Research/A Year of State Safety Oversight Reports on the MBTA
A Year of State Safety Oversight Reports on the MBTA
Since 2025, the state agency that oversees the safety of the MBTA subway has published a report for each month. This page puts the first full year of those reports together with the agency’s annual report, the federal record that led to them, and the injury figures the MBTA and the federal government publish.
Key findings
- The Department of Public Utilities (DPU) reports that it carried out 3,276 inspections of the MBTA subway in 2025 and oversaw 117 safety investigations: 64 events reportable to the federal government and 53 reportable to the state.
- The DPU rejected nine of the MBTA’s final investigation reports in 2025. In 2024 it rejected 34.
- The DPU directed the MBTA to create 18 corrective action plans in 2025, and 29 plans were closed during the year. At the end of the year 21 were open, down from 38 a year earlier.
- Across the twelve monthly reports for 2025, the Green Line had the most inspections (960), followed by the Red Line and Mattapan Trolley (908).
- On September 11, 2026, the Federal Transit Administration closed the last special directive it had issued to the DPU after its 2022 inspection, and directed the MBTA to report to the DPU on the directives still open.
- The MBTA’s own 2021–2023 baseline averages 184 injuries a year on heavy rail and 97 on light rail. Its targets for 2025 were 180 and 95.
- Preliminary: the monthly reports for January to September 2026 count 1,387 inspections, against 2,600 in the same months of 2025.
Terms used on this page
- DPU: the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities. Its Rail Transit Safety Division oversees the safety of the MBTA subway.
- State Safety Oversight Agency: the agency designated to oversee a rail transit system’s safety under the FTA’s State Safety Oversight program. The DPU holds that role for Massachusetts under 220 CMR 151.00.
- Subway: the DPU’s word for the MBTA system it oversees: heavy rail on the Blue, Red and Orange Lines, and light rail on the Green Line and Mattapan Trolley.
- FTA: the Federal Transit Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
- Investigation: the inquiry into a safety event. The MBTA carries it out on the DPU’s behalf, and the DPU observes, takes part and reviews the result.
- Final report: the MBTA’s written report on an investigation. The DPU must accept it before the investigation is closed, and may reject it.
- Corrective action plan (CAP): a plan to fix a safety problem found in an investigation, inspection or audit. Each plan is made up of one or more corrective actions with due dates.
- FTA-reportable and state-reportable events: safety events the MBTA must report to the federal government, such as derailments and collisions, and a wider set it must report only to the DPU.
- Special directive: an order from the FTA requiring an agency to take specific safety actions.
- Major event: a safety or security event in the FTA’s National Transit Database list of major events.
Where these figures come from
Four public sources underlie this page. The first is the DPU’s monthly reports, one for each month from January 2025, each giving the month’s investigation, corrective action and inspection counts. The second is the DPU’s annual reports to the FTA for 2024 and 2025. The third is the record of the FTA’s 2022 inspection of the MBTA and the special directives that followed, from the DPU’s response page and the FTA’s September 2026 amendment. The fourth is injury figures: the MBTA’s own baseline and targets, as set out in a February 2025 memo to the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, and the FTA’s National Transit Database list of major events.
All were read on October 19, 2026. A script added up the monthly figures, checked that each month’s inspections by line add up to that month’s total, and counted the federal records by year and type of service. Figures quoted from the annual reports were checked against saved copies of the report text.
Left out, and why:
- Commuter Rail. The DPU does not oversee it; the Federal Railroad Administration is responsible for Commuter Rail safety.
- Bus safety, except in the MBTA’s own baseline table. The DPU’s oversight covers the subway.
- Details of individual investigations. The monthly reports give counts, not cases.
- The DPU’s 2024 annual report count of field activities as a like-for-like comparison. It gives “more than 1,200” for 2024, while the 2025 report gives 1,615 for the same year.
- A year-by-year comparison with the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization’s March 2026 memo. It uses a different three-year window, 2022 to 2024, from the MBTA’s 2026 plan; its main figures are given in the injury section.
- Any comparison of the MBTA’s baseline with the federal major-event counts. They do not count the same events.
Data windows
- DPU monthly reports: January to December 2025, the first full year of the reports.
- DPU annual reports: calendar years 2024 and 2025.
- MBTA baseline: calendar years 2021 to 2023 averages, with targets for 2025.
- Federal major events: 2021 to 2025, as published when read.
- Preliminary, unofficial: DPU monthly reports for January to September 2026, and federal major events for January to June 2026.
- All sources read October 19, 2026.
Who oversees subway safety
The DPU is Massachusetts’s State Safety Oversight Agency, designated under 220 CMR 151.00. Its Rail Transit Safety Division oversees the safety of the MBTA’s rail transit system: the Red, Green, Orange and Blue Lines and the Mattapan Trolley. It does not oversee the Commuter Rail.
When a safety event happens, the MBTA investigates it. The DPU’s regulations delegate that job to the MBTA, and the DPU observes and takes part. The MBTA then sends the DPU a final report. The DPU may reject a report that does not meet what it calls “a high threshold of quality and completeness,” and the investigation stays open until the DPU accepts a report.
The DPU can also write its own report. Its 2025 annual report says it did so after the February 2025 flood on the Mattapan Line and the evacuation of a trolley at Milton Station.
How a 2022 federal inspection led here
In 2022 the FTA carried out a Safety Management Inspection of the MBTA. The FTA’s 2026 amendment says the inspection was meant to evaluate “an escalating pattern of safety incidents and concerns” on the MBTA’s rail transit system, including derailments, collisions and passenger and employee injury events “significantly exceeding industry averages.” The FTA notified the MBTA on April 14, 2022 that the inspection would also assess the DPU’s role.
The FTA then issued special directives: orders to the MBTA, and two to the DPU. The DPU’s page lists FTA closure letters for its findings from August 2023 onward. The last of the DPU’s directives, Special Directive 22-13, was closed on September 11, 2026. The same day, the FTA amended seven directives still open against the MBTA so that the MBTA now reports its progress to the DPU, and the DPU “will assume direct responsibility for overseeing MBTA’s progress.”
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| April 14, 2022 | FTA notifies the MBTA of a Safety Management Inspection, which will also assess the DPU’s role. |
| June 15, 2022 | Special Directive 22-8 requires the DPU to oversee the MBTA’s corrective action plans for four immediate concerns. |
| August 31, 2022 | FTA issues its final inspection report with four special directives to the MBTA and one, 22-13, to the DPU. |
| September 25, 2024 | FTA finds the requirements of Special Directive 22-8 satisfied. |
| January 1, 2025 | Revised federal rules on safety event reporting take effect. The DPU’s monthly reports begin with January 2025. |
| September 11, 2026 | FTA closes Special Directive 22-13 and directs the MBTA to report to the DPU on its open directives. |
Sources: DPU, Safety Management Inspection response page; DPU 2025 annual report; FTA amendment to the MBTA’s open special directives, September 11, 2026.
The 2025 record, in the DPU’s own annual report
The DPU’s annual report to the FTA for 2025 gives the year’s totals. It counts 3,276 inspections between January 1 and December 31, 2025, which it describes as more than double the 1,615 field activities of 2024. It oversaw 117 investigations, closed 113, received 73 final reports and rejected nine. It directed the MBTA to create 18 corrective action plans, 29 were closed during the year, and 21 remained open on December 31.
Comparisons with 2024 need care. The federal rules on which safety events must be reported changed on January 1, 2025, so the 2024 and 2025 investigation counts are not built the same way. And the DPU’s two reports give different figures for 2024 field activities: “more than 1,200” in the 2024 report and 1,615 in the 2025 report.
| Measure | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Safety investigations overseen | 142 | 117 |
| … reportable to the FTA | 75 | 64 |
| … reportable to the state | 67 | 53 |
| Final investigation reports received | 142 | 73 |
| Final investigation reports rejected | 34 | 9 |
| Corrective action plans closed | 27 | 29 |
| Corrective action plans open at year end | 38 | 21 |
| Corrective action plans the DPU directed | — | 18 |
| Inspections or field activities | see note | 3,276 |
A dash means the 2024 report gives no comparable figure. The 2024 report gives “more than 1,200” field activities for 2024; the 2025 report gives 1,615. The 2024 investigation count excludes investigations begun in 2023 or earlier. Sources: DPU annual reports to the FTA for 2024 and 2025.
Twelve monthly reports
The monthly reports give the same kinds of figure for each month. Inspections ran from 138 in January to 398 in March, the busiest month. The share of corrective actions overdue stood at 20% at the end of January 2025 and at 0% at the end of each month from July to November.
The twelve months add up to 3,269 inspections, 110 new investigations and 10 rejected final reports. These sums are close to, but not the same as, the annual report’s totals. Each monthly report says its numbers are current as of the last day of the month “and may be adjusted if data is updated post-submittal.”
| Month | New investigations | Investigations closed | Final reports received | Final reports rejected | New corrective action plans | Corrective action plans closed | Inspections | Corrective actions overdue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 12 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 138 | 20% |
| February | 11 | 17 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 282 | 10% |
| March | 5 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 398 | 12.5% |
| April | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 377 | 1.72% |
| May | 14 | 9 | 13 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 282 | 4% |
| June | 7 | 11 | 7 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 231 | 2% |
| July | 13 | 12 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 287 | 0% |
| August | 11 | 10 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 298 | 0% |
| September | 5 | 8 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 307 | 0% |
| October | 8 | 9 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 311 | 0% |
| November | 8 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 208 | 0% |
| December | 9 | 7 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 150 | 4.55% |
| 2025 | 110 | 114 | 87 | 10 | 19 | 31 | 3,269 | — |
Overdue: share of open corrective actions past their due date on the last day of the month, including those with a pending MBTA request for closure, change or extension. Totals are sums of the monthly figures. Source: DPU Rail Transit Safety Division, monthly reports, January to December 2025.
Which lines the inspectors visited
Each monthly report splits inspections by line. Over 2025, the Green Line had 960, or 29.4% of the year’s total, and the Red Line with the Mattapan Trolley had 908. The Orange Line had 722 and the Blue Line 343. Another 336 inspections did not take place at one line; the reports note that some inspections “don’t occur at a specific station or line location.”
The DPU lists track walks, power system checks, speed audits on the Green Line, headlight and door procedure checks, station and carhouse audits, and reviews of the operations control center among the activities counted.
| Line | Inspections | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Green Line | 960 | 29.4% |
| Red Line and Mattapan Trolley | 908 | 27.8% |
| Orange Line | 722 | 22.1% |
| Blue Line | 343 | 10.5% |
| Other locations | 336 | 10.3% |
| All inspections, 2025 | 3,269 | 100.0% |
Sums of the twelve monthly reports. Lines are listed from most inspections to fewest, with other locations last. Source: DPU Rail Transit Safety Division, monthly reports, January to December 2025.
The problems the DPU pressed the MBTA to fix
The 2025 annual report names four of the year’s key corrective action plans:
- Fatigue management: limits on hours of service and a fatigue management policy for safety-sensitive MBTA departments.
- Employee assaults: the MBTA was above its targets for assaults on employees, and had begun a fare enforcement program that could bring employees into more confrontations with the public.
- Green Line Type 7 cars: an assessment of how well the Type 7 vehicle protects riders and operators in a crash, and a plan based on it, including a train protection system that detects collision hazards.
- Power and the operations control center: multiple near misses in which employees going onto the tracks were nearly electrocuted, leading to new procedures for power requests and dispatcher communication.
The DPU also carried out two risk-based inspections in 2025: one on fire and smoke events on the Orange Line, the other on pedestrian safety on the eastbound Green Line platform at Park Street.
In 2025 the National Transportation Safety Board continued or opened investigations of two MBTA events. In the first, on October 1, 2024, a Green Line train that had left Lechmere derailed after passing a stop signal; seven passengers went to the hospital with minor injuries. In the second, on February 9, 2025, a Green Line train struck a stationary train at East Somerville Station; two passengers and four crew members had non-life-threatening injuries. After the second, the DPU directed the MBTA to assess the crashworthiness of the Type 7 cars.
Injury figures from the MBTA and the federal record
The DPU’s reports count investigations and inspections, not injuries. Injury figures come from two other sources, and they measure different things.
The first is the MBTA’s own safety plan. A February 2025 memo to the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, citing the MBTA’s 2024 Transit Safety Plan, gives three-year averages for 2021 to 2023: 184 injuries a year on heavy rail and 97 on light rail, with average fatalities of 0.67 and 0.33. The MBTA’s targets for 2025 were 180 heavy rail injuries and 95 light rail injuries, with zero fatalities.
The second is the FTA’s National Transit Database list of major events. It recorded 57 major events on the MBTA’s heavy rail in 2025, with 36 injuries and 2 deaths, and 56 on light rail, with 20 injuries and 0 deaths. The database lists only major events, and its counts are far lower than the MBTA’s plan figures.
A later memo to the same organization, dated March 5, 2026, gives averages for 2022 to 2024 from the MBTA’s 2026 Transit Safety Plan: 270.33 injuries a year on heavy rail and 102 on light rail. This page does not compare the two windows, because they come from different editions of the plan.
| Mode | Fatalities, 2021–2023 average | Injuries, 2021–2023 average | Injury rate, 2021–2023 | Injury target, 2025 | Injury rate target, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Heavy rail | 0.67 | 184 | 9.5 | 180 | 9.31 |
| Light rail | 0.33 | 97 | 17 | 95 | 16.7 |
| Bus | 0 | 309 | 14.3 | 303 | 14 |
| The RIDE | 0 | 26 | 3 | 25 | 3 |
Rates are per one million vehicle revenue miles. The fatality target for every mode is zero. Source: Boston Region MPO, “Transit Safety Performance Targets,” February 20, 2025, tables 2 and 3, citing the MBTA’s 2024 Transit Safety Plan.
| Year | Heavy rail events | Heavy rail injuries | Heavy rail deaths | Light rail events | Light rail injuries | Light rail deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 88 | 70 | 7 | 30 | 44 | 0 |
| 2022 | 78 | 58 | 5 | 44 | 23 | 0 |
| 2023 | 66 | 52 | 1 | 46 | 20 | 1 |
| 2024 | 103 | 57 | 3 | 47 | 22 | 0 |
| 2025 | 57 | 36 | 2 | 56 | 20 | 0 |
Counts all people injured or killed in each event, as the database records them. Heavy rail and light rail as the database classes the MBTA’s services. Source: FTA, National Transit Database, Major Safety and Security Events (data.transportation.gov), MBTA records, as published October 19, 2026.
The first nine months of 2026, preliminary
The figures in this section are preliminary and unofficial. The DPU says monthly numbers may be adjusted, and 2026 is not over.
The monthly reports for January to September 2026 count 1,387 inspections, against 2,600 in the same months of 2025. They count 25 rejected final reports, against 6. They count 25 new corrective action plans received and 14 closed, against 15 and 27.
The federal list of major events, which runs to June 30, 2026, records 34 heavy rail events with 27 injuries and 3 deaths in the first half of 2026, against 30 events with 19 injuries and 0 deaths in the first half of 2025. On light rail it records 17 events with 3 injuries, against 28 events with 11 injuries. The FTA says events generally reach the database at least 90 days after they happen, so the latest months may be incomplete.
| Measure | 2025 | 2026* |
|---|---|---|
| Inspections | 2,600 | 1,387 |
| New investigations | 85 | 79 |
| Investigations closed | 90 | 70 |
| Final reports received | 62 | 84 |
| Final reports rejected | 6 | 25 |
| New corrective action plans | 15 | 25 |
| Corrective action plans closed | 27 | 14 |
*Preliminary and unofficial; the DPU says monthly figures may be adjusted. Sums of the monthly reports for January to September of each year. Source: DPU Rail Transit Safety Division, monthly reports.
Limits of these reports
- The reports count the DPU’s oversight work. More inspections or investigations do not by themselves mean the subway was more or less safe.
- The investigations are carried out by the MBTA. The DPU reviews them and may reject them, but the first account of an event is the MBTA’s.
- Monthly figures may be revised, and the twelve months do not add up exactly to the annual report.
- The federal rules on reportable events changed on January 1, 2025, so investigation counts before and after are not directly comparable.
- Injury figures come from the MBTA’s plan and the federal database, not from the DPU, and the two count differently.
- Nothing here covers the Commuter Rail.
If you were hurt on the subway
These reports describe how the state watches the subway as a whole. They do not name the people involved in an event or say who was at fault. Whether an injury on the MBTA may support a claim depends on what happened, where, and who was responsible. Some claims also have notice rules and deadlines of their own.
The firm’s reference page on Massachusetts injury claim deadlines and notice requirements lists the deadlines and notice rules for injury claims in Massachusetts.
Citing this page
Larson Law Boston, “A Year of State Safety Oversight Reports on the MBTA,” published October 19, 2026. Data windows: DPU monthly reports for 2025, with a preliminary comparison for January to September 2026; DPU annual reports for 2024 and 2025; MBTA injury baseline for 2021 to 2023; federal major events 2021 to 2025, with a preliminary comparison for January to June 2026. Sources read October 19, 2026.
The tables on this page may be reproduced with attribution and a link to this page. Press and research inquiries: marketing@dlarsonlaw.com
Sources
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, Rail Transit Safety Division, DPU Rail Monthly Reports. January 2025 to September 2026. Read October 19, 2026.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, DPU 2025 Rail Transit Safety Annual Report to FTA. Published June 1, 2026. Read October 19, 2026.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, DPU 2024 Rail Transit Safety Annual Report to FTA. Read October 19, 2026.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, DPU Safety Management Inspection (SMI) Response. Read October 19, 2026.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, DPU Oversight of the MBTA. Read October 19, 2026.
- Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, DPU Risk-Based Inspections. Read October 19, 2026.
- Federal Transit Administration, Amendment to the MBTA’s open special directives, with cover letter. Issued September 11, 2026. Read October 19, 2026.
- Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, Transit Safety Performance Targets (technical memorandum). February 20, 2025. Read October 19, 2026.
- Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization, Transit Safety Performance Targets (technical memorandum). March 5, 2026. Read October 19, 2026.
- Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database, Major Safety and Security Events. MBTA records (NTD ID 10003). Read October 19, 2026.
If you were hurt and have questions
These pages explain what the public record shows. They are not advice about a specific situation, and what applies to a particular case depends on its facts. If something here raises a question about your own circumstances, you are welcome to get in touch.