BART continues to tweak Fleet of the Future, some train cars taken off tracks

OAKLAND, Calif. (Cristina Rendon/KTVU) - Weeks after its debut of the Fleet of the Future, a handful of new BART cars are going in and out of service, which included four cars on Monday. 

BART Spokeswoman Alicia Trost said of the four new cars off the tracks, two needed a configuration check and the other two had software issues that need to be diagnosed.

She also confirmed the new 10 car train did not run for the first time last Thursday afternoon because three cars needed work. One car was due for scheduled maintenance and two cars need software updates. The train went back into service on Thursday afternoon on the Richmond – Warm Springs line where it runs twice a day.

With 30 computers and 180 software packages on each car, Trost said the agency anticipated the new cars will need either scheduled maintenance or software updates going forward. She said the software fixes are not safety related.

“It’s absolutely normal,” Trost said. “It’s absolutely to be expected. There are no fleet defects. There are no problems with the cars. We are just going through a phase where the cars, which will probably last 9 months to a year, where we are perfecting the software.”

Trost said there is also learning curve right now for operators and mechanics, but riders should not worry. She noted that the cars have not had any hardware failures.

The news comes after BART had several issues with the initial roll out that included cars being taken out of service three days after their debut and it follows years of problems with the Fleet of the Future project exposed by the KTVU 2 Investigates team.