New York MTA expands locations for employee temperature testing

The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has expanded its temperature brigades to more than 70 rotating locations, up from seven at the start of the program in March.

MTA says more than 3,500 employee temperatures are being checked per day. This expanded program is helping to reduce the spread of the virus as the organization battles the COVID-19 pandemic, with quarantines down almost 50 percent from their peak, at 3,226, and the number of MTA employees who have returned to work up more than 50 percent in one week, at 6,457, says the authority. More than 60,000 MTA employee temperature checks have been done to date.

"Our goal is to provide the optimal level of protection for our heroic employees, as well as extend that assurance to essential workers riding our trains and buses," said MTA Chief Safety Officer Patrick Warren. “We are heading toward having our Temperature Brigade Program test our entire workforce periodically prior to their reporting to work, an important measure to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”

The MTA Temperature Brigade is drawn from across the MTA, including New York City Transit safety and security personnel, Long Island Rail Road fire marshals and the Metro-North Railroad fire brigade, as well as 60 contract workers, all medically trained, deployed 24/7 to locations covering all MTA agencies.

Temperatures are now being checked at 71 reporting locations systemwide, including 40 subway, 13 MTA Police Department, 10 bus, four Long Island Rail Road, three Metro-North and one Bridges & Tunnels location. These locations include bus depots and shops, train service delivery crew reporting facilities, stations, train car and right-of-way maintenance facilities, bus and subway control centers and a central operations training location.

The Temperature Brigade Program checks all employees entering a work location using contactless thermal scan thermometers on foreheads. Anyone with a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher is sent home and instructed to seek medical guidance and report back to the MTA.

The brigade started at seven sites on March 13 and has ramped up the program every day since. On April 23, 3,559 employees had been tested for the day. MTA says the fever rate being found by the brigade is low - approximately one out of every 1,000 employees checked.