On Friday, Pennsylvania Auditor General Timothy L. DeFoor released a performance audit for the Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) showing improvement over the last one.
The audit was intended to determine the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on PRT’s revenues and expenditures and evaluate the strategies the agency is taking to address them. DeFoor said the audit shows improvement, and that the agency is on a path to improving service for the region.
“One thing became very clear to our auditors – PRT is aware of its future challenges and is using innovative solutions to face them head on,” DeFoor said. “There are great things happening at PRT, and I want to congratulate leadership for finding ways to address Pittsburgh’s changing transit needs. Our auditors recommend PRT continues its work to restore ridership to pre-pandemic levels and focus on maintaining financial stability for the future.”
DeFoor said the audit found that the COVID-19 pandemic had adverse impacts on operations, and that unless ridership rebounds, the transit agency may face difficulty with maintaining operations once federal funds and deferred revenue are gone. Additionally, the report said PRT has implement strategies to continue current operations, but the sustainability of those strategies is in question because of evolving ridership trends.
Auditors recommended that PRT focus on increasing ridership, maintaining financial stability and continuing recruitment and retention efforts. Additionally, they recommended PRT establish and document procedures for monitoring and documenting the strategic initiative being implemented as a way to have an early warning system for when changes to the system may be warranted.