Metro is testing new remote sensors on some escalators to help officials learn faster when the units are on the fritz, one more step in the agency’s long battle to improve performance of its moving staircases. The transit agency installed sensors in at least 24 locations as part of a pilot program this summer when it repaired and rehabilitated escalators on the Orange and Red lines, Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said Wednesday.
The sensors let the escalator technicians and supervisors see whether the escalators are moving up or down — or not at all — without having to investigate in person.
“It will enable us to respond faster, in theory, and give us enhanced ability to ensure they’re moving in the right direction,” Stessel said.
The agency has said that it prioritizes having escalators move up, rather than down, if necessary, because it’s harder for most people to climb up an escalator. In practice, though, riders find that the only working escalator on their commute is heading down.
Metro has 588 escalators in its 86 rail stations, but many of them are as old as the transit system and their manufacturers are no longer in business. On Wednesday, 17 percent of them were not working, tightening the bottlenecks at station entrances even further as riders hiked up and down the stairs.
Some of them are broken, and others are being fixed as the agency is undertaking a multiyear program to rebuild, repair and even replace its most problematic escalators.
General Manager Richard Sarles mentioned the pilot on WTOP radio Wednesday, saying that escalators are the top concern he hears about from riders. “Certainly they are a problem. They’ve been a problem for years,” he said. “We’re digging ourselves out of the hole.”
Metro officials can see every train from the central operations center as they travel throughout the system. But the same isn’t true with its escalators and elevators. Instead, the agency relies on elevator technicians and station managers to call in downed units. Station managers have other responsibilities, though, Stessel said, so they may not know of an outage immediately.
The new sensors won’t allow Metro to control the units remotely. For safety reasons, he said, the agency needs to have a person on site to turn on an escalator or change its direction from up to down.
