 2025
- 95.0Light rail major failures per million train revenue miles in 2025, against 68.9 for heavy rail and 29.5 for commuter railSource: FTA National Transit Database, 2025
- 176.3Highest rate among the 19 light rail systems with at least 1 million vehicle revenue miles in 2025: Pittsburgh Regional TransitSource: FTA National Transit Database, 2025
Failures by type of rail
A major mechanical failure, in the National Transit Database, is a failure of some mechanical part of a revenue vehicle that stops it from completing a scheduled trip, or from starting the next one, because its movement is limited or because of safety concerns. In 2025 the 89 heavy rail, light rail, streetcar and commuter rail systems that report breakdowns logged 14,633 of them over 1,192 million vehicle revenue miles.
Measured per vehicle revenue mile, light rail's rate of 46.0 was 5.0 times the heavy rail rate of 9.3. Much of that gap comes from train length. For rail, NTD counts vehicle revenue miles per passenger car, and in 2025 heavy rail trains averaged 7.4 cars against 2.2 for light rail and 6.0 for commuter rail. Per train revenue mile, which does not depend on how many cars a train has, the gap narrows to 1.4 times (95.0 for light rail against 68.9 for heavy rail). Streetcars, which mostly run single cars, had 127.6 major failures per million vehicle revenue miles.
| Mode | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | Per million train revenue miles, 2025 | Major failures, 2025 | Vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Systems reporting, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy rail | 10.6 | 9.0 | 7.4 | 9.3 | 68.9 | 6,534 | 704.5 million | 16 |
| Light rail | 51.1 | 37.9 | 42.4 | 46.0 | 95.0 | 5,550 | 120.7 million | 22 |
| Streetcar | 143.0 | 115.0 | 117.3 | 127.6 | 127.7 | 770 | 6.0 million | 24 |
| Commuter rail | 4.6 | 4.9 | 5.0 | 4.9 | 29.5 | 1,779 | 361.1 million | 27 |
| All four rail modes | 13.4 | 11.0 | 10.6 | 12.3 | 66.1 | 14,633 | 1,192.2 million | 89 |
Are breakdowns getting less common?
Across all four rail modes the rate went from 13.4 major failures per million vehicle revenue miles in 2022 to 11.0 in 2023 and 10.6 in 2024, then rose to 12.3 in 2025: down 8.2% over the four years, but up on the year before. A few systems have figures FTA marked as questionable in some years, which changes the mix from year to year. Counting only the 84 systems with usable figures in both 2022 and 2025, the rate went from 13.3 to 11.7, down 11.7%.
Light rail systems, 2025
Among the 19 light rail systems with at least 1 million vehicle revenue miles in 2025, Pittsburgh Regional Transit (Pittsburgh, PA) had the highest rate, 176.3 major failures per million vehicle revenue miles, and METRO (Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas) had the lowest, 11.6.
Source: Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database, 2022 - 2025 Annual Data - Breakdowns. Full agency names are in the table below.
| Rank | System | City | Major failures, 2025 | Vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million train revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh Regional Transit | Pittsburgh, PA | 291 | 1.7 million | 176.3 | 227.8 | 222.6 | 221.0 | 167.6 |
| 2 | MTA (Maryland Transit Administration) | Baltimore, MD | 389 | 2.5 million | 155.3 | flagged | 123.5 | flagged | flagged |
| 3 | New Jersey Transit Corporation | Newark, NJ | 356 | 2.7 million | 133.2 | 202.2 | 134.9 | 85.9 | 67.2 |
| 4 | San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency | San Francisco, CA | 605 | 5.6 million | 108.7 | 200.6 | 248.8 | 163.2 | 120.1 |
| 5 | Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority | Boston, MA | 704 | 6.8 million | 102.8 | 200.6 | flagged | flagged | 119.8 |
| 6 | Sacramento RT | Sacramento, CA | 337 | 3.7 million | 91.0 | 181.0 | 87.9 | 109.0 | 92.1 |
| 7 | Valley Transportation Authority | San Jose, CA | 218 | 2.5 million | 88.4 | 113.5 | 24.6 | 7.8 | 20.6 |
| 8 | (St. Louis) Metro | Saint Louis, MO | 300 | 4.8 million | 62.4 | 124.9 | 49.1 | 55.6 | 47.8 |
| 9 | Metro Transit | Minneapolis, MN | 177 | 3.0 million | 59.2 | 126.5 | 33.8 | 40.7 | 53.0 |
| 10 | TriMet (Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon) | Portland, OR | 306 | 8.3 million | 36.8 | 69.1 | 25.9 | 27.9 | 43.9 |
| 11 | Valley Metro Rail, Inc. | Phoenix, AZ | 112 | 3.2 million | 35.0 | 70.8 | 78.7 | 46.0 | 50.2 |
| 12 | Utah Transit Authority | Salt Lake City, UT | 202 | 6.7 million | 30.3 | 68.6 | 21.0 | 21.4 | 31.1 |
| 13 | City of Charlotte North Carolina | Charlotte, NC | 30 | 1.6 million | 18.5 | 37.0 | 122.6 | 21.7 | 13.2 |
| 14 | Metro (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) | Los Angeles, CA | 368 | 20.1 million | 18.3 | 48.7 | 19.2 | 19.6 | 19.6 |
| 15 | Dallas Area Rapid Transit | Dallas, TX | 183 | 10.3 million | 17.8 | 31.8 | 24.5 | 3.6 | 31.5 |
| 16 | Sound Transit | Seattle, WA | 196 | 12.9 million | 15.2 | 55.8 | 21.8 | 9.7 | 17.2 |
| 17 | RTD-Denver (Denver Regional Transportation District) | Denver, CO | 98 | 7.3 million | 13.5 | 31.5 | 34.0 | 43.3 | 14.1 |
| 18 | San Diego Metropolitan Transit System | San Diego, CA | 160 | 12.3 million | 13.0 | 36.7 | 20.0 | 20.5 | 12.3 |
| 19 | METRO (Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Texas) | Houston, TX | 39 | 3.4 million | 11.6 | 19.3 | 20.5 | 22.4 | 10.3 |
Heavy rail (subway and metro) systems, 2025
Of the 16 heavy rail systems ranked, MTA (Maryland Transit Administration) had the highest rate in 2025 at 90.4 major failures per million vehicle revenue miles. The four networks with the most miles are all in the lower half of the table, partly because their long trains add many car miles for every train mile.
| Rank | System | City | Major failures, 2025 | Vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million train revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MTA (Maryland Transit Administration) | Baltimore, MD | 410 | 4.5 million | 90.4 | 415.4 | 114.3 | flagged | flagged |
| 2 | The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority | Cleveland, OH | 164 | 2.3 million | 71.4 | 145.1 | 113.8 | 48.2 | 57.4 |
| 3 | Autoridad de Transporte Integrado | San Juan, PR | 96 | 1.7 million | 56.3 | 177.0 | 53.3 | 36.5 | 47.0 |
| 4 | Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority | Atlanta, GA | 911 | 20.8 million | 43.8 | 248.6 | 42.8 | 41.2 | 41.5 |
| 5 | City and County of Honolulu | Honolulu, HI | 68 | 2.4 million | 28.8 | 114.0 | n/a | 0.0 | 21.9 |
| 6 | Port Authority Transit Corporation | Camden, NJ | 131 | 4.7 million | 27.7 | 159.5 | 42.3 | 35.7 | 27.2 |
| 7 | County of Miami-Dade | Miami, FL | 172 | 7.4 million | 23.2 | 92.9 | 34.6 | 13.8 | 14.1 |
| 8 | Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority | Philadelphia, PA | 278 | 14.8 million | 18.8 | 83.5 | 2.7 | 16.8 | 19.1 |
| 9 | Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority | Boston, MA | 337 | 22.1 million | 15.3 | 91.5 | 23.4 | flagged | 14.3 |
| 10 | MTA New York City Transit | Brooklyn, NY | 2,615 | 357.8 million | 7.3 | 66.6 | 7.4 | 8.3 | 5.1 |
| 11 | MTA Staten Island Railway | Staten Island, NY | 21 | 3.0 million | 7.1 | 31.9 | 16.0 | 15.7 | 21.6 |
| 12 | Chicago Transit Authority | Chicago, IL | 570 | 81.7 million | 7.0 | 50.2 | 8.2 | 7.3 | 9.5 |
| 13 | Metro (Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority) | Los Angeles, CA | 30 | 5.0 million | 6.0 | 23.8 | 14.6 | 9.5 | 9.4 |
| 14 | Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation | New York, NY | 75 | 12.9 million | 5.8 | 45.8 | flagged | 9.6 | 5.9 |
| 15 | Washington Metro | Washington, DC | 457 | 95.6 million | 4.8 | 32.5 | 5.6 | 4.9 | 4.2 |
| 16 | SF BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District) | Oakland, CA | 199 | 67.7 million | 2.9 | 19.9 | 5.4 | 4.3 | 2.4 |
Commuter rail systems, 2025
Commuter rail had the lowest rate of the four modes, 4.9 major failures per million vehicle revenue miles and 29.5 per million train revenue miles. The table ranks the 24 systems with at least 1 million vehicle revenue miles.
| Rank | System | City | Major failures, 2025 | Vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2025 | Per million train revenue miles, 2025 | Per million vehicle revenue miles, 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | MTA (Maryland Transit Administration) | Baltimore, MD | 168 | 6.4 million | 26.3 | 142.1 | 14.5 | 19.7 | 4.7 |
| 2 | RTD-Denver (Denver Regional Transportation District) | Denver, CO | 111 | 5.9 million | 18.7 | 51.7 | 16.0 | 23.6 | 13.9 |
| 3 | Dallas Area Rapid Transit | Dallas, TX | 22 | 1.2 million | 18.7 | 38.3 | 16.3 | 23.4 | 17.4 |
| 4 | Tri-Rail (South Florida Regional Transportation Authority) | Pompano Beach, FL | 53 | 3.9 million | 13.5 | 41.0 | 17.5 | 19.3 | 16.2 |
| 5 | Metrolink (Southern California Regional Rail Authority) | Los Angeles, CA | 139 | 13.8 million | 10.1 | 46.6 | 9.0 | 9.7 | 10.7 |
| 6 | Sound Transit | Seattle, WA | 17 | 1.7 million | 10.0 | 47.1 | 10.4 | 9.7 | 14.0 |
| 7 | North County Transit District | Oceanside, CA | 14 | 1.4 million | 10.0 | 35.2 | 8.7 | 4.8 | 9.4 |
| 8 | Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority | Boston, MA | 264 | 26.7 million | 9.9 | 54.8 | 10.1 | 9.4 | 11.1 |
| 9 | Rio Metro Regional Transit District | Albuquerque, NM | 14 | 1.5 million | 9.2 | 24.2 | 10.7 | 9.0 | 7.3 |
| 10 | Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority | Philadelphia, PA | 147 | 18.7 million | 7.8 | 35.0 | 12.4 | 7.1 | 12.2 |
| 11 | Pennsylvania Department of Transportation | Harrisburg, PA | 14 | 2.0 million | 7.0 | 35.1 | 5.0 | 4.2 | 6.9 |
| 12 | Utah Transit Authority | Salt Lake City, UT | 24 | 4.0 million | 6.1 | 18.2 | 5.9 | 12.5 | 9.8 |
| 13 | Trinity Metro | Fort Worth, TX | 15 | 2.6 million | 5.7 | 22.7 | 1.6 | 2.4 | 0.0 |
| 14 | New Jersey Transit Corporation | Newark, NJ | 319 | 57.4 million | 5.6 | 35.8 | 4.4 | 4.8 | 4.9 |
| 15 | Metra (Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation) | Chicago, IL | 186 | 44.0 million | 4.2 | 27.5 | 3.1 | 2.8 | 3.3 |
| 16 | MTA Long Island Rail Road | New York, NY | 185 | 79.7 million | 2.3 | 19.9 | 1.5 | 2.9 | 2.7 |
| 17 | Amtrak Downeaster | Portland, ME | 4 | 2.4 million | 1.7 | 8.0 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.0 |
| 18 | Virginia Railway Express | Woodbridge, VA | 4 | 2.5 million | 1.6 | 10.6 | 0.9 | 0.8 | 2.4 |
| 19 | Altamont Corridor Express | Stockton, CA | 2 | 1.3 million | 1.5 | 11.6 | 2.3 | 4.0 | 3.0 |
| 20 | Caltrain (Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board) | San Carlos, CA | 14 | 10.4 million | 1.3 | 8.7 | 4.2 | 4.3 | 18.0 |
| 21 | Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit District | Petaluma, CA | 1 | 1.1 million | 0.9 | 1.8 | 7.4 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
| 22 | MTA Metro-North Railroad | New York, NY | 48 | 65.2 million | 0.7 | 5.2 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 0.8 |
| 23 | South Shore Line | Chesterton, IN | 2 | 4.5 million | 0.4 | 2.0 | 1.5 | 3.0 | 0.8 |
| 24 | Connecticut Department of Transportation | Newington, CT | 0 | 1.3 million | 0.0 | 0.0 | 5.9 | 1.3 | 2.5 |
What this means for transit agencies and their suppliers
- Compare like with like. Rates per vehicle revenue mile favour modes and systems that run long trains, so compare a system with others of the same mode, or use the train mile figure when comparing modes.
- Single years swing. Several systems moved by half or more from one year to the next, so look at all four years in the table before drawing conclusions about one system.
- The four-year direction is down. On the same 84 systems, major failures per million vehicle revenue miles fell 11.7% between 2022 and 2025, although the rate for all systems rose in 2025.
- The figures count failures, not their causes. They say how often vehicles failed in service, not which part failed, so they cannot rank components, makers or maintenance practices.
Method
We downloaded the Federal Transit Administration's National Transit Database breakdowns table for report years 2022 to 2025 and kept the four rail modes: heavy rail, light rail, streetcar and commuter rail. For each agency and mode we added together service the agency runs itself and service it buys from contractors, then divided major mechanical failures by vehicle revenue miles, and separately by train revenue miles. Any agency, mode and year that FTA marked as questionable for major failures or vehicle revenue miles (12 rows in the source) is left out of every figure; rows marked questionable only for train revenue miles are left out of the train mile rates. Systems are ranked within their mode if they ran at least 1 million vehicle revenue miles in 2025. Data fetched 12 Nov 2026.
Sources
- Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database: 2022 - 2025 NTD Annual Data - Breakdowns (data and column definitions). Period used: Report years 2022 to 2025.
- Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database: 2022 - 2025 NTD Annual Data - Service (used to check). Period used: Report year 2025.
Limits
- Only full reporters to the NTD report breakdowns, so small and rural systems are not included.
- The study covers the four main rail modes. The NTD's smaller rail modes (hybrid rail, monorail and automated guideway, cable car, inclined plane, aerial tramway and the Alaska Railroad) are left out; together they reported 985 more major mechanical failures in 2025.
- For rail, vehicle revenue miles are passenger car miles. A system that runs longer trains records more miles for the same service, which lowers its rate per vehicle revenue mile.
- Agencies apply the NTD definition themselves. Differences between systems can reflect how each one records a failure as well as how often vehicles fail.
- The NTD does not report which part failed or what caused it. Nothing here links any failure to a particular component or product.
- FTA can revise figures after they are published, including those for 2025.
Cite this study
DENCO Fuses (2026). Rail transit breakdowns: major mechanical failures by agency, 2022 to 2025. https://dencofuses.com/research/rail-transit-breakdowns-by-agency/
The table behind this study is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit DENCO Fuses and link to this page. Download the data (CSV).
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