Could San Francisco Automate Strike-Threatening Train Drivers?

BART is already automated. The "drivers" just make announcements, check that the doors don't close on someone's leg, and press the emergency stop button if the computer goes badly awry.

Caltrain seems to operate on the principle "users are the enemy".

I wanted to travel between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, where my family is. Driving, that takes about 2.5 hours depending on traffic. In theory, the mass transit way of doing things is to take Caltrain from SF to San Jose and then a bus over highway 17.

Here are some of the problems I encountered.

- Caltrain leaves once an hour. This is forgivable, but incredibly inconvenient, and the express train (same distance, half the time) leaves much less often. It would matter less than it does, except...

- I once arrived at the station on time, saw people being let through the gate, bought a ticket, and was turned away from the gate by the guard. The people I had just seen were clearly visible on the platform, walking to the train. But hey, why not make me sit in the station for another hour.

- Multiple times I experienced indefinite delays as the train just sat on the track in the middle of nowhere, unmoving. No explanation was given.

- Caltrain arrives at (and leaves from) Diridon roughly once per hour. The highway 17 bus leaves from (and arrives at) Diridon roughly once per hour. They've been anti-synced: the bus leaves about ten minutes before the train arrives, and the train leaves about ten minutes before the bus arrives. The only explanation I can even imagine for this is that whoever set the schedule specifically hated the passengers.

The upshot is that you spend the better part of your day on what would have been a 2-2.5 hour drive. It's not even feasible to make the trip both ways in a single day.

Shorter TC: "Hey, that crab is near the top of the bucket! PULL HIM DOWN!"

I cannot speak for BART, but in NYC the MTA has been trying to automate its trains for many years (since the early 90s for the latest effort) and has only barely been able to keep everything working on the one line chosen for the pilot program -- and that is one of the simpler routes in the system. While I am sure that automation is possible and that the technology is available, the MTA seems to be making all the wrong choices, and I would prefer to have human operators until some minimum technical competency can be established (we can start with this: trains that can reliably announce their position on the line, without needing a human being to set things up -- one would think this is a bare minimum for automated service).

BART is already almost automated: the train drives itself. The "drivers" only close the door, and stop the train if something unexpected happens. Some other light rail systems around the world run with no drivers on board at all.

The progress of automation will certainly result in complex social issues, and the entire concept of employment may have to be rethought.

But keeping a small number of people pointlessly in their old jobs is not the right solution. Why should a few people receive $66-92k per year in welfare just because they used to drive a train, while other unemployed people and the homeless do not? It would be more fair to share the tax funds between all unemployed, regardless of whether it was due to a new automated train system or not.