Will Striking Transit Workers Speed Up NYC Subway Automation?
from the people?--we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-people dept
As a fan of the NYC subway system it's tough to imagine how the city is functioning with all their transit workers on strike. However, it's leading some to ask the very reasonable question about what it would take to automate the subway system in New York. It's not a new question. In fact, earlier this year, NYC Transit opened up one automated line and have suggested that over the next twenty years or so, they expect to automate the entire system. Automated systems aren't that rare, as the articles note. Here in San Francisco, the BART system is apparently automated. The difficulty appears to be less in building an automated train system, but in retrofitting such a large, old and complex system as the massive NYC subway system. Still, after a day or two of no subways at all, it's not difficult to see plenty of people scrambling for ways to speed up that conversion process.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Automated Trains
An important next step, after automating the trains, is to break them up. Instead of one 4 car train every 20 minutes, there should be 1 car trains every 5 minutes. Same capacity, same hardware cost, less waiting. My understanding is that the historical reason for multi-car trains is to keep piloting costs down.
They also need to look at providing automated mechanical barriers in the stations, and interlocking them with the trains, akin to elevator operations. Elevators have not been manned in decades, and have proven to be very safe and reliable. Think of subways as horizontal elevators.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
NYC Subway Automation
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Labor disputes will shut transit down, regardless
--Commutative Bob.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Labor disputes will shut transit down, regardl
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Automated Trains
Your understanding is flawed; in order to prevent crashes--something that I, as a NYC subway commuter, are very happy they are doing--they don't run one train right up against the back of the one in front of it, even during rush hour. In fact, when the trains get close, it's common practice for the lagging train to slow down or completely stop in the tunnel to avert any possibility of a crash.
In addition, during rush hour, there are trains along the busy lines at a very fast rate--more than one every five minutes--and they still are packed. Using 1 car trains every five minutes would stall the city during rush hours and turn a half hour commute into a hour and a half ordeal.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Labor disputes will shut transit down, regardl
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Automated Trains
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Automated Trains
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BART automated?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: BART automated?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]