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‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

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Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#81

Post by sushisource »

throwaway_80bf3 wrote: post #72
bogomipz wrote: post #22

This would not be the first time that the MTA has willfully deceived the public by maintaining two sets of facts - the private set which reflects the truth and another set of facts that are used in discussion with the public. 15 years ago the MTA was caught maintaining two different sets of books - one internal that showed the agency had a surplus of cash and another set of books for the public which showed the agenc…

About 8 years ago there were a few house ads in the cars that were effectively gaslighting riders. It was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen as a consumer -- borderline antagonistic. The agency, and the workers to some extent, can be pugilistic when criticized. http://cdn.journalism.cuny.edu/blogs.dir/176/files/2010/03/f...

For those of us who aren't familiar with the price history what's the lie here?

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#82

Post by dsfyu404ed »

geofft wrote: post #79
DiabloD3 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You fire everyone. However, if I remember correctly, they're unionized, which is why this hasn't happened yet.

Is management unionized? The article makes it sound like the engineers themselves are frustrated with this system.

You can't just stop the gravy train by removing management. Bad culture is at all levels.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#83

Post by Retric »

gsnedders wrote: post #70
thunfischbrot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and considering a speed limiter instead of stopping the train when traveling too fast. What good does it do to stop the train when going too fast instead of limiting it in the first place?

The general principle in railway movement authority is that there's an easy fail safe: stop moving. If nothing moves, there can be no collision. If something goes wrong? Stop the train. You can then figure out what went wrong and address it with no risk. Things shouldn't be going wrong, speeds shouldn't be being exceeded, etc.

Even then you should have some give aka Speed of X+3 MPH break, speed of x+1 MPH warning. You want fault tolerance not simply a hard limit without feedback.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#84

Post by masklinn »

d4l3k wrote: post #80
masklinn wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no conductors , there's a control room with system overview and links to metros, stations and service personnel. See http://www.ansaldo-sts.com/sites/ansaldosts/files/brochures/... page 21.

Interestingly enough, all transit staff are trained to be conductors in cases when the automated system doesn't work. It recently snowed which incorrectly triggered the "something is on the track" sensors causing the entire system to stop. They just took all the people normally doing other tasks and made them manually drive the trains for a day until the snow melted.

I didn't know that, that's pretty damn awesome and excellent foresight.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#85

Post by ovi256 »

gsnedders wrote: post #70
thunfischbrot wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, and considering a speed limiter instead of stopping the train when traveling too fast. What good does it do to stop the train when going too fast instead of limiting it in the first place?

The general principle in railway movement authority is that there's an easy fail safe: stop moving. If nothing moves, there can be no collision. If something goes wrong? Stop the train. You can then figure out what went wrong and address it with no risk. Things shouldn't be going wrong, speeds shouldn't be being exceeded, etc.

>If nothing moves, there can be no collision.

If no train on the line moves, sure. But stoping just the one train won't improve safety, and was historically the cause of many accidents. I remember just the one in Shanghai in 201x. One train stopped, the following train hit it.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#86

Post by mistermann »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #62
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The culture of this agency is rotten and its corruption endemic How does one realistically reform something like this?

You fire everyone. However, if I remember correctly, they're unionized, which is why this hasn't happened yet.

Which will never happen. Yet another of China's many advantages: ease of optimization.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#87

Post by burner5692 »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #62
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The culture of this agency is rotten and its corruption endemic How does one realistically reform something like this?

You fire everyone. However, if I remember correctly, they're unionized, which is why this hasn't happened yet.

Doesn't a union make that easier? That's the point of unions.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#88

Post by jseliger »

efuquen wrote: post #75
iooi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've said it before [1] and I'll say it again, even if I get downvoted to hell again: Unions NYC has some of the strongest unions in the country. Everything from hotels to the MTA are plagued by really, really strong unions that only care about their interests -- leaving the city with a shameful transit system, in this case. Unions make up nearly 25% of workers in NYC[2], that's more than the double the national aver…

Denmark has one of the highest union participation rates in the world and they were able to a build a fully automated metro system in Copenhagen.

Denmark is also considerably different than the U.S. along many dimensions: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-23/you-can-t... and not just this one.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#89

Post by dsfyu404ed »

tashoecraft wrote: post #7
DamonHD wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But beyond a certain point slowing the trains gains little safety but (eg) pushes people back to the road where (in the UK for example) we spend 10x less to save a life than on the trains. Thus, overcaution on the trains will kill more people.

Wonder how much further you can take it. If you lose a little safety (trains) and take more people off the road, you increase the risk of a train accident. How many people go back to the roads after a train accident? Is the backlash greater (my 0 data thoughts would be that more people would return to the road then just if the train was slow). I heard somewhere that more people died through increased car accidents af…

You can only take it so far as you're willing to hold accountable the people making the decisions.

Re: ‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’

#90

Post by L_Rahman »

iooi wrote: post #50
smilekzs wrote: post #14

Risking asking the obvious: What is stopping us from having autonomous subways, considering we are almost gonna have autonomous cars?

I've said it before [1] and I'll say it again, even if I get downvoted to hell again: Unions NYC has some of the strongest unions in the country. Everything from hotels to the MTA are plagued by really, really strong unions that only care about their interests -- leaving the city with a shameful transit system, in this case. Unions make up nearly 25% of workers in NYC[2], that's more than the double the national aver…

Saying this is because of unions is like saying America has political problems because it is a democratic nation state. Democracies and unions are modes of people collectively exerting power with inherent.

The actual criticism to be made here is the pathology of all New York institutions and the people entrenched among them - the unions that serve the MTA, the people who own, build and rent the real estate, the politicians who effective rule by plutocracy.

The corruption of New York's unions is simply the end state of a city whose underlying mechanisms have all been captured by a small group of people interested only in enriching themselves. Many of those institutions are unions.

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