Amid financial crisis, SEPTA is pushing ahead with a money-saving efficiency effort

SEPTA wants everyone to know that the agency hasn’t just been waiting for manna from Harrisburg.

It’s launching a second phase of Efficiency & Accountability that is projected to generate $76 million over the next three years from lower operational costs and new revenue.

SEPTA released a progress report on Wednesday showing the program had generated $91.4 million since it began in 2021 in initiatives to increase efficiencies and revenue, many suggested by employees.

The new plan for the program will focus on 70 initiatives to gain efficiencies in safety, as well as deterring and cutting fare evasion and earning new income from development deals around its transit properties, officials said.

“We need this to be a little bit more focused and strategically aligned for the moment that SEPTA is in,” said Benjamin Aitoumeziane, data analyst for the agency’s innovation office.

“The board and the state had asked us: ‘How can you make more money? What can you do for yourself to support yourself?’” he said.

By contrast, the first phase of the program included 140 broad efficiency projects. Among them were changes to Regional Rail training procedures that kept trainees in classes longer instead of using them to fill assistant conductor and conductor slots on trains.

“You’re kind of cannibalizing yourself,” Aitoumeziane said. Combined with stepped up recruitment over the past three years, the result has been more conductors and engineers available to work and a reduction in six-day workweeks.

Many of the changes are not immediately visible to the public, and Efficiency & Accountability has received little attention compared to SEPTA’s well-known fiscal crisis, with the potential for a 45% cut in transit service beginning in the fall without more state subsidies.

The transit agency faces an annual structural deficit of $213 million in its operating budget.

About half the $91.4 million in costs avoided so far are reflected in SEPTA’s budget, said Erik Johanson, director of budgets and innovation. The rest are “productivity improvements that allow us to generate more value for the public” over time, he said.

Transit systems in Boston, Chicago, and Washington are reporting structural deficits ranging from 19% to 23% of their spending. Johanson said SEPTA’s $213 million gap represents about 12% of its spending.

The Chicago Transit Authority’s deficit of $577 million is 23% of its spending. At the same rate, SEPTA’s gap would be $330 million, Johanson said.