I've been collecting Penn Station NJT and LIRR track assignment data for almost a year now. I've been intending to use ML to predict track assignment, but haven't gotten there yet. I should post it to Kaggle or somewhere similar.
How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
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Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They also stopped publishing the track number on the website — so going back to scraping was not an option either. So the only way to gather the data would be manually from the station.
Carefully placed raspberry pi + OCR?
Just add the ability in the app to take a photo of the screen and use OCR to identify the train/platform.
All he'd need is one or two users to take a photo of the screen and he'd have his source of historical platform data.
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#33Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#34For about a year a decade and a half ago, I commuted into and out of Penn Station with my father who had been doing so since the late 70s.
Not only did he know which track any of a half dozen trains that he might take would come in on but he knew where the doors would open for each of the tracks. And he wasn't the only one either. If you went down before they announced the tracks you'd see little clusters of people waiting apart from each other on an otherwise empty track. We'd usually go to the same car in order to reduce the distance on the other side. Other commuters would do likewise and so trains would have a contingent of regulars.
There's a fascinating kind of micro-expertise that develops when you do the same thing over and over again.
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#35Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#36I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to t…
Have you ever taken a rush hour train at Penn Station? The alternative (i.e. current system) is everyone congregates on the concourse staring at the platform screens, and when a new one pops up hundreds of people flood in the direction of that platform in a mad dash. It's a mess.
I've only done much less hellish Grand Central version, and I think Metro North publishes track assignments much earlier.
That said though, just imagine how much worse it would be if that mass rush was between platforms, fighting opposing traffic, instead of just from a (mostly) open waiting area.
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#37Ok, I understand that the Railway Authority don't want people to guess / predict platform numbers because of various reasons (problems with platform maintenance, safety and last min changes etc.
But what I don't understand is that why can't they change the seat allocation process such that people can reserve remaining available seats on the trains for free if they have arrived in station lobby? This can result is reduced rush to grab seats and will help people to make a more informed decision around whether to wait for the next train.
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#38Whoever decided to close his access to the API should be fired.
It sounds like The API changed. But same sentiment -- that was a shit design decision.
It sounds like locking down the API was an entirely deliberate decision made at the same time as removing platform data from the website, which means Chesterton's fence[0] applies - we should work out why that decision was made before criticising it.
Discussion upthread is about commuters being pushed onto the tracks, which sounds like a good reason not to display data that isn't 100% certain.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's fence
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#39Ok, I understand that the Railway Authority don't want people to guess / predict platform numbers because of various reasons (problems with platform maintenance, safety and last min changes etc. But what I don't understand is that why can't they change the seat allocation process such that people can reserve remaining available seats on the trains for free if they have arrived in station lobby? This can result is red…
it takes longer to load a train with assigned seating -- that's why say, Amtrak might do it, but commuter rail trains, that at peak run minutes apart and want to minimize dwell-times at highly contended platforms, optimize for loading speed.
Re: How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters
#40I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to t…
Have you ever taken a rush hour train at Penn Station? The alternative (i.e. current system) is everyone congregates on the concourse staring at the platform screens, and when a new one pops up hundreds of people flood in the direction of that platform in a mad dash. It's a mess.
It is exactly this alternative(the current system) that the Amtrak/MTA/LIRR prefer for safety reasons. Amtrak which also has the same procedure at Penn states this here:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/17/amtrak_s_unpe...
Although it is indeed inefficient and the MTA is completely inept, the platforms for LIRR trains are very narrow, they are shared by two trains and the escalators to get up to the main floor are also very narrow and crowded already.
So although the "mad dash" is in fact a mess, its a safer mess than overcrowding the platforms on the tracks.