“Numerous safety initiatives, both implemented and underway, and our ongoing, aggressive track maintenance program are paying off as reliability increases, slowly but surely,” railroad president Joseph Giulietti told the Metro-North Committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board. “It is critical that we bring our infrastructure to a state of good repair and that we continue to focus each and every employee on the importance of safety as our core value.”

Metro-North made headlines after a deadly train derailment on December 1, 2013. The engineer at the helm was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) post-derailment.

In 2014, the railroad achieved record ridership carrying a projected 84.7 million customers, higher than the previous record of 83.6 million set in 2008, and a 1.4% increase over 2013.

Achievements in improved safety include the installation of alerters on the entire fleet to ensure that train engineers remain responsive, the launch a pilot program to identify key employees who may have sleep apnea, and the award of a contract for the purchase of inward- and outward-facing cameras on board all trains in the fleet.

“The progress that has been made is due to the hard work and dedication of the workers of Metro-North and I am proud of them,” says Giulietti, who took the helm less than a year ago, on February 10, 2014.