Some of the largest subway systems in the world, including New York’s, participate in a consortium called CoMET, or Community of Metros. The project is obscure in New York, but London uses it to compare the Underground with other large rapid transit networks.

A report from the project about comparative operating costs can be found here.

Other than the London Underground, systems are only identified by their continental zone; New York is Am, for Americas. But the system with the highest operating costs, on page 7 of the PDF (slide 5), is New York – it matches the costs reported by the National Transit Database. On the next page, with many more systems added from another community (Nova), New York is #2. A cost breakdown shows that among the CoMET systems, New York is #1 in operating costs excluding maintenance, and in maintenance costs for fixed infrastructure, while train maintenance costs are fairly average. Maintenance costs can be explained by 24/7 operations – elsewhere in the world, transit agencies do maintenance at night when trains aren’t running. But for New York’s high operating costs, there is no excuse.

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