4 ms·

It's more serious than that even, it's a safety issue. The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loa

• tedmiston 9y ago
  > The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loads of people at the same time. It seems pretty unlikely that 100% of the people on the outbound train would use the app and trust the historical data to go to the platform early.
  • potatolicious 9y ago
    It doesn't have to be 100% - a significant number of waiting people will still present a safety issue. The platforms are very narrow for the LIRR tracks, so holding 200% of a train (outbound and inbound) would be sheer pandemonium, and would practically guarantee someone falls off the platform. Even holding 100% of a train (just inbound, disembarking passengers) is already straining the platforms and methods of egress to their limits. Holding even just 110-120% of a train load is very much a safety issue. I'm with the MTA on this one - the "mad dash" is horrifyingly inefficient, but is the safest course of action. Of course, the correct fix to this is to fix the platforms such that passengers can wait at track-level without safety issue. But, of course, that's a multi-billion dollar problem nobody seems willing to touch.
    • greglindahl 9y ago
      People in that station actually talk to each other, so a few % of app users in the crowd might result in a large number of people knowing. I'd hate to imagine what would happen during peak if a train came in on an unexpected track AND a different train on the expected track - it is not unusual for multiple trains to be announced at once. Then you'd have a pile of people trying to go up those narrow stairs while a pile of people were trying to go down.
  • futurix 9y ago
    Once people see others walking towards a platform (particularly if they just checked something on their phones), they tend to do the same.
    • dkrich 9y ago
      But there are lots of trains leaving at any given time going to different places. There's no way to know which train somebody is heading to without asking them.
      • futurix 9y ago
        There aren't that many leaving simultaneously - plus they tend to be slotted into the same group of platforms.
        • dkrich 9y ago
          Yes there are. That's the whole problem. It's complete chaos. There are several hundred people huddled in one area looking at one giant screen and there are several trains being called in sequence. How would you know that a given person was waiting for the 4:30pm Acela to Union Station to be called and not the 4:33pm Northeast Regional to Boston? As somebody who commuted for a long time at peak rush hour back and forth from Penn Station to D.C., I can tell you that following people who "seem to know where they're going" would not be a reliable strategy.
    • ori_b 9y ago
      There are dozens of platforms going to different places. Picking a random stranger and following them isn't going to get you where you're going.
• beachbum8029 9y ago
  Yeah, it seems obvious that they purposely don't assign the track until the last minute for a good reason, so of course they'd want to shut down any software to try and circumvent that system.
• candiodari 9y ago
  So what you mean to say, with safety issue, is that government-provided infrastructure is so badly designed and ill-equipped to be used at the necessary scale attempts to improve matters must be stopped !
  • DKnoll 9y ago
    The app isn't really an improvement if it has mass adoption, you'd just move the rush for seats from the station hall to the track platform.
  • mjmahone17 9y ago
    All infrastructure is a matter of trade-offs. Sure, they could have built the platforms 3 times wider, with funnels leading to the doors, and gates that open/close to prevent people from falling onto the tracks. But that would be an extreme increase in cost to build, and wouldn't lead to a significantly larger number of people able to take the train. This app doesn't improve matters: it causes an additional "tragedy of the commons" situation. By being the first one on the platform, you may get to claim your seat, at the common cost of making it harder for everyone else to get out of/on to the train. Yes, at peak times there is congestion (just like at peak times there's highway congestion), and the existing infrastructure (built mostly before 1930) was built to be significantly safer and more efficient than existing systems. And 90 years later, it still is usually the most efficient and safest mode of transport in NYC. But given the record number of subway riders and record age of the infrastructure, it takes everyone pitching in a little to not make the situation intolerable. Part of that "pitching in" is "Don't go onto the platform before the train's riders have left".
    • Manozco 9y ago
      Except that (correct me if I'm wrong), the platform is displayed 10 minutes before the train arrives, so there is already people waiting when the train arrives
      • vonmoltke 9y ago
        It is displayed 10 minutes before the to train leaves. If a train is being turned over it will have already arrived and unloaded at that point.