August 26, 2010
by Eric Moskowitz, The Boston Globe

Facelift helps distinguish T radios from cellphones

Sometimes the allegations that the T receives about bus, trolley, or subway operators using cellphones on the job can be verified. Sometimes they cannot. And sometimes, the onboard video or station camera shows that the driver in question was merely using an official radio that a vigilant passenger or pedestrian, at a glance, mistook for a cellphone.

The solution? Goodbye, sober black; hello, bright orange, a hue so vivid that, MBTA officials hope, no one will mistake the radios for phones anymore. Workers at the agency’s car barns and garages are in the process of outfitting every handset in the fleet with strips of reflective tape emblazoned with T logos.

The MBTA has barred its operators from even possessing cellphones while on the job since a May 2009 Green Line crash that occurred while a trolley operator was texting. That crash sent nearly 50 people to the hospital and destroyed three trolleys.

In response, the T implemented the no-tolerance policy, began a spot-check program, and encouraged riders to come forward with concerns.

[...]

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s general manager, Richard A. Davey, called the newly orange handsets a “low technology, low dollar’’ way to help the public and T investigators determine when operators are violating the rules. .

“The bottom line for me is for our customers; we want to make sure that they feel safe,’’ Davey said. “And in those instances where our employees are doing the right thing, we want customers to know that they are doing the right thing and to respect our employees.’’

[...]

Davey said the vast majority of drivers and operators observed during thousands of spot checks have been phone-free. And a small but steady number of hot line tips have been found to be cases of drivers or operators communicating with dispatch by radio, according to video and operations-center call logs.

That is where the electric-orange tape should help, Davey said. Over the past two months, the tape has been applied to handheld radios on about 95 percent of the T’s 1,050 buses (each of which has one handset) and one-fourth of its nearly 210 double-ended Green Line trolleys, which have handsets at each end. The rest of the Green Line and the Orange, Blue, and Red line radios will follow.

Taisha O’Bryant, a Roxbury resident who serves as chairwoman of the T Riders Union, said she is more concerned with the frequency and reliability of bus service than the appearance of bus radios. But she said it is a good thing if a driver or operator can call dispatch in the event of a breakdown or service problem without worrying about appearing to talk on a cellphone, and she hailed the cellphone ban.

“It’s a positive thing,’’ O’Bryant said.

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