‘The Trains Are Slower Because They Slowed the Trains Down’ • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by klodolph » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

shoo wrote: post #64

njarboe wrote: post #44

This article has a lot of text before getting to describing the problem. Summary: Train wreck 1995 and a installation of a safety-first, CYA response that slows down the trains and does not increase safety. Longer Summary: Train wreck in 1995. Maybe driver was asleep. Start installing new signals that not only automatically stop the trains when there is a train ahead (good idea and already in place), but also when go…

I agree with most of your summary, but I don't believe the article provided evidence that installation of signals to enforce a lower max speed "does not increase safety". I'd speculate, without evidence, that it probably has increased safety. But maybe it's just a bad tradeoff, compared to other options.

This is one of those comments that is annoying to respond to because it may be technically correct because the original comment wasn't worded ever so precisely, but we all know that "does not increase safety" is not an absolute statement. You could strap a pillow to your chest and get ready to jump out of an airplane, and I'll say "that won't cushion your fall," but "technically, it will," you argue.

Besides--reduced capacity causes platform crowding which is dangerous and displaces passengers into other modes of transportation like foot or automotive traffic, both of which are more deadly per passenger-mile than the subway.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:23 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #179

masklinn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Union culture can be significant though. Union culture is as antagonistic in France as in the US (for the same reasons that corporations are antagonistic) and it not only has multiple GOA4 metro systems running right now across the country[0], Paris is actually converting existing lines to full automation . All of Germany (which has a much more cooperative union culture) has two GOA4 lines both in Nuremberg, meanwh…

I'd be surprised if the unions representing the train drivers in France were just all "ok, cool, automate away and fire the drivers when you're done". Did they require that drivers be employed in other positions, or receive some sort of training for different jobs? Unions in the US are annoyingly different: most (at least those that I'm even passingly familiar with) seem to have one major goal: keeping the status quo…

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:32 AM UTC

adrianratnapala wrote: post #131

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are countries with way stronger unions and automated trains. I doubt unions are the deciding factor.

In some European cities (Munich?) autonomous trains often have "drivers" who do nothing because that preferred to fighting the union. Also, as far as I can tell US public sector unions are as strong as those in any other rich country.

> In some European cities (Munich?) autonomous trains often have "drivers" who do nothing because that preferred to fighting the union.

Many cities with autonomous trains indeed have drivers. But they don't do nothing, they sit there for emergencies and to set the go signal when leaving the station. In Austria for instance that's not because of unions but because the job of the driver is at this point considered important. For fully autonomous operation you need extra security features on the track which were not employed (fully sealed off track in stations, better emergency corridors, more reliable remote door controls etc.).

Where fully automated trains are in operation there are never any drivers.

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

#194

Post by the_mitsuhiko » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:34 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #179

masklinn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Union culture can be significant though. Union culture is as antagonistic in France as in the US (for the same reasons that corporations are antagonistic) and it not only has multiple GOA4 metro systems running right now across the country[0], Paris is actually converting existing lines to full automation . All of Germany (which has a much more cooperative union culture) has two GOA4 lines both in Nuremberg, meanwh…

I'd be surprised if the unions representing the train drivers in France were just all "ok, cool, automate away and fire the drivers when you're done". Did they require that drivers be employed in other positions, or receive some sort of training for different jobs? Unions in the US are annoyingly different: most (at least those that I'm even passingly familiar with) seem to have one major goal: keeping the status quo…

> I'd be surprised if the unions representing the train drivers in France were just all "ok, cool, automate away and fire the drivers when you're done". Did they require that drivers be employed in other positions, or receive some sort of training for different jobs?

Often that topic does not even come up because companies are not firing people to begin with like they do in the US. They just transition into a new role (for instance they could become light rail drivers in the same network where automation is not yet achievable).

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

#195

Post by tomohawk » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 8:59 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #42

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…

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

Incentives work. Figuring out the correct incentives to achieve good results is hard. Keeping ahead of the people who will game them is hard. This requires competent management, which is obviously lacking. Fire the incompetent managers and fire the political leadership who appointed them (term limits might help here).

Since there are credible allegations of crime, is there an inspector general? There should be. If not, bring in the fraud squad and investigate the hell out of them. They'll leave.

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

#196

Post by lmm » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 9:04 AM UTC

freelunch wrote: post #174

vnj23iwe wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fire everyone at Agency A for shitty behavior. Then turn around and realize everyone at Agency B is cooking the books, so fire them. And so on. Then turn around and realize basically every large institution humans have ever built relies on shady, selfish, behavior and stop caring about reforming individuals since thousands of years of policing have done jack and squat to remove the behavior from the species. Seriousl…

So why does Tokyo’s system work so much better? They’re humans too, but apparently their transit system works much better.

I don't know, but Japanese companies are notorious for never firing people, so it's very unlikely to be because they "fired everyone" as DiabloD3 was suggesting.

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

#197

Post by masklinn » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 9:05 AM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #193

adrianratnapala wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some European cities (Munich?) autonomous trains often have "drivers" who do nothing because that preferred to fighting the union. Also, as far as I can tell US public sector unions are as strong as those in any other rich country.

> In some European cities (Munich?) autonomous trains often have "drivers" who do nothing because that preferred to fighting the union. Many cities with autonomous trains indeed have drivers. But they don't do nothing, they sit there for emergencies and to set the go signal when leaving the station. In Austria for instance that's not because of unions but because the job of the driver is at this point considered impo…

> For fully autonomous operation you need extra security features on the track which were not employed (fully sealed off track in stations, better emergency corridors, more reliable remote door controls etc.).

FWIW Lyon's Line D is fully automated (GOA4) and doesn't use enclosed track. It may have changed since but it used to not even have turnstiles, you could walk up to the track without any pause.

The only incident I can remember is a drunk who literally fell on a train from one of the elevated passages over the track.

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

#198

Post by 7dare » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 9:13 AM UTC

ovi256 wrote: post #85

gsnedders wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In fact, the crash at the origin of this whol debacle was caused by a train being stopped on the tracks and being rear-ended by another.

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

#199

Post by lmm » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 9:23 AM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #156

mancerayder wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent counterpoint, and deserving of greater visibility. London is another example - the transit workers are heavily unionized and regularly go on strike, and yet there've been massive improvements to the Tube, which predates NYC's subway by 50 some odd years. Ever notice how narrow those tubes are, and how deep down they're dug? To add insult to injury, construction costs for transit are much lower in Paris and…

Although some lines are automated in London, they still have a driver to push the button. The DLR is fully automated, but has a member of staff on board, and the 4 times I used it this year the staff member was always in manual control. If rail doesn't get automated before cars, I don't see branch lines surviving. But then I don't see them surviving automated cars either. Main lines, sure, but I'll be getting an auto…

> The DLR is fully automated, but has a member of staff on board

I believe the rules require a member of staff to check the doors and permit the train to depart, but that can be done from the platform instead (and is, at peak times).

Full automation will be permitted on lines with platform edge doors; the intention is to do this for the deep tubes at least for the central sections, but it's a 3-step process (replace the trains with ones that work with PEDs, fit the PEDs, then remove the driving cabs) that wasn't expected to be done before the late 2020s, and that was before the severe underfunding of TfL with the loss of central government support and the mayor's fare freeze.

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

#200

Post by inferiorhuman » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 11:33 AM UTC

lflux wrote: post #24

smilekzs wrote: post #14

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

Nothing. Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Paris, Copenhagen as well all have lines that run in driverless mode. Heck, even SF Muni runs in autonomous mode in the subway, it's only run in manual mode on the streets.

> Heck, even SF Muni runs in autonomous mode in the subway, it's only run in manual mode on the streets.

That's a bit of a stretch. Muni and BART use automated train control. SFMTA went with Alcatel/Thales' awful SelTrac system that the Docklands Light Rail uses while BART uses its own monstrosity. Both systems have human operators at all times because neither system is reliable enough to run unattended.

SFMTA used to show which modes trains inside the tunnel were running in. They also used to publish detailed daily service reports that revealed just how bad things were. At one point, > 50% of trains were unable to enter the tunnel in auto mode as the VETAG transponders had a roughly 100% failure rate. For many years the trains themselves would destroy the trackside inductive loops as well, periodically disabling the train control system. Instead the MTA chose to sanitize the reports, and eventually stopped publishing the information at all.

The great irony is that Muni's train control system was so inefficient that drivers would routinely drop into manual mode upon approach to the last underground system without even so much as a heads up to the dispatchers. And then, in 2009, one of the drivers passed out and ran his train into the train parked at the platform. Instead of requiring drivers to pass a health check like the FAA does for pilots, the MTA simply forbade manual operation in the tunnel. From the pictures, that driver was easily 400 lbs and Muni only cares about drugs and color blindness. Net result: 5-10 minutes got added to each outbound trip.

BART, of course, has its own maladies -- if you've ever had to wait for the train to be repositioned before the doors open you know why they still keep their drivers around.

At this point, IMO, neither humans nor automation alone can solve the transit problem.