MTA board member slams the agency for misleading New Yorkers about delays in subway service

[SubwayGuy]

Red.

 

Sorry, couldn't help myself here. I'll keep it short.

For work trains, just put an EOT device like they do on freight railroads. Clean and simple solution. As for CBTC installation on work locomotives (and thank you for educating me on how work equipment allotment works, I always thought yards had dedicated fleets), just put it on all. It's an investment that will have to be made anyway.

 

Still doesn't solve the issues with no space on diesels for CBTC. Also an EOT device is not "smart" enough to communicate with CBTC. It will not communicate with CBTC wayside equipment to tell the following train it is getting too close to the work train, and it will not direct a flagging work train operator to indicate to the guy all the way at the other end operating the diesel what his MAL is.

I can't speak to handling issues, but if maintained correctly, CBTC should fail much less frequently than the current signal system, making such scenarios as you've described unlikely.

 

Well those handling issues are extremely important. You can't ignore them. A work train in ATO would be a disaster since handling needs vary depending on the consist, and there is no computer program intelligent enough to compute all that in real time.

As for the reliability of sensor systems, all I can say is that multiple transit systems now have ATO lines, and all of them have to have those sensors. They must have worked out the bugs.

 

They have their fair share of bugs. Nothing is perfect or operates flawlessly.

I'll say the same thing about OPTO. Many systems have implemented it (or ZPTO) perfectly safely. It can be done (and don't give me NY exceptionalism crap here, many O/ZPTO systems are just as busy/chaotic as NY).

 

It's not just about "busy". It's about the combination of busy, interlined trains, curved stations, 24/7, half the system exposed to the elements, variable climate (which affects all component reliability), and no platform screen doors.

Next. About evacuations, I'll refer you to this document: http://www.hitachi.com/rev/pdf/2005/r2005_04_106.pdf
Announcements and instructions can be given from afar too, remember. In your blizzard scenario, the control center could do the same thing just without the operators mediating instructions.

 

OK, now what happens if a public address system in a car is not functioning? What happens when the passengers realize they are on the train alone? There is a psychological effect that can't be ignored. Look at all the panic that occurred on the AirTrain (which serves far fewer passengers at a time than any NYC Subway train) when a door opened en route and the train failed to come to a stop?

 

This is what ZPTO gets you:
http://nypost.com/2009/11/28/near-tragedy-hits-airtrain/

https://consumerist.com/2012/08/27/140-passengers-get-stranded-on-jfk-airtrain-no-one-notices/

 

Notice the common thread "computer system malfunction".

 

Furthermore, when a train goes Brakes in Emergency, who ensures it is safe for the train to move again? Is the best strategy really to either 1) wait for a supervisor from a different location to arrive on scene when service is already disrupted or 2) just let the train move and hope there's no one underneath the train?

I never said no yard crews, BTW. Don't misrepresent me.

So you'll be saving even less than the 650 million "drop in the bucket" then.

Finally, that growing awareness you speak of will in all probability stop pols from cutting funding.

I hope so.

Thanks again for the debate!

So from everything I've read, I come to the conclusion that the technology being used is supposed to make things better, but seems to be making things worse.  From my own experiences, I've witnessed more waiting at stations on various lines, and more waiting in between stations on various lines, all supposedly because of "train traffic".  I don't buy it because often times I'll use the subway off-peak and even on weekends, where the headways are such that that shouldn't be that much train traffic ahead.  All I know is trips take A LOT longer than they use to now and that needs to be addressed.  Sometimes you literally crawl from one station to the next.

 

Yes, ridership is growing exponentially, and improvements to the system are improving it linearly. Naturally, the end result is losing ground.

 

A few years ago, time was added to all of the schedules to reflect reality, and for a while they worked. Now, on time performance metrics are going down again with the new schedules.

[RR503]

Ok here goes again

 

In regards to EOTs, just build a CBTC compatible one. You must understand I'm not suggesting buying a freight RR one, I'm saying use that kind of tech. And EOTs can give position. That's what they do on freight trains...

 

Sure, there is no program now, but assuming technology will remain stagnant forever is just wrong. Things will be improved. Ten years from now, who knows what will be possible.

 

Just saying they have bugs isn't an argument. Everything does.

 

We already went over interlining and system complication. Many of these other systems have it too. I'll refer you back to my earlier posts.

 

And what happens if the PA isn't functioning in a crewed train? Same difference. For that matter, what if it is the zombie apocalypse? These systems are built redundancy, and yes, you can throw all the what ifs you like at me, but some are just unlikely. One can have a total electrical failure on an airplane, but aircraft designers don't really consider that scenario when designing it. It's just so so so unlikely.

 

So you've given examples of what happens in a ZPTO malfunction. So yes, it happens. But that's two instances. To prove anything, you're going to have to give many many many many examples, showing that this is a frequent occurance across many ZPTO systems. Then we can talk.

 

Your last question is really interesting. You could do cameras and sensors, but I think waiting for a supervisor is best. With that kind of risk, better safe than sorry. Also, that is already the protocol on the subway if you hit someone/thing, so I really think it doesn't make much of a difference. Finally, foreign object sensors are relatively simple pieces of technology, so their accuracy is quite high. I wouldn't be too worried about false alarms.

 

I guess so. Still a lot of money though.

[Trainmaster5]

My thanks to all the posters, pro and con, about the delay problems and what can be done about them. From what I've read in these posts the delay problem is real although how bad it really is can be debated. I never considered myself a perfectionist but as a brand new C/R i was told that a train wasn't considered late unless it arrived at it's destination more than five minutes late. This was a standard railroad practice that the transit system(s) adopted before unification came about. This bothered me and when my instructor asked me why I told the class how I interpreted it. If I was on death row and my execution was scheduled for midnight the governor's pardon, reprieve, or the court's new evidence exonerating me wouldn't do me any good at 12:05 would it ? Naturally everyone laughed, except my instructor, and he told them that I would be a perfect RTO employee. He pointed out that 95% of our jobs started at odd times, 1:42 am, 13:18 pm, 17:17 pm, with our trains scheduled to leave 15 minutes later than those times. Even if you arrived before your train was scheduled to leave, but after your reporting time, you were considered late and could be sent home. I was never in the service but he was a former Marine Corp drill instructor and carried that aura of authority with him. The brother pulled me aside after a few days and gave me that " brother to brother" talk many of us heard from our older relatives and friends back in the day. He and my soon to be rabbi were sticklers when it came to time, job performance, and customer relations and when I went to M/M class I had the same guys doing the training. Back then the cause of lateness came down to two basic things, equipment problems, or human (passenger) reasons. To this very day I hate lateness, especially if it can be avoided. In the IRT in the early to mid eighties most lateness problems I encountered were equipment related. We had old fleets on every line except the and the ran cars from the and mixed in with their own relics. The ran equipment that could make it from Woodlawn to Bowling Green but 20% of those consists couldn't reliably make the climb through the tube to Borough Hall, Brooklyn. We had our share of breakdowns but things gradually got better with the GOH Redbirds and the introduction of the R62 and R62A fleets. The passenger related delays, door holding, vandalism, and the like did occur but except for the sick customer or rare childbirth event most train crews didn't encounter those things. The signal problem was always there but I actually saw more signal maintainers in the late eighties-early nineties era than I did later on. The sick customer phenomena grew more prevalent later on, too. I remember medical help being stationed at Grand Central, 125 and Lex, and Bowling Green later on. The scuttlebutt was that came about because of lawsuits against the but i couldn't vouch for that. The next slowdowns came about, IMO, because of the ATS overlay and the security slowdowns after 9/11. Police presence at major transfer points and the entrance to the river tubes. I actually had an incident at Bowling Green s/b where the NYPD held my train because their handheld radiation detector picked up an abnormal reading. They actually pulled an elderly man and his wife off my train and investigated them before they were allowed to re-board and continue on to Brooklyn. The man had undergone chemo up at Union Square and was going home. I'm sitting here out of the loop (by choice) trying to figure what could be causing this uptick in delays, at least in the IRT. I'm aware of the increase in ridership. I know the signal system in the Bronx is relatively new except for the Dyre Avenue segment. I doubt RTO is running less service than is scheduled. I keep coming back to the Lexington Avenue corridor and the signal system. I can remember two people, my rabbi and his coworker, telling me that they used to run more scheduled service on Lexington Avenue during the rush hours than they did when I came along. My rabbi was working in Operations and Planning by then and they had access to all of the old timetables where trains were scheduled to arrive at the stations between Bowling Green and Grand Central as close as 90 seconds apart. He once asked me to come up with a solution where one could run more trains on the Lex corridor. I went home and thought about it all weekend and came up with the answer. To achieve that and comply with the NTSB/federal mandate about the NYCT signal system after the Union Square incident I'd rip out the entire signal system from 125th St to Bowling Green on all tracks and rearrange the signal blocks. "Too expensive" he said and that's why they went with the ATS overlay instead. This came from a person privy to the discussions about ATS, CBTC, and the like and who retired after telling them the shortcomings of the various proposals. BTW he was then brought on as a consultant to untangle the mess he and the other oldtimers predicted would happen. It's a shame that in this job market it appears that the subways and the buses seem to be more prone to delays than even the " bad old days". I can't imagine what being late to an interview or being late too many times and losing a job because of transit feels like. Maybe common sense and technology can improve traffic flow below and above ground. I don't claim to have all the answers but I'll leave you with these things to ponder. I've built my computer systems for the last 25 years or so and I'm into the hardware side and personal security. Some of you appear to be on the software side, maybe as coders ? I know you're also into security. Does anyone really think the transit system can be locked down, security-wise, to prevent outside tampering? NSA, DIA tight? For my uber tech proponents I'll leave you with this. Since some people suggest that ZPTO run from a command center is okay for a trainload of customers in the boonies I propose this. When some maniac invades your house and holds you and yours hostage, or some pyro sets fire to your occupied house, I'll call the NYPD or FDNY command center and send help by Google/Apple police car or Google/ Apple self-driving fire truck, both with no occupants, and you can " Ask Google", " Ask Siri" or " Ask Alexa" to help you out of your predicament. Personally I'll stick with the professional with the gun or the fire hose. Carry on.

[RR503]

WOW fascinating post. So the delays started after ATS implementation... Everyone else I've talked to says this is because of crowding (especially at GCT) and slower trains because of timers, but it sounds like there is more to it now...

 

Thanks so much for posting -- fascinating read.

 

PS fire and police services can never be done by tech for the reasons you mention. It's not a fair comparison to ZPTO.

[RailRunRob]

Point taken that's something to think about Security/Encryption wise nothing's safe in this digital world at present AES and all. I'm hearing some noise with Blockchain technology I'll believe it when I see it. 

[Trainmaster5]

WOW fascinating post. So the delays started after ATS implementation... Everyone else I've talked to says this is because of crowding (especially at GCT) and slower trains because of timers, but it sounds like there is more to it now...

Thanks so much for posting -- fascinating read.

PS fire and police services can never be done by tech for the reasons you mention. It's not a fair comparison to ZPTO.

Although I was having a little fun with you in my last post I really believe that the delays can be attributed to the signal system to some degree. It's not only the ATS overlay but also the way T/O training is done. The IRT has a system of station timers at various interlocking locations on the s/b Lexington line. North of Grand Central, north of Union Square, north of Brooklyn Bridge and north of Bowling Green. This allows a train to close in on its leader. In theory this increases the amount of trains that can run in the corridor. The problem is that this potential increase can cause major delays because of the track layout. Any time a train closes in on its leader at those locations it " locks out " any avenue of escape for that train and the immediate followers. If there is a delay on the train ahead a train that closed in and the following trains are locked out and can't be rerouted around the problem. Using Grand Central as an example every s/b train back to 86th St would be delayed. The Domino Effect. I was taught differently and to wait until I was sure my leader left the station completely before passing the interlocking signals I mentioned. That way I would clear the switches behind me. My followers would be in the clear to move even though they would be delayed somewhat. Instead of no movement at least there would be some movement. I don't know of any new timers that would slow down service that much. I don't even blame the ATS overlay in this case.. Perhaps it's the old signal system or the different training, Maybe some combination of both.I don't know. Whatever the reason it should be easy to correct. Can't blame this on technology as far as I can tell. Carry on.

[SubwayGuy]

WOW fascinating post. So the delays started after ATS implementation... Everyone else I've talked to says this is because of crowding (especially at GCT) and slower trains because of timers, but it sounds like there is more to it now...

 

Thanks so much for posting -- fascinating read.

 

PS fire and police services can never be done by tech for the reasons you mention. It's not a fair comparison to ZPTO.

 

It is absolutely a fair comparison to ZPTO. A person's life may be hanging in the balance, unknown, while a supervisor is trying to make their way to a disabled train from several stations away, which will naturally take longer because of the disruption in service caused by the very incident in which a person's life may be hanging in the balance.

 

Not only does this open the TA up to lawsuits, it makes it much harder for whomever is tasked with rerouting service to do so, as they won't get an accurate field report to work with. If you're talking about letting the passengers diagnose and relay that information, you give the passengers entirely too much credit. Here are several stories from personal experience to this effect:

 

-There are numerous "false alarm" emergency intercom activations in the subways every day

-Most pulled cords in the system tend to be vandalism. When the train crew ultimately investigates it, often, no one in the affected car is able to even articulate that someone pulled the cord (usually only one or two people see it), and about half the time they can't even give a physical description of the person that pulled the cord or whether or not they are still on the train.

-Most times when a sick passenger is reported, it takes a long time to even "find" the sick passenger unless the crew makes the customer who reported the sick passenger show them who it is. Why? Because people riding the trains often have no idea what is going on, even within their own car. Many reported "sick passengers" aren't even sick, and investigation reveals no corrective action needs to be taken, and EMS is not necessary as the "sick passenger" doesn't want or need assistance. If left to the passengers in a ZPTO situation, these delays would actually become far worse as a train would have to be held in a station and a supervisor would have to make their way to the train from several stations away to investigate. Don't think for a moment that train could continue to be held in service, as the door opens for a lawsuit the second TA has knowledge of a possible person in distress and authorizes the train to proceed anyway, especially should that train become stuck between stations afterwards (and delay EMS response).

-I have personally come into stations and been flagged to stop on more than one occasion. These reasons have run the gamut from a dispatcher without his pass around his neck wanting me to pick up inter-office mail, to a lost passenger trying to get around a service diversion, to passengers notifying me of a person up ahead on the tracks. During the most serious of these, even though several passengers were waving at me to stop (and I did), only one was able to articulate WHY I needed to stop. The rest were just waving their arms like sheep. Now imagine if this one person only spoke a foreign language, and had to relay this over an intercom to a control center that had been getting prank calls all day...and didn't have the luxury of pointing down the platform to a Train Operator who could use his eyes and see what was going on. I know, I know, "put a camera there" except what happens when it is vandalized, or fails? Maintenance of these items is not immediate...you have CCTV's all over the system to help conductors see cars of their trains around curves so they can operate the doors safely yet many are out, and so the TA stations a *person* there (platform conductor) to assist the train conductors in closing down at those stations. ZPTO on AirTrain even, is nothing more than a calculated risk, made because of its relatively lower ridership.

-Mechanical problems - trains have shown an inability to comprehensively self diagnose. New tech trains have had bearings lock causing flat wheels and smoke with nary an error message displayed. There have been door opening failures that threaten to trap people in cars, no TOD error message, long brakes, etc. Is the strategy really to allow the train to self diagnose, or, failing that, to allow the train to end up an incident, and only find out then?

 

You keep saying "the technology can be made better" but I don't deal in futurethink or speculation like that. Right now the MTA has a choice: Invest in its people, or invest in technology. All investing in technology that "can be made better" gets you is an exploding smartphone while you wait for a better one to come out. And this isn't a new phenomenon. This is something that dates all the way back to the 1950s in many cases of making experiments with trains. We've been there. Once upon a time in the early 70's someone thought that "P Wire" braking on the R-44 was the future, instead of reliable SMEE...and years later it was stripped out to make those cars "modified SMEE", however, they were pneumatically incompatible with every other piece of equipment in the system until their retirement, eliminating operational flexibility until the day that they were taken out of service. Someone else thought lightweight R-46 trucks were a good idea, until they cracked, and had to be replaced by something else. In more recent times, you've had the failures of the R-142 radial trucks (which were not replicated on the R-142A, R143, or R160), the failures of the R-156 locomotives which limit their use to less than the full array of worktrain "jobs" as well as the failures of their passenger trucks and computerized propulsion system to handle such worktrain necessary tasks such as taking power with brake applied, avoiding rollback, and generating sufficient torque such that it often takes more than one of them to do a job that the older locomotives can handle alone. And there are other examples of things that are "new tech" that have also had a disastrous impact on reliability of service that I am aware of that I will omit from this post because they are not public knowledge, and frankly shouldn't be. Things that also impact Metro-North and LIRR.

 

Technology is expensive. People, not as much. And you will always need people, since if you make the choice to invest in technology, you will need people to maintain it.

 

I have given you an annual figure ($650 million) of how much all of these efforts at technology will save if they reach full fruition and eliminate every Train Operator and Conductor job in the system. Yet in reality that figure is far less because you've already conceded not eliminating yard switchmen, and you've set aside no resources for employees to maintain all of the technology. But in the meantime, how much is being spent every year on technology, and how much will continue to be spent on new technology??? Trainmaster talks of a different era in training. He is correct. When I talk to newer Train Operators today, I am amazed at how much less time is being spent on troubleshooting than used to be. But this is the "other side" of all this overreliance on technology.

 

The MTA's most successful incorporations of technology are in areas where that technology is customized to the target environment. It's why the MTA's original signal system served it well for so long, it's also why other well thought out innovations that were implemented that were once "new tech" like H2 head couplers, low voltage propulsion control, sealed beam headlights, multiple unit door control and the indication circuit, dynamic braking, air conditioning, door chimes, polarized glass to block out distracting glare from the passenger compartment from the Train Operator, LED lighting, continuous welded rail, punchboxes and NX/UR tower machines, train washes, modular overhead HVAC components (instead of undercar), the Sperry Car and track geometry trains...just to name a few.

 

I am not arguing that we should forego technology entirely and "keep running the same system." I am arguing that the money spent in this endless pursuit on technology would be better spent building out new lines to increase the capacity of the system, create redundancy, built to modern specs, and in some cases selectively test new technology that has the potential to improve service in the uniquely demanding environment of NYCT instead of blindly hammering a round peg into a square hole systemwide. Even with a complete CBTC system of the most modern variety, you will still have signal problems because components will fail. I base my opinions on the reliability of signals on the fact that the L line currently (and has since going full CBTC) experiences more emergency brake applications per train than any other line. Additionally, many signal problems are actually switch problems. These will persist as long as you have switches. CBTC does not prevent these.

 

It's a question of cost vs. value. Technology is expensive, takes time to get right, and due to NYC's unique conditions, does not replace the human element in enough of a meaningful way to justify its cost in a way that better training can't.

[RR503]

Whoops!

 

Imagine a big coming soon sign here.

[RR503]

I agree with your thoughts on needless tech/tech for the sake of it, but I think CBTC and automation will be big plusses. Before I head back into the nitty-gritty, automating trains would (among other things we've discussed) regularize run times. Precisely because trains are operated by humans, the TA could never accurately predict how long a train will take over a line even if all other factors are eliminated. So automation would help OTP that way too.

 

Now for a sojourn back into the weeds.

 

It is not. Fire/police crews only deal with dangerous situations. 99.9% of time in an automated trains life is spent running between stations in a controlled, regular fashion. You're comparing apples to titanium smelters.

 

With the proliferation of CCTV cameras both in stations and on trains (crew cams etc), I think that supervisors could easily get a general feel for the situation that way. Also, all stations in the system still have manned booths, along with some that have platform conductors, jobs I don't see those going anytime soon. In cases of emergency, supers could just ask them to report. This applies to many of your points.

 

As for sick passengers. ZPTO trains are programmed to move to the next station and stop in cases of passenger distress, where a station agent or platform conductor could take a look as per above. And remember, unless we automate EMS, they'll be available too.

 

If placed well, and with redundancy, CCTV is VERY reliable. Yes, every now and then you have failures, but there are usually backups, and if not, station agents/platform conductors.

 

As for the self diagnosis issue, just build better/smarter trains... Tech IS that advanced, you know. Airplanes can do it with close to 100% accuracy, and they're a lot more complex.

 

As for futurethink, I'm not indulging in it. My advocacy for CBTC is me advocating for yesterdays technology for tomorrow. Today's tech is automation, but we have that until we've finished yesterday. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

Monetarily, you're right that CBTC has large up front costs. Remember though. If we go the full nine yards, we wouldn't only be eliminating those TO and conductor positions, but a large part of the signal department too. By installing it, we'd be doing away with the myriad cables, relays, switchboards and signals that control our system today and replacing it with a few well placed CBTC boxes. There are maaaaasive savings there too.

 

Did I miss anything?

[Union Tpke]

My thanks to all the posters, pro and con, about the delay problems and what can be done about them. From what I've read in these posts the delay problem is real although how bad it really is can be debated. I never considered myself a perfectionist but as a brand new C/R i was told that a train wasn't considered late unless it arrived at it's destination more than five minutes late. This was a standard railroad practice that the transit system(s) adopted before unification came about. This bothered me and when my instructor asked me why I told the class how I interpreted it. If I was on death row and my execution was scheduled for midnight the governor's pardon, reprieve, or the court's new evidence exonerating me wouldn't do me any good at 12:05 would it ? Naturally everyone laughed, except my instructor, and he told them that I would be a perfect RTO employee. He pointed out that 95% of our jobs started at odd times, 1:42 am, 13:18 pm, 17:17 pm, with our trains scheduled to leave 15 minutes later than those times. Even if you arrived before your train was scheduled to leave, but after your reporting time, you were considered late and could be sent home. I was never in the service but he was a former Marine Corp drill instructor and carried that aura of authority with him. The brother pulled me aside after a few days and gave me that " brother to brother" talk many of us heard from our older relatives and friends back in the day. He and my soon to be rabbi were sticklers when it came to time, job performance, and customer relations and when I went to M/M class I had the same guys doing the training. Back then the cause of lateness came down to two basic things, equipment problems, or human (passenger) reasons. To this very day I hate lateness, especially if it can be avoided. In the IRT in the early to mid eighties most lateness problems I encountered were equipment related. We had old fleets on every line except the and the ran cars from the and mixed in with their own relics. The ran equipment that could make it from Woodlawn to Bowling Green but 20% of those consists couldn't reliably make the climb through the tube to Borough Hall, Brooklyn. We had our share of breakdowns but things gradually got better with the GOH Redbirds and the introduction of the R62 and R62A fleets. The passenger related delays, door holding, vandalism, and the like did occur but except for the sick customer or rare childbirth event most train crews didn't encounter those things. The signal problem was always there but I actually saw more signal maintainers in the late eighties-early nineties era than I did later on. The sick customer phenomena grew more prevalent later on, too. I remember medical help being stationed at Grand Central, 125 and Lex, and Bowling Green later on. The scuttlebutt was that came about because of lawsuits against the but i couldn't vouch for that. The next slowdowns came about, IMO, because of the ATS overlay and the security slowdowns after 9/11. Police presence at major transfer points and the entrance to the river tubes. I actually had an incident at Bowling Green s/b where the NYPD held my train because their handheld radiation detector picked up an abnormal reading. They actually pulled an elderly man and his wife off my train and investigated them before they were allowed to re-board and continue on to Brooklyn. The man had undergone chemo up at Union Square and was going home. I'm sitting here out of the loop (by choice) trying to figure what could be causing this uptick in delays, at least in the IRT. I'm aware of the increase in ridership. I know the signal system in the Bronx is relatively new except for the Dyre Avenue segment. I doubt RTO is running less service than is scheduled. I keep coming back to the Lexington Avenue corridor and the signal system. I can remember two people, my rabbi and his coworker, telling me that they used to run more scheduled service on Lexington Avenue during the rush hours than they did when I came along. My rabbi was working in Operations and Planning by then and they had access to all of the old timetables where trains were scheduled to arrive at the stations between Bowling Green and Grand Central as close as 90 seconds apart. He once asked me to come up with a solution where one could run more trains on the Lex corridor. I went home and thought about it all weekend and came up with the answer. To achieve that and comply with the NTSB/federal mandate about the NYCT signal system after the Union Square incident I'd rip out the entire signal system from 125th St to Bowling Green on all tracks and rearrange the signal blocks. "Too expensive" he said and that's why they went with the ATS overlay instead. This came from a person privy to the discussions about ATS, CBTC, and the like and who retired after telling them the shortcomings of the various proposals. BTW he was then brought on as a consultant to untangle the mess he and the other oldtimers predicted would happen. It's a shame that in this job market it appears that the subways and the buses seem to be more prone to delays than even the " bad old days". I can't imagine what being late to an interview or being late too many times and losing a job because of transit feels like. Maybe common sense and technology can improve traffic flow below and above ground. I don't claim to have all the answers but I'll leave you with these things to ponder. I've built my computer systems for the last 25 years or so and I'm into the hardware side and personal security. Some of you appear to be on the software side, maybe as coders ? I know you're also into security. Does anyone really think the transit system can be locked down, security-wise, to prevent outside tampering? NSA, DIA tight? For my uber tech proponents I'll leave you with this. Since some people suggest that ZPTO run from a command center is okay for a trainload of customers in the boonies I propose this. When some maniac invades your house and holds you and yours hostage, or some pyro sets fire to your occupied house, I'll call the NYPD or FDNY command center and send help by Google/Apple police car or Google/ Apple self-driving fire truck, both with no occupants, and you can " Ask Google", " Ask Siri" or " Ask Alexa" to help you out of your predicament. Personally I'll stick with the professional with the gun or the fire hose. Carry on.

 

Great post! Thanks for posting the faults in the current system. I agree with you on the reliance on technology.

How would you rearrange the signal blocks so that trains could operate closer together in a safe manner?

[RailRunRob]

I agree with your thoughts on needless tech/tech for the sake of it, but I think CBTC and automation will be big plusses. Before I head back into the nitty-gritty, automating trains would (among other things we've discussed) regularize run times. Precisely because trains are operated by humans, the TA could never accurately predict how long a train will take over a line even if all other factors are eliminated. So automation would help OTP that way too.

 

Now for a sojourn back into the weeds.

 

It is not. Fire/police crews only deal with dangerous situations. 99.9% of time in an automated trains life is spent running between stations in a controlled, regular fashion. You're comparing apples to titanium smelters.

 

With the proliferation of CCTV cameras both in stations and on trains (crew cams etc), I think that supervisors could easily get a general feel for the situation that way. Also, all stations in the system still have manned booths, along with some that have platform conductors, jobs I don't see those going anytime soon. In cases of emergency, supers could just ask them to report. This applies to many of your points.

 

As for sick passengers. ZPTO trains are programmed to move to the next station and stop in cases of passenger distress, where a station agent or platform conductor could take a look as per above. And remember, unless we automate EMS, they'll be available too.

 

If placed well, and with redundancy, CCTV is VERY reliable. Yes, every now and then you have failures, but there are usually backups, and if not, station agents/platform conductors.

 

As for the self diagnosis issue, just build better/smarter trains... Tech IS that advanced, you know. Airplanes can do it with close to 100% accuracy, and they're a lot more complex.

 

As for futurethink, I'm not indulging in it. My advocacy for CBTC is me advocating for yesterdays technology for tomorrow. Today's tech is automation, but we have that until we've finished yesterday. Who knows what tomorrow will bring.

 

Monetarily, you're right that CBTC has large up front costs. Remember though. If we go the full nine yards, we wouldn't only be eliminating those TO and conductor positions, but a large part of the signal department too. By installing it, we'd be doing away with the myriad cables, relays, switchboards and signals that control our system today and replacing it with a few well placed CBTC boxes. There are maaaaasive savings there too.

 

Did I miss anything?

In a perfect world, there would be no contest to what you're saying. But it's not it's a man-made world there are other elements your missing  along with man's creation here. You have valid points from the perspective of something that builds platforms and technolgy. I always have to start from the of what's the value and how's is what I'm building going to make life better what's the pains of current ways of going about and what are the gains I bring to the table with what's new. I think the point being missed is if any new Technology is hitting the mainstream and being implemented as a replacement to the old it's expected to expected to perform at least on par with the technolgy its replacing. I think that's the point. Okay we know it's going to get better with time but start on par with what your replacing at the very least. In software, we stage newer builds test everything and test separate from what's currently live. We want to get more input go into beta see what works and what doesn't physical feedback. I don't get the impression the MTA did this well. It's silly to implement a system that hasn't matched or exceeded your current operations, especially with a major infrastructure. At least with software, the iPhone didn't have MMS or copy and paste well we had other options until they got it right. Not the case here. And again to my point before ATO need's to be done right in NYC it's going to be an undertaking the tech is there but there's no other City with the amount of operation intricacies you're going find here.  ZPTO it's not about the technology and if it's possible it's should it be done and if Society is comfortable. And right not I feel the answer is no. What big city that you know runs ZPTO?  Hey at the end of the day no one's questioning the big picture or even your knowledge on the topic. It's just this is more of Marathon than Sprint everything needs to be taken into consideration, planned, implemented and executed correctly  Don't underestimate wisdom and intuition there very powerful when used in conjunction with ration. Rush into something like this and you'll be redoing the work in 25 years. But I also understand the frustration of technology when it's not done correctly sometimes im guy who has to fix it. And when the same amount of output, performance, and productivity is expected on top of that. That's what there alluding to and you know what there right. Why should I pay because someone else didn't do their job in essence?

[SubwayGuy]

My main point of my previous post is that all of RR's "solutions" are expensive, don't tangibly improve the service other than getting his desired "automation", the savings of which are promptly thrown right out the window in hiring platform conductors to staff every station in the system, and station agents (which is one of the titles the TA is actively trying to phase out).

 

Arguing about how reliable a technology is, when it is already in use in NYCT and has demonstrably been shown to fail occasionally (which is acceptable with a human back up), but advocating for its use with little/no human backup is a different story.

 

Wanting EMS to come out for every single "report" of a sick passenger is ludicrous too. The report must be substantiated. Otherwise, vital resources are pulled away from other emergencies not in the subway system where they may actually be needed.

 

And 99.9% of the time, the fact that the cause of a delay may seem innocuous does not mean it will be. There are thousands of money hungry lawyers who live for that .1%, all on the TA and the taxpayers' dime.

 

As for the argument that the folks at the control center can somehow run the entire railroad without the benefit of any local towers in full CBTC mode and still have time to view live feeds from individual stations, well that's just ludicrous

 

If you haven't noticed, all of RR's "workarounds" for ZPTO come back to people. So the question is simple. Why bother trying to advance a ZPTO system, or even bother with ATO for that matter, if it all comes back to people in the end?

 

Shouldn't the focus be instead on how to come up with a tailored movable block signalling system for NYCT that is exceptionally reliable, and how to train the crews on how to do their jobs to the fullest and best of their ability that they are better equipped to handle and overcome the root causes of certain categories of delays?

 

As for ATO in practice on the L, sure it may normalize operation, but the CBTC system also allows the train to go faster in ATO mode at certain locations than it allows a human operating in ATPM mode, which gives ATO an advantage in "speed". Other than this advantage, it is still subject to constraints such as crowding, trains ahead, etc. that affect on time performance, and it is unable to detect subtle physical changes and slow down for them ("this 10MPH switch has a frog that feels worn, let me take it at 8" kind of thing). For a line with an isolated corridor, it's on time performance is not significantly better than what might be expected. Good training of new Train Operators is also a way to normalize good operation - it was once the standard at NYCT and can become that again if it is made a priority.

[RailRunRob]

Shouldn't the focus be instead on how to come up with a tailored movable block signalling system for NYCT that is exceptionally reliable, and how to train the crews on how to do their jobs to the fullest and best of their ability that they are better equipped to handle and overcome the root causes of certain categories of delays?

 

 

Without doubt, Don't know what other way there could be. Technology isn't one size fit's all.  User interface & Human interaction is to often overlooked. And honestly in IMO is the most important element. How could someone build a system and not understand the inner workings?  Kinda like some of the guys on the team wanting to make a dating app when they never go on dates! That tech industry for you. I still claim em.. hahaha.  

[RR503]

I'm too tired right now (just got off a flight) to address all SubwayGuy's points, but we seem to be going in circles again. He says automation won't save, I say it will (and just FYI I was not advocating platform conductors in all stations. I was saying that they and station agents could replace TOs as the eyes and ears in stations if need be. And unless I'm wrong in thinking that those jobs are not classified as train operation or signalling jobs, my savings are still there). He says it won't be reliable, I say it will. So just read my earlier posts.

 

One last thing: that movable block thing you are salivating over is CBTC. That's literally what it is.

[bobtehpanda]

Shouldn't the focus be instead on how to come up with a tailored movable block signalling system for NYCT that is exceptionally reliable, and how to train the crews on how to do their jobs to the fullest and best of their ability that they are better equipped to handle and overcome the root causes of certain categories of delays?

 

This is if you believe the MTA, on its own, should be investing time, money, and energy, into hiring the engineers, doing the manufacturing, etc. for a bespoke, one-of-a-kind signalling system. Literally no other subway system in the world does this, except maybe BART because they were obsessed with being unique, and BART suffers from issues with extending its network because its bespoke, one of a kind system, means that everything is just more expensive to build. Custom stuff costs a lot more. Even if they could, a good amount of research has been done globally on railway signalling, since there are systems that are much more crowded and just as old that need to push out higher capacity, yet they're all moving to CBTC (London, Paris, etc.); if it were possible to make fixed-block signalling as good as CBTC, someone would probably have done it already.

 

In fact, was the current signalling system even in-house? It's in-house now because the original supplier doesn't make the signal system anymore, but was that the case when it was built?

[SubwayGuy]

I'm too tired right now (just got off a flight) to address all SubwayGuy's points, but we seem to be going in circles again. He says automation won't save, I say it will (and just FYI I was not advocating platform conductors in all stations. I was saying that they and station agents could replace TOs as the eyes and ears in stations if need be. And unless I'm wrong in thinking that those jobs are not classified as train operation or signalling jobs, my savings are still there). He says it won't be reliable, I say it will. So just read my earlier posts.

 

One last thing: that movable block thing you are salivating over is CBTC. That's literally what it is.

 

More hyperbole and hearsay. I present clear problems. You pull all sorts of other titles out of the woodwork and say "they can do that." These people already have responsibilities. And if you don't have coverage for every station, you have blind spots. Blind spots lead to lawsuits when something happens.

 

You can't have it both ways. You can't just promote your technology at all costs, say "well just put XX title here", say "it will save lots of money" when I've shown you how (relatively) little it saves out of the MTA budget annually, and then when I point out how your proposed system would actually be inferior and more inherently unsafe than the system presently in operation you basically put your fingers in your ear and go "lalalala I can't hear you"

 

Every billion dollars spent on technology that aren't spent on new corridors is wasted money. Transit does not need 2 trains per hour on every trunk line over the next 30 years. It needs as-immediate-as-possible growth in system capacity of 15% or more to keep up with demand, which, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, actually pays itself back somewhat when trains are less crowded and can complete round trips in less time, leading to fewer trains needed to maintain the same headways.

 

I mean, taken to its logical extreme...what you are advocating for might as well essentially be an airport passenger conveyor...all we need is 472 combination platform conductor/station agents who can both sell MetroCards and stand on the platform to watch out for anything unsafe at their CCTV workstation and press the red "stop" button, and 1 person sitting at a console who can summon police/EMS/etc. And 1-2 people per shift to fix CCTV's. I mean, that's basically the argument you're making, and I'm pointing out, rightly, how ridiculous that is. In fact, my passenger conveyor may actually cost less than CBTC!

 

Last, just because CBTC is "a movable block signal system" does not mean it is the right system for Transit. There is more than one way to skin a cat. As early as the 1910's, the BRT was experimenting with a form of cab signalling using GRS electrical equipment on A/B Standards. But it was not "communications based". The system Metro-North uses for cab signalling picks up alternating current frequencies in the track (which aren't interfered with by DC overhead/third rail return) to dictate speed restrictions, and is much more reliable than CBTC zone controllers have shown themselves to be. There are other, better ways to do this, and by ordering what everyone else is and "going with the herd" the results are not going to be pretty.

 

Transit has a history of doing better when it sits down and thinks through the problem. Look at the H2 coupler. Easy cuts, easy adds. How many passenger railroads (still) are fumbling with air hoses, cannon plugs, jumper cables, the ridiculous buffers and chain, etc. and here was the IND in the 1920's designing something that is still one of the most safe and efficient couplers ever designed to this day. But I'm sure we'd have been better off if we just stuck with Van Dorn couplers, or knuckles, because that's what everyone else was doing. You claim to be for technology so much...so then innovate! Stop being the jerk in line at the Apple store buying what everyone else is, and save your money for something truly revolutionary.

 

The system needs so much more than to spend billions on new technology that doesn't tangibly cut costs or improve the service, and fails to keep up with increasing capacity. I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face but we as a city and a country are headed for a fall if we truly and honestly believe, with our public policy, that these sorts of wasteful initiatives will give us the cities we need of tomorrow. Imagine where we'd be now if all the horse carriage and streetcar companies had followed that route and never built the subway. Well as our city continues to see population increases and growth, it will dwarf the improvements, if any, from out of the box misfit technology, and the quality of life will significantly decline as a result. And it will cost the city billions and billions of dollars a day in lost revenue, wasted time, forfeited wages, unproductive economic activity, decreased leisure time to spend in the local economy, etc. People don't really understand how screwed everything is. We need to start digging out now. "It's getting late early," as Yogi Berra once said, but it's not really early anymore.

 

Remember: we haven't expanded by more than 10 stations since the mid 1950s, and have actually lost more stations than we've gained during that time. Think about that. 60 years of organic population growth and real estate development with next to no improvement in the transit infrastructure that serves it.

[RailRunRob]

This is if you believe the MTA, on its own, should be investing time, money, and energy, into hiring the engineers, doing the manufacturing, etc. for a bespoke, one-of-a-kind signalling system. Literally no other subway system in the world does this, except maybe BART because they were obsessed with being unique, and BART suffers from issues with extending its network because its bespoke, one of a kind system, means that everything is just more expensive to build. Custom stuff costs a lot more. Even if they could, a good amount of research has been done globally on railway signalling, since there are systems that are much more crowded and just as old that need to push out higher capacity, yet they're all moving to CBTC (London, Paris, etc.); if it were possible to make fixed-block signalling as good as CBTC, someone would probably have done it already.

 

In fact, was the current signalling system even in-house? It's in-house now because the original supplier doesn't make the signal system anymore, but was that the case when it was built?

Three things?

Is it wrong to test a system over a certain period to make sure it's reliable before introduction to a system?  

Do you believe one size fits all in the case of NYC? I understand where the tech is going no one denies that. Again do you believe an out of the box CTBC works with no adjustment?

Name a City with the intricacies of NYC with a fully automated system in place. Interlaced trunk lines and all?. No line with a branch or two. 

[RailRunRob]

I'm too tired right now (just got off a flight) to address all SubwayGuy's points, but we seem to be going in circles again. He says automation won't save, I say it will (and just FYI I was not advocating platform conductors in all stations. I was saying that they and station agents could replace TOs as the eyes and ears in stations if need be. And unless I'm wrong in thinking that those jobs are not classified as train operation or signalling jobs, my savings are still there). He says it won't be reliable, I say it will. So just read my earlier posts.

 

One last thing: that movable block thing you are salivating over is CBTC. That's literally what it is.

I understand the lag I'm on a flight to SF in a few. Okay, let's step this up. Automation happens this take's 40-50 years to finish and complete. What happens in the time in between? How do you improve the system while your new technology is in the oven? Maximize current resources? Just say oh well?  How would you introduce and phase this new technology in sections while making sure the system(Old Tech) is running around it.?  What's your plan for bugs and issues what's the backup for the effects on a system that needs to keep running no matter what? Do you think it would be fair for workers running the system to be held to same standards when and if the system is giving them issues? Riders would expect the level of service new system or not seamless is what it would all need to be.  What say ye?

Yep, we know moving block is CTBC standard and easy.

Let's get the moving.

[RailRunRob]

More hyperbole and hearsay. I present clear problems. You pull all sorts of other titles out of the woodwork and say "they can do that." These people already have responsibilities. And if you don't have coverage for every station, you have blind spots. Blind spots lead to lawsuits when something happens.

 

You can't have it both ways. You can't just promote your technology at all costs, say "well just put XX title here", say "it will save lots of money" when I've shown you how (relatively) little it saves out of the MTA budget annually, and then when I point out how your proposed system would actually be inferior and more inherently unsafe than the system presently in operation you basically put your fingers in your ear and go "lalalala I can't hear you"

 

Every billion dollars spent on technology that aren't spent on new corridors is wasted money. Transit does not need 2 trains per hour on every trunk line over the next 30 years. It needs as-immediate-as-possible growth in system capacity of 15% or more to keep up with demand, which, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, actually pays itself back somewhat when trains are less crowded and can complete round trips in less time, leading to fewer trains needed to maintain the same headways.

 

I mean, taken to its logical extreme...what you are advocating for might as well essentially be an airport passenger conveyor...all we need is 472 combination platform conductor/station agents who can both sell MetroCards and stand on the platform to watch out for anything unsafe at their CCTV workstation and press the red "stop" button, and 1 person sitting at a console who can summon police/EMS/etc. And 1-2 people per shift to fix CCTV's. I mean, that's basically the argument you're making, and I'm pointing out, rightly, how ridiculous that is. In fact, my passenger conveyor may actually cost less than CBTC!

 

Last, just because CBTC is "a movable block signal system" does not mean it is the right system for Transit. There is more than one way to skin a cat. As early as the 1910's, the BRT was experimenting with a form of cab signalling using GRS electrical equipment on A/B Standards. But it was not "communications based". The system Metro-North uses for cab signalling picks up alternating current frequencies in the track (which aren't interfered with by DC overhead/third rail return) to dictate speed restrictions, and is much more reliable than CBTC zone controllers have shown themselves to be. There are other, better ways to do this, and by ordering what everyone else is and "going with the herd" the results are not going to be pretty.

 

Transit has a history of doing better when it sits down and thinks through the problem. Look at the H2 coupler. Easy cuts, easy adds. How many passenger railroads (still) are fumbling with air hoses, cannon plugs, jumper cables, the ridiculous buffers and chain, etc. and here was the IND in the 1920's designing something that is still one of the most safe and efficient couplers ever designed to this day. But I'm sure we'd have been better off if we just stuck with Van Dorn couplers, or knuckles, because that's what everyone else was doing. You claim to be for technology so much...so then innovate! Stop being the jerk in line at the Apple store buying what everyone else is, and save your money for something truly revolutionary.

 

The system needs so much more than to spend billions on new technology that doesn't tangibly cut costs or improve the service, and fails to keep up with increasing capacity. I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face but we as a city and a country are headed for a fall if we truly and honestly believe, with our public policy, that these sorts of wasteful initiatives will give us the cities we need of tomorrow. Imagine where we'd be now if all the horse carriage and streetcar companies had followed that route and never built the subway. Well as our city continues to see population increases and growth, it will dwarf the improvements, if any, from out of the box misfit technology, and the quality of life will significantly decline as a result. And it will cost the city billions and billions of dollars a day in lost revenue, wasted time, forfeited wages, unproductive economic activity, decreased leisure time to spend in the local economy, etc. People don't really understand how screwed everything is. We need to start digging out now. "It's getting late early," as Yogi Berra once said, but it's not really early anymore.

 

Remember: we haven't expanded by more than 10 stations since the mid 1950s, and have actually lost more stations than we've gained during that time. Think about that. 60 years of organic population growth and real estate development with next to no improvement in the transit infrastructure that serves it.

Indeed and your not crazy everything you speak is fact.  The fact of the matter is at this point even working at 100% isn't enough the generations before shafted us majorly. We have to double up we have to catch up in infrastructure and push forward with innovation at the sometime no question about it. The main enemy here is time the one thing you can't get back. Technology is going to take years maybe in the scale of decades to complete. But population is exploding at present as you stated it's only going to be a matter of time before we feel the effects in the real world loss of population Business is moving out of NYC. Someone told me once if you really want to tell the difference between Reality and Fantasy you have to look it through the door of suffering. Computers and trains can't suffer but the people using and riding them can. NYC can't suffer why because it's a mad made construct but the people living in it will. People aren't going to get it until there affected personally then it becomes real by that time it's already too late so if you feel the effects of suffering you know it's real.  I agree we need to get digging the only way to get some real relief it's way over do.  Another thing I've come to realized as I've gotten older and failed a few times along the way is knowledge and application are two very separate things. You may be aware of technology knowing how to ask the right questions and a few days with google and your well way on your way. But understanding the task your about to undertake and knowing how to apply that knowledge to the task that's the hard part. Exactly why I asked the questions above to get an idea of the where one's point of view originates from. I guess the fact that I have Civil Engineering background as well as Technology  I see it. I don't understand how one doesn't see your points especially the expansion easily provable points. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

This is if you believe the MTA, on its own, should be investing time, money, and energy, into hiring the engineers, doing the manufacturing, etc. for a bespoke, one-of-a-kind signalling system. Literally no other subway system in the world does this, except maybe BART because they were obsessed with being unique, and BART suffers from issues with extending its network because its bespoke, one of a kind system, means that everything is just more expensive to build. Custom stuff costs a lot more. Even if they could, a good amount of research has been done globally on railway signalling, since there are systems that are much more crowded and just as old that need to push out higher capacity, yet they're all moving to CBTC (London, Paris, etc.); if it were possible to make fixed-block signalling as good as CBTC, someone would probably have done it already.

 

In fact, was the current signalling system even in-house? It's in-house now because the original supplier doesn't make the signal system anymore, but was that the case when it was built?

There have been instances where the has essentially been forced to do work in-house because outside contractors couldn't get the job done.  BusTime comes to mind... I think all avenues should be explored/examined, and if the job has to be done in-house then so be it.  Yes, custom always costs more for the reasons you mentioned, but that doesn't mean that it should be automatically abandoned.  If we have one billion dollars to spend on each new station, surely there is money for other things.

[RR503]

More hyperbole and hearsay. I present clear problems. You pull all sorts of other titles out of the woodwork and say "they can do that." These people already have responsibilities. And if you don't have coverage for every station, you have blind spots. Blind spots lead to lawsuits when something happens.

 

You can't have it both ways. You can't just promote your technology at all costs, say "well just put XX title here", say "it will save lots of money" when I've shown you how (relatively) little it saves out of the MTA budget annually, and then when I point out how your proposed system would actually be inferior and more inherently unsafe than the system presently in operation you basically put your fingers in your ear and go "lalalala I can't hear you"

 

Every billion dollars spent on technology that aren't spent on new corridors is wasted money. Transit does not need 2 trains per hour on every trunk line over the next 30 years. It needs as-immediate-as-possible growth in system capacity of 15% or more to keep up with demand, which, perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, actually pays itself back somewhat when trains are less crowded and can complete round trips in less time, leading to fewer trains needed to maintain the same headways.

 

I mean, taken to its logical extreme...what you are advocating for might as well essentially be an airport passenger conveyor...all we need is 472 combination platform conductor/station agents who can both sell MetroCards and stand on the platform to watch out for anything unsafe at their CCTV workstation and press the red "stop" button, and 1 person sitting at a console who can summon police/EMS/etc. And 1-2 people per shift to fix CCTV's. I mean, that's basically the argument you're making, and I'm pointing out, rightly, how ridiculous that is. In fact, my passenger conveyor may actually cost less than CBTC!

 

Last, just because CBTC is "a movable block signal system" does not mean it is the right system for Transit. There is more than one way to skin a cat. As early as the 1910's, the BRT was experimenting with a form of cab signalling using GRS electrical equipment on A/B Standards. But it was not "communications based". The system Metro-North uses for cab signalling picks up alternating current frequencies in the track (which aren't interfered with by DC overhead/third rail return) to dictate speed restrictions, and is much more reliable than CBTC zone controllers have shown themselves to be. There are other, better ways to do this, and by ordering what everyone else is and "going with the herd" the results are not going to be pretty.

 

Transit has a history of doing better when it sits down and thinks through the problem. Look at the H2 coupler. Easy cuts, easy adds. How many passenger railroads (still) are fumbling with air hoses, cannon plugs, jumper cables, the ridiculous buffers and chain, etc. and here was the IND in the 1920's designing something that is still one of the most safe and efficient couplers ever designed to this day. But I'm sure we'd have been better off if we just stuck with Van Dorn couplers, or knuckles, because that's what everyone else was doing. You claim to be for technology so much...so then innovate! Stop being the jerk in line at the Apple store buying what everyone else is, and save your money for something truly revolutionary.

 

The system needs so much more than to spend billions on new technology that doesn't tangibly cut costs or improve the service, and fails to keep up with increasing capacity. I will keep saying this until I am blue in the face but we as a city and a country are headed for a fall if we truly and honestly believe, with our public policy, that these sorts of wasteful initiatives will give us the cities we need of tomorrow. Imagine where we'd be now if all the horse carriage and streetcar companies had followed that route and never built the subway. Well as our city continues to see population increases and growth, it will dwarf the improvements, if any, from out of the box misfit technology, and the quality of life will significantly decline as a result. And it will cost the city billions and billions of dollars a day in lost revenue, wasted time, forfeited wages, unproductive economic activity, decreased leisure time to spend in the local economy, etc. People don't really understand how screwed everything is. We need to start digging out now. "It's getting late early," as Yogi Berra once said, but it's not really early anymore.

 

Remember: we haven't expanded by more than 10 stations since the mid 1950s, and have actually lost more stations than we've gained during that time. Think about that. 60 years of organic population growth and real estate development with next to no improvement in the transit infrastructure that serves it.

 

ooookay, now that I'm awake (ish), here goes again.

First off, while some of my posts can be a bit hyperbolic, that last one wasn't. Your post though......................................really hyperbolic. 

Let's go back to the beginning of this whole discussion. CBTC. My original point was that it is necessary, and that if installed, it could potentially allow for automation. You then blew a gasket and began this whole debate about O/ZPTO (which I am quite happy to have, but again, not my original intention). In these last couple posts, you've admitted that a new signal system is needed, but you think that CBTC isn't the way to go. You say that the MTA needs to innovate, which I agree with, but seeing the current state of the authority, I think letting the outside experts do their thing is best. That's economic specialization for you. In terms of the current product, I think that we're paying too much for too little. We as a city are having to foot the bill for what is in the end a version of CBTC that is kinda B grade. However, I do think that if the options are this or more ABS, I'll take this any day. At least it has the potential to grow. While I agree that adding new corridors is important, forgetting about the old ones is...idiotic. Especially in midtown manhattan where there really isn't much place to put new subway lines, maxing out existing ones is paramount to keeping the system relevant.   

 

Now back to ZPTO. One thing that y'all are misunderstanding is that I'm not saying that we should start running automated trains tomorrow. I'm saying that despite SubwayGuy's eloquent protests, it can be done. He says that doing so would make the system more unsafe, but I question that. 

 

Moving back to the issue of platforms and issues, I give you this: the MTA is already planning to phase out station agents (note that the agency thinks that the system doesn't need them, or, in other words, that their responsabilities are negligible), but I say keep them. Make station agent into a position that is less sitting in a booth and more circulating around platforms, assisting passengers, and keeping an eye on things. There are 472 stations. That's 472 employees who are keeping their jobs, a net 0 change in costs. Not only does that cover platform supervision, but it also helps with crowding, as these employees could help direct loading/unloading. If we then eliminate TOs and conductors, we're up $650 million in direct pay (ie not including overtime, pensions, benefits). Next, we factor in signal savings. No more in-house fabrication of arcane components. Fewer maintainers for a greatly simplified system (I'm imagining bye-bye block signals), and just generally a lot less infrastructure. That there is probably another 200-300 million per year. But aside from these purely fiscal measures, service reliability will increase. Normalized run times, shortended headways and greater speeds will help in general, but the fact that the signal system will have significantly fewer points of failure is (in my eyes) the greatest benefit. 

 

Someone asked about implementation. Basically, when CBTC is finished, this could be done. So whenever that happens. Until then, the agency should work on reducing delays and building out new capacity in a cost-efficient manner. 

 

Also, SubwayGuy, I see and understand your points, I just disagree. I'd really like it if you'd stop caricaturing me. It lowers the level of discussion a lot. I understand you have a vested interest in me being wrong an all, just try and argue like an adult. 

 

Did I miss anything?

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Now back to ZPTO. One thing that y'all are misunderstanding is that I'm not saying that we should start running automated trains tomorrow. I'm saying that despite SubwayGuy's eloquent protests, it can be done. He says that doing so would make the system more unsafe, but I question that.

Like he's really going to admit that when he's an worker.... Get real... lol I've always said that they need to get rid of the fat in their offices... Do they really need such a glut of senior project managers making 90k - 100k+ a year?  Mind you, I say this as someone in a white collar managerial position.  They focus on cutting service to save costs, but refuse to cut where they should be.  

[RR503]

Like he's really going to admit that when he's an worker.... Get real... lol I've always said that they need to get rid of the fat in their offices... Do they really need such a glut of senior project managers making 90k - 100k+ a year?  Mind you, I say this as someone in a white collar managerial position.  They focus on cutting service to save costs, but refuse to cut where they should be.  

 

Yes x 10,000 

 

And I say this as someone who works there. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Yes x 10,000 

 

And I say this as someone who works there. 

And I say because I've interned with the and saw what happens in their offices.  It's amazing. You have people making six figures that do absolutely nothing.  One year I worked in the data department, and this one guy seemed to be on vacation for almost the entire time I was there (which was almost all of the summer).  How does any work get done with such abuse?  The following year, I worked in another department that seemed to be even worse.  The supervisor would delegate tasks to us and then close his door and do nothing until some time in the afternoon, where he would come out.  There's also this unspoken policy that no one does more than what their job title states.  It's just absurd all around.  

[RR503]

And I say because I've interned with the and saw what happens in their offices. It's amazing. You have people making six figures that do absolutely nothing. One year I worked in the data department, and this one guy seemed to be on vacation for almost the entire time I was there (which was almost all of the summer). How does any work get done with such abuse? The following year, I worked in another department that seemed to be even worse. The supervisor would delegate tasks to us and then close his door and do nothing until some time in the afternoon, where he would come out. There's also this unspoken policy that no one does more than what their job title states. It's just absurd all around.

I agree. In the specific part of the TA where I work (I'm not going to say exactly where for the sake of privacy, sorry), the people are AMAZING and go the extra mile all the time, but you can really see the waste when elsewhere in the offices. I just don't understand how they can't see it.