Pittsburgh Regional Transit on the road to improvement, audit says
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Pittsburgh Regional Transit is on the road to improvement, according to Auditor General Timothy DeFoor, who said a performance audit showed the agency has corrected all of its findings from the last audit.
DeFoor congratulated PRT by saying, "There are great things happening at PRT, and I want to congratulate leadership for finding ways to address Pittsburgh's changing transit needs."
The two main findings were that COVID-19 had "adverse impacts on operations and, unless ridership rebounds, PRT may face difficulty when its federal stimulus funds and deferred revenue are depleted." As well as that "PRT has implemented strategies to continue current operations, but future sustainability challenges remain because of evolving ridership trends."
To fix these two findings, the auditor is recommending that PRT needs to focus on ways to increase ridership and "establish and document monitoring procedures for the strategic initiatives being implemented to serve as an early warning system for when changes need to be considered."
The agency said it will keep moving forward.
"Frankly, our network was good 60 years ago but if we can't engage in the Pittsburgh of today, we can't serve the Allegheny County of tomorrow," said Pittsburgh Regional Transit CEO Katharine Kelleman.
The Department of Auditor General requires an audit of PRT every four years, and this previous audit period covered July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2022. PRT has accepted all of the findings and recommendations from this audit.