WMSC names Metro’s Senior Vice President for Rail Transportation in safety incidents

Updated 3:46 pm, Wednesday, September 9, 2020: Since this article was first published, Metro has reassigned Woodruff to a temporary technical advisor role after Metro’s General Counsel directed an outside law firm to conduct an independent review of the safety and procedure violations contained in the WMSC audit report.

A lengthy audit conducted by the body overseeing Metrorail safety found numerous safety issues with Metro’s Rail Operations Control Center (ROCC) which dispatches and manages trains. In the audit, the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission (WMSC) alleges that Metro’s Senior Vice President for Rail Transportation broke safety protocols and instructed others to break them during her time at Metro.

This is the second part of a series diving into issues at the ROCC identified by the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission. The introduction part can be found here.

Metro’s Senior Vice President of Rail Services position is the highest office within Metro that’s focused solely on train operations rather than paratransit or bus. Metro’s Vice President of Rail Transportation - the group in charge of running the trains, reports to the Senior Vice President for Rail Services, and the director of the ROCC is one step lower.

Lisa Woodruff, who currently holds the SVP position and was ROCC director herself from 2015 to 2017, was one of several managers that “do not allow controllers to use troubleshooting guides,” according to the new report. Woodruff joined Metro in 1990 and served in various positions inside the ROCC from 1992 until being appointed Managing Director of Rail Transportation in 2017.

The report says “the WMSC has learned of multiple incidents where management, including the [Senior Vice President of Rail Services] and the then-ROCC Director [Harris], violated or instructed controllers to violate safety procedures.”

In a response Metro sent to the WMSC after reviewing the draft audit report, the agency is “deeply concerned about certain assertions regarding threats to personnel and life safety without actionable information communicated to the Authority in real time that would have enabled leadership to take immediate corrective and preventive action.”

The report, Metro says, “lacks any specific information, further detail, or underlying support for these conclusions…” and they requested the WMSC send specifics to Metro’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, Office of Safety, General Counsel, and/or Office of Inspector General. Immediate safety hazards, Metro said, should have been repored to the agency’s Chief Safety Officer.

The WMSC’s previous report from May, 2020 found that the ROCC’s former Director (Harris) had instructed controllers to turn power to trains back on before it was safe to do so. In another case, the ROCC Director instructed controllers to tell a train operator to operate past a red signal without performing a safety verification step.

This and other WMSC reports have noted significant amounts of confusion in the ROCC; part of the cause, it says, is a Rail Service Disruption Line, a teleconference line intended to provide those outside the ROCC with updates as emergencies or other situations unfold. The WMSC notes while this is designed primarily to give outsiders a view into the ROCC, it’s sometimes used by outsiders to provide instructions into the ROCC:

“It has also been regularly used to provide real-time direction from afar or to require the superintendent to interrupt the assistant superintendent actively managing an incident. The interruptions with questions lead to the appearance that management is more concerned with updating people outside of the ROCC than actually managing an incident safely and effectively.”

The WMSC notes its concerns with “senior Metrorail leaders outside the ROCC” interfering with controllers’ jobs and says the agency needs to do a better job providing a safe operating environment.

A source at the ROCC, whom GGWash spoke with, said Woodruff and other Metro leadership would regularly use the conference line during major events, and alleged they would use it to “prioritize service over safety.” While not physically in the ROCC, the source said, “they are the ones making decisions and they aren’t even in the [ROCC] listening or seeing first hand.”

After sharing the draft report with Metro for final technical review, the WMSC says Woodruff pushed back and “warned controllers of a higher workload and unnecessary paperwork, despite the WMSC’s draft findings focusing on management’s continued failures, not controller failures.”

WMSC says Woodruff told controllers not to talk to WMSC oversight staff, “resist corrective actions,” and to “paint a rosy picture of the ROCC” for a new team recently brought in to assess and overhaul the ROCC’s processes and culture. “At least some of these discussions were held away from microphones that record ambient audio in the ROCC,” according to the WMSC.

Changes in ROCC leadership and attempts at culture change

Metro reassigned the director of the ROCC in June and is currently conducting a national search for a new one. Deltrin Harris, who held the position since 2017, had been named during a December 10 incident as a manager who instructed controllers to ignore protocol and turn third rail power back on so trains could move, even though fire department personnel were still on the tracks.

In another case, Harris had instructed controllers to tell a train operator to move a disabled train without verifying that all doors on the train were closed and without checking whether any customers might be on the tracks near the train.

An external group at Metro, led by the agency’s Director of Change Management, is being brought in to evaluate the ROCC and recommend necessary changes. Jayme Johnson, who leads the group, will lead what might be called “strike teams” within Metro, directed to solve challenging or complex problems.

Bi-weekly status update reports are also being disseminated within the agency to allow interested parties to track what’s happening at the ROCC. Metro says stakeholders receiving these include everybody from front-line staff in the facility up to the Board of Directors and the WMSC.

In an email, WMSC spokesperson Max Smith said the commission is directly involved in efforts to help fix the ROCC. “Metrorail has recently begun some of that work which includes a focused internal review effort intended to lead to various significant improvements over the coming weeks, months and beyond. Top WMSC leadership is directly involved in regular interactions with Metro on this work, including consistent check-ins and updates on timelines, reviews, and policy or hiring changes.”

Metro itself recently wrapped up a request for quotes for training and a cultural assessment of the ROCC. Procurement documentation says the training is to focus on “Just Cultural concepts” - an idea that mistakes and incidents are generally a product of the organization, rather than the person who may have done the wrong thing.

The team that wins the training/assessment procurement will also provide an external review of Metro ROCC policies and procedures, collaborate with internal teams, and provide revised policies and procedures that incorporate the new cultural concepts.

Metro hopes to have and an organization assessment completed by December and its ROCC director search finished by the end of the year.