17 ms·

New York’s Subways Are Not Just Delayed, Some Trains Don’t Run at All

159 points by martinald 9y ago

jandrese 9y ago
So the transit authority decided that it was more important to have trains evenly spaced out (to minimize the worst case wait times), but the tradeoff was less total capacity and thus more crowded trains. I'm really not sure which is the better case. Trains always arrive in a short time, but can be full. Or you may have to wait longer for a train, and then a little longer still for the train right behind that train that isn't as full.
- bernardom 9y ago
  That’s a good summary. This kind of problem is not easy to solve- it’s not the kind of thing that has a closed form solution. You typically use a discrete event simulator to model the outcome of different strategies. It seems clear to me, though, that the answer is going to be a mix of “maximize number of trains” and “space them out nicely” during rush hour. I bet the optimal strategy trades off those two variables based on some probability distribution of “expected number of available trains” over time, such that if the number of likely available trains is lower you space them out more, and so on.
- metaphorm 9y ago
  its more than just that though. it's a legit safety issue. the switches are old and have been breaking down at spectacular rates. if a switch breaks when trains on the line are too close too each other there is a much higher chance for a collision due to one of the trains breaking too soon or too late. spacing them out more evenly reduces the chance of that scenario.
- oconnor663 9y ago
  It might also be that "longer worst case wait times" risk turning into a different failure mode entirely. Like maybe if the rush hour train is 5 minutes late it's just uncomfortably packed, but if it's 10 minutes late it gets so packed that letting people off at each station now takes 3x longer than it should, the wait time spikes further, and every other train in the system gets stuck behind that one.
- 424f42 9y ago
  As someone with difficulty in crowded places I would have preferred less crowded trains over anything. Many times I had to wait until the evening rush was over before I could get on the 1 train home - the morning rush I had no choice.
coldcode 9y ago
It would seem one could analyze the performance in this day of big data and find a more efficient plan for scheduling the trains and adjusting in real time. Maybe the system is too unpredictable to make this possible. Even so it would be fun to try to model the entire system and try.
- marrone12 9y ago
  The problem isn't in modeling the perfect train distribution, it is in that the system itself can't handle anything else. Many of the parts in the subway infrastructure are from the 40s and they just can't handle more trains.
  - aeorgnoieang 9y ago
    > from the 40s 30s! And maybe even older!
treyfitty 9y ago
I used to take the 456 line on Lexington Ave. back and forth between Home & Work for the past 5 years. In January, the Q line on 86th st. opened, and although it takes me ~10 minutes longer each way, it is a MUCH more pleasant experience. The 456 is a nightmare, and I can tell you first hand, that it is crowded to a point where it is inhumane (imagine people literally fighting for a spot to have the "privilege" to smell the arm-pits in their faces). The Q line is well worth the headache, and the frustration of dealing with the 456.
- jonathanjaeger 9y ago
  I ride the 6 every week day -- luckily I don't go during prime rush hour, but even when I do, I don't understand why more people don't go to the end car. It's ALWAYS less full any time of day.
- jseliger 9y ago
  Somewhat similar story, except I am now biking pretty much full time. The trains aren't sufficiently reliable anymore.
- spyspy 9y ago
  The 456 is the reason I stopped commuting to work before 10. Taking the L from where I live today isn't much different. The trick I've found is that if the sign says there are two trains incoming that are within a minute of each other, always take the second train. People will self-sardine themselves on the first and the second with be mostly empty.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    That was my biggest lesson of the L or the 4/5/6. If you wait, the next train will be much, MUCH less crowded. Another trick is that if I'm at Union Square trying to get into Brooklyn on the L and the station is packed, it ends up being faster and more comfortable to take the L backwards to 8th ave, and then grab a seat on the Brooklyn bound L at the 8th ave terminus.
    - 9y ago
stuaxo 9y ago
Why would it take 50 years to install signalling across the system ? This doesn't sound right at all.
- metaphorm 9y ago
  the only right way to answer that question involves a 10000 word history of the politics of the MTA, the finances of NY state and NY city, bankruptcies, budget shortfalls, political corruption and misdirection, very messy labor union politics, and the complexities of running a giant subway system 24/7 in a region that suffers significant damage every year from hurricanes and ice storms.
- iooi 9y ago
  Unions.
  - magic_beans 9y ago
    Care to elaborate?
    - twic 9y ago
      They're not typesafe, and that slows down refactoring. The solution, of course, is to rewrite the subway in Rust.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    As much as I think unions are an absurd way to deal with income inequality by doing everything terribly and expensively, this is a really unsatisfying answer when it comes to explaining why the US is so bad at infra construction. Freaking Germany and France are hardly famous union-busters, and somehow they manage to be infinitely more efficient than us at public works projects. There's clearly something more complicated going on than "Unions."
- rrdharan 9y ago
  The problems with NYC subway signaling have been very extensively covered in previous reporting that you might find interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-signals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-... http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decades-old-outmoded-signals-switches-article-1.3184666 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decade... "Even something as basic as a cable is an antique. Workers popped open a junction box to show a 70-year-old cloth-covered cable, due for the scrap heap next year, connected to newer rubber-covered wires." Basically, the system is so old that an incremental retrofit is very complicated to achieve without full shutdown. Remember the overall NYC subway system is the only train system that actually operates 24-7 so maintenance scheduling is also much more involved.
pavement 9y ago
A lot of what affects the NYC subway is the principle of the "Sick System." http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html The system is too essential for a stop-the-world overhaul, but so far gone, that only a stop-the-world overhaul can part the clouds. Without a hard flush of antiquated mission critical infrastructure, millions of turbulent eddies and vortices will ensure that the system is always afflicted by parasitic equipment and debris.
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  Many of the world's oldest subways have solved this problem through the use of specialized technology transition teams whose sole job is to develop minimal downtime solutions to upgrading technology. I'm no expert on these technical teams...I merely know of their existence through my own personal obsessive curiosity about infrastructure. But at least in terms of having relatively modern performance and technology, Paris, Madrid, Hamburg, Tokyo, Berlin, Osaka, Barcelona, and even Moscow don't seem to have any problems. Some might run what appears to be really old equipment...but it runs on time without any significant downtime. And with the exception of Tokyo (which has severe overcrowding problems which exceed the natural limits of subways) and London (which has extreme geographic, geological, archeological, electrical, and real estate constraints), they have mostly never let these problems impact the daily service. New York is probably the most easily upgraded of these legacy subway systems, due to the insistence of the original subway companies on triple tracking. Not only does the triple track allow for express trains, but it also allows for zero downtime maintenance during non-peak hours. The electrical systems aren't a barrier like those in some cities. Even Tokyo and London, which have worse constraints, have fared better. If technology transition teams exist, I haven't heard of them. Upgrade engineering appears to be outsourced. The costs that the MTA quotes for transition seem absurd. Once again, I'm no expert on the engineering involved, but the upgrade costs are approaching new construction costs in other countries. We know we have a major cost problem in US transit infrastructure construction. But this is not just construction. We also have a problem with maintenance costs, operating costs, capital costs, etc. Everywhere you go in America, we have critical transit infrastructure that is hobbled by costs. Where is the cost management? Why can't we get system-wide cost audits? If annual audits are required of publicly listed companies, why isn't it required of public organizations funded by tax dollars? I'm sick of the explanation that our problem is funding...its not. Our problem is mismanagement. When you manage your systems well, nobody has any problem sending money your way. The demand curve exists for government funding just as much as it does for markets. When you provide more for a given amount of money, you generally get more money. Give us better management.
meandave 9y ago
Relevant article on a tax to fund the changes https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-will-push-for-tax-on-wealthy-to-fix-subway.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-w...
ablation 9y ago
I find it quite shocking how little of the NY subway is automated.
- zanny 9y ago
  What would incentivize it to do so? Upgrades come effectively from the state, and need to be passed in budgets. So you need to persuade opinionated Albanian politicians to upgrade the NY Metro.
towndrunk 9y ago
Anyone know of a documentary on the New York subway? I would love to see all this old equipment and what they are really battling in order to keep it running.
- mabub24 9y ago
  There is this[1] video from the MTA that goes into the signaling system, which is extremely old and in the process of getting updated in certain sections. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA
- rb808 9y ago
  There are some pics in a recent nytimes article. Looks incredibly old, especially if you compare all the computing power in the phones of its riders. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-signals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
kposehn 9y ago
The biggest reason for these delays I've found over the years it the signaling system and headway spacing. Blocks on a railway system are designed to provide enough space and warning so that trains do not crash into each other. However, when you use line side signals and CTC (Centralized Train Control) to dispatch them, you end up with a set of rules that create spaces for occupancy that can easily be longer than the trains themselves. In the NYC subway, speaking as an observer as opposed to an insider, the signaling and dispatching requires certain distances between trains and headways (time between trains) to provide safety of 2-4 minutes. However, this results in the cascading delays as one train that dwells too long in a platform can have a stacking effect on trains behind. For example, if your minimum block distance is 1000 feet, and a max length train is 500 feet, a stack of five trains waiting to enter a station would actually occupy 5,000 feet of track. This could stretch to previous stations along the line. The best solution would be dynamic blocks and cab signals, where the system itself defines spaces occupied by trains and only allows a train into a space where it can occupy safely, but also can make the distances dynamic based on conditions. Cab signals would be required as you can't have dynamic blocks with line side signals. However, to do this requires a massive investment in new equipment both line side and on the trains that would take years to implement, along with a massive amount of painful work that would cause even more issues while it is being set up. Sadly, running more trains probably won't cut it as the system literally cannot handle more safely.
- blibble 9y ago
  London Underground trains on the Victoria line are driven by computer and use a moving block system this included the stations: you would have one train coming in the back as the previous train was still going out the front apparently they special cased the stations to not do this, as this used to cause upset amongst the passengers!
- jdavis703 9y ago
  Can't you also use manual train control during delays? I was once on a badly delayed train (we were second in line to the station behind a train with "police activity"). The operator pulls up to the train that's being held with maybe one inch between the bumpers and let's passengers off through only the front-most door. More creative thinking like this could help alleviate delays and increase passenger happiness.
sattoshi 9y ago
I'm always impressed how terrible the subways are in America. In Moscow the metro is running really smoothly since the day of it's creation except for a single day. But that was because of Hitler.
- pcurve 9y ago
  just in NYC because of its age. I don't think it's so bad in other big cities. I don't care about the delays or capacity. I just wish NYC subway stations weren't so filthy. Yes, they've gotten better in the past 20 years, but every time I go to oversea, I'm reminded of how disgusting nyc subway is.
  - sattoshi 9y ago
    I honestly don't know how Moscow does it. I never saw a garbage can while at the same time never seeing any garbage laying around.
    - pcurve 9y ago
      I think Japan does something similar. http://jpninfo.com/54373 http://jpninfo.com/54373
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  We're really really REALLY REALLY bad at infrastructure, for reasons that experts don't actually 100% understand yet. There's plenty of possible reasons that contribute, but most of them tend to boil down to some feature of our politics (and the process by which infrastructure construction is purchased). Looking at cost per mile of apples-to-apples transit systems is horribly depressing compared to pretty much any other country.
notmtaemployee 9y ago
The MTA's problems begin and end at a weak senior management unwilling to standup to Cuomo's frivolous micromanagement and a transit union unwilling to modernize. Politicians should be pushing for serious procurement and labor work rule reforms, otherwise the systemic managerial and operational deficiencies will ensure that the deterioration of service we see now will repeat it self in 5 to 10 years, regardless of how much money or technology is poured into the MTA. London and Toronto have been able to modernize much of their transit systems in last 5 years and its not because they have more money. Once you fix the top everything else will fall into place. Look what Andy Byford has been able to do in 4 short years at the TTC. His 5-Year Plan to modernize the TTC focused on transforming corporate culture and updating internal processes, in addition to new equipment. The results of these changes have been overwhelmingly positive with the TTC recently being named best public transit agency in North America and The TR Class of TTC subway cars in May having a MDBF of over 924,000 miles. If your interested in getting involved with transit activism in NYC I highly suggest you follow @2AvSagas on twitter.
aeorgnoieang 9y ago
Anyone know whether anyone's carefully considered simply adding new parallel systems, e.g. for signalling? I can completely sympathize with the difficulty of upgrading 24/7 critical infrastructure, especially given that mistakes can kill or injure people. I'd try to just deploy separate parallel systems instead. At a comically reduced scale, businesses migrating between ERPs (or similar line-of-business apps) often run both the old and new systems 'side-by-side' for some period of time. What I've never seen or heard them doing is trying to replace components or sub-systems of the old system with those of the new system. That kind of integration work would be awful and would probably drastically increase the odds that the migration would crash and burn.
- notmtaemployee 9y ago
  When NYCT overlay's CBTC signalling on a line the block wayside system is upgraded at the same time and the two systems work in tandem. This allows non-CBTC equipped trains to operate over CBTC controlled territory and the wayside system functions as a backup should CBTC fail for any reason. As you point the integration work for this is complex and is usually the primary driver of delays and cost increases.
- potatolicious 9y ago
  This is what's actually happening to a large extent. While CBTC signaling is being installed, the original fixed-block signaling remains in place. It's nearly impossible to do this otherwise - you'd have to shut the entire line down for the entire time it takes to install new signals - which could be years. Once the new signal installation is complete the two systems may operate in parallel (with the fixed-block system acting as a possible backup if CBTC fails, and also so older trains can still run). The issue is that with 24/7 operation, there is no consistent regular time where work like this can be done. It can only be done in short spurts (late-night shutdowns) or the work crews in-lined with train service, which has obvious safety concerns as well as drastically reducing the capacity of the line.
- krschultz 9y ago
  I actually think this is the wrong approach. You don't get to reap any benefits until you start eliminating the old system, and with the parallel approach you defer that cleanup period until the transition is complete. It'd be far better if adding CBTC yielded the cost savings of eliminating the old system now as it rolled out. That requires more complex inter-op systems and more expensive upgrades to trains, but both of those things are not the constraint. The core constraint is the time you can shut down the subways for in order to do track & signal work in place. When you have a critical constraint, you should do lots of extra work in other places to maximize the productivity of the constrained operation.
lasermike026 9y ago
NYC MTA needs billions of dollars to fix the system. NY state must raise taxes on the rich and deploy it too the MTA. The federal must chip in too. The MTA will never make money and this is how it is.
- zanny 9y ago
  Where does the misguided notion infrastructure should make a profit even come from? Everyone hates on Amtrak for not being a profitable company. When in history has infrastructure ever existed for the sake of the network operators profit? It is always for the sake of profiting those who use it - the infrastructure enables profits, but in the same way sticking profits into medicine cripples the efficiency of the system, trying to stick rent seeking into infrastructure defeats the point of using it.
  - qub1t 9y ago
    Hong Kong has one of the best subway systems in the world and it generates a profit every year [1]. The USPS also generates profits as well [2]. I would argue that the profit motive incentivises efficiency in both of those examples. The best innovation often happens when working under constraints; often a drive for profit results in better service for everyone using the infrastructure. Of course this isn't the case 100% of the time, like your example of medicine, which is why I think that to get the best of both worlds you need a mix of government regulation with privatized capitalism. But I think it would be incorrect to dismiss the profit incentive entirely as being bad, and probably in the case of US infrastructure we would benefit from more privatization and not the other way around. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-property/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-pr... [2] http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788 http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-s...
    - casefields 9y ago
      That was USPS's first profit in 5 years just so we are clear. http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/02/usps-records-first-profit-five-years-obama-calls-shedding-12k-postal-jobs/125825/ http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/02/usps-records-first...
Nelkins 9y ago
The line about overcrowding being one of the major drivers behind delays doesn't hold much water. Ridership has essentially been flat or even declining in some areas[1] (peaked in early 2010s). Decreasing mean distance between failures in cars [2] (as well as mismanagement of crews & trains as mentioned in article) are among the main culprits. [1] http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ridership_sub_annual.htm http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ridership_sub_annua... [2] http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/archive/160725_1030_NYCT.pdf http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/archive/160725_1030_NYCT.... <-- See page 29
- rb808 9y ago
  Are you sure? nytimes recently said its doubled. (thougcomparison to 40s is interesting) > Subway ridership has risen dramatically since the 1990s, when about four million people used the system each day. Now it is nearly six million riders each day — the highest level since the 1940 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...
  - Nelkins 9y ago
    They said it's risen since the 90s, which is true. That chart in the middle is a bit misleading (not granular enough). Scroll to the bottom of my first link to see the MTA's own figures on annual ridership for the past few years, you'll see it's down .3% since 2011 (although has gone both up and down in the intervening years). And just for the sake of completeness, I'll counter your NYT article with one of my own ;) [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/nyregion/new-york-city-subway-ridership.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/nyregion/new-york-city-su...
  - mulmen 9y ago
    What caused the spike in the 1940s? Wartime fuel rationing?
    - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
      The spike was in 1946. Whenever this statistic is trotted out I always wonder how they made the trains run back then but MTA can't figure out how to do it today. Their handwaving about narrow doors slowing down passengers doesn't hold water.
mysterydip 9y ago
Is this just a problem with NYC's system, or is this an "elephant in the room" problem with mass transit? If an individual's car breaks down, they can find alternate means to get where they need to go. If everyone were to depend on public transit in the future, how do you handle upgrades? I know the metro in DC will run extra bus routes for some down trains, but I think that's just for certain smaller repairs. It's something I haven't really thought much about before. The simple answer is to have redundant equipment (tunnels, tracks, cars), but few would stomach the cost. Most likely it would just get used instead, in the same way that you can never alleviate traffic jams with more roads, you just get more people using them.
- zanny 9y ago
  Almost every Subway supports transparent upgrades during operation. In the absolute worst case scenarios you shut down single stations at night. By design almost every Subway is redundant - you at least have to have two lines, one for station bypass and one for returning trains. When you work on any Subway, you shut down one of the lines and manage traffic through the other. The NY Subway is just the most incompetent, most mismanaged, most technically indebted subway on Earth. There is no "problem with mass transit" as much as it is a problem with centralized administration of complex things, period. Anything of large scale that impacts many lives but has limited controllers to manage it is both rife for ineptitude / corruption / incompetence and easily ignored on the consumer side because of the complexity. The same issue turns up all over infrastructure - outdated bridges, power lines, internet infrastructure, water pipes. Central authorities of incompetent taxpayer dollar rent seekers run them, the people are too ignorant / ill informed about deteriorating conditions to care, legacy technical debt builds up over centuries to be impossibly large. And you won't escape them. The inverse of your scenario - rather than the car breaking down, the road collapses from age - is still wholly applicable. Car travel and vehicular routes are just as mired in corruption and bureaucracy making them a nightmare as trains. Trains breaking down is as easily solved as cars - there are maintenance stations, you take one train off, you put a new one on. The real problem is always when the tracks go bad - the centralization part. You could have a billion trains but not enough track / switching capacity to use them.
  - 9y ago
bogomipz 9y ago
>"Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged that the schedules were not being met, and they blamed overcrowding for the shortfall." No, the overcrowding is the effect of the MTA not addressing massive increases in ridership over an almost 20 year period. The MTA likes to pretend publicly that the ridership boom came out of nowhere and blindsided everyone. However the increase in ridership has been occurring and been every since 1998. "Between 1975and 1998, New York City subway ridership hovered between about 900 million and 1 billion riders annually. The net change between the annual ridership in 1975 and 1997 was about 100 million, an average increase of just over 4 million per year. However, 1997 was a turning point for the relatively stagnant ridership growth experienced by New York City’s subway system. In 1998,just after the introduction of the MetroCard, over 137 million more rides were taken than the year before. The boom continued for the next two years, during which time another 181 million rides had been added to the annual total. Over the next 15 years, the system continued to increase its ridership totals at an average of 25 million more rides per year. In 2015, subway rides totaled more than 1.7 billion."[1] To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. The MTA could have put the electronic arrival boards up on the street level by the train entrance so that people could make an alternate choice such as to use a Citibike, taxi, bus or even just walk instead. The MTA decided to reserve that space to sell advertising however. Despite their press release you will not find the next arrival times on any of these. See: http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-debut-manhattan-subway-entrances http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-deb... [1] https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of%20Subway%20Ridership%20-%20Mar717.pdf https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of...
- joatmon-snoo 9y ago
  To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. SO MUCH THIS. Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there).
nerdponx 9y ago
Does anyone know how much those ridiculous touch screens cost?
- rkuykendall-com 9y ago
  You mean the ones that allow them to show multiple ads, changed digitally, without paying someone to manually change them out? If those are net-costing anything at all, I'd guess it's a rounding error on any subway upgrades.
ddkam 9y ago
It's hard to express just how irrelevant NYC's train schedule is to problems occurring in the rest of the world.
empath75 9y ago
I know this would probably be unpopular but why not just temporarily raise prices until fewer people can afford the train. And use the extra money to upgrade the system.
- BartSaM 9y ago
  In current ecosystem, with so many politicians promising golden eggs, price rise will almost never end up in the decrease. Also, you are taxing the poorest. I think they struggle enough. You could start selling premium services though.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  Would it be anymore unpopular than funding it in a way that makes sense? The subway is the most efficient way to move people around: if you shunt people away from it you may very well end up making your net financial position worse. At best, this amounts to accounting trickery.
stingrae 9y ago
Instead of cancelling trains, why not take the unused cars and make the running trains longer? I understand that the stations may not be able to handle the length. You could stagger entries so that the first half of the train loads, pulls forward a bit then the second half loads. If it is an issue with the strength of the train engines, could you use two train engines together? Especially if their intended routes are just getting cancelled.
- rst 9y ago
  The trains on the 4/5/6 lines are already the full length of the platforms. (As on every other NYC subway line except for the G and a few of the shuttles.)
  - stingrae 9y ago
    I was thinking that you could have trains that are longer than the length of the platform and have multiple steps to fill it.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  It could be a safety thing. In case of an emergency you want to be able to just roll into a station and evacuate the train as quickly as possible.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
The worst part about this is the New Yorkers who are fleeing New York City and landing in Hollywood and Silverlake and Echo Park and Eagle Rock. No xenophobia here it's just they're bringing their adjusted economic expectations to LA making the Airbnb inflicted housing crunch seem OK.
perseusprime11 9y ago
The people in NY/NJ area have no choice but to endure the mess of NJ transit and MTA. Politicians lack vision and will to build a modern transportation system that accounts for growing number of riders through these systems. Somebody must have told try these folks to keep the "lights on" and forgot to mention that it also includes getting riders on time.

159 points by martinald 9y ago

So the transit authority decided that it was more important to have trains evenly spaced out (to minimize the worst case wait times), but the tradeoff was less total capacity and thus more crowded trains. I'm really not sure which is the better case. Trains always arrive in a short time, but can be full. Or you may have to wait longer for a train, and then a little longer still for the train right behind that train that isn't as full.

bernardom 9y ago
That’s a good summary. This kind of problem is not easy to solve- it’s not the kind of thing that has a closed form solution. You typically use a discrete event simulator to model the outcome of different strategies. It seems clear to me, though, that the answer is going to be a mix of “maximize number of trains” and “space them out nicely” during rush hour. I bet the optimal strategy trades off those two variables based on some probability distribution of “expected number of available trains” over time, such that if the number of likely available trains is lower you space them out more, and so on.
metaphorm 9y ago
its more than just that though. it's a legit safety issue. the switches are old and have been breaking down at spectacular rates. if a switch breaks when trains on the line are too close too each other there is a much higher chance for a collision due to one of the trains breaking too soon or too late. spacing them out more evenly reduces the chance of that scenario.
oconnor663 9y ago
It might also be that "longer worst case wait times" risk turning into a different failure mode entirely. Like maybe if the rush hour train is 5 minutes late it's just uncomfortably packed, but if it's 10 minutes late it gets so packed that letting people off at each station now takes 3x longer than it should, the wait time spikes further, and every other train in the system gets stuck behind that one.
424f42 9y ago
As someone with difficulty in crowded places I would have preferred less crowded trains over anything. Many times I had to wait until the evening rush was over before I could get on the 1 train home - the morning rush I had no choice.

coldcode 9y ago

It would seem one could analyze the performance in this day of big data and find a more efficient plan for scheduling the trains and adjusting in real time. Maybe the system is too unpredictable to make this possible. Even so it would be fun to try to model the entire system and try.

marrone12 9y ago
The problem isn't in modeling the perfect train distribution, it is in that the system itself can't handle anything else. Many of the parts in the subway infrastructure are from the 40s and they just can't handle more trains.
- aeorgnoieang 9y ago
  > from the 40s 30s! And maybe even older!

treyfitty 9y ago

I used to take the 456 line on Lexington Ave. back and forth between Home & Work for the past 5 years. In January, the Q line on 86th st. opened, and although it takes me ~10 minutes longer each way, it is a MUCH more pleasant experience. The 456 is a nightmare, and I can tell you first hand, that it is crowded to a point where it is inhumane (imagine people literally fighting for a spot to have the "privilege" to smell the arm-pits in their faces). The Q line is well worth the headache, and the frustration of dealing with the 456.

jonathanjaeger 9y ago
I ride the 6 every week day -- luckily I don't go during prime rush hour, but even when I do, I don't understand why more people don't go to the end car. It's ALWAYS less full any time of day.
jseliger 9y ago
Somewhat similar story, except I am now biking pretty much full time. The trains aren't sufficiently reliable anymore.
spyspy 9y ago
The 456 is the reason I stopped commuting to work before 10. Taking the L from where I live today isn't much different. The trick I've found is that if the sign says there are two trains incoming that are within a minute of each other, always take the second train. People will self-sardine themselves on the first and the second with be mostly empty.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  That was my biggest lesson of the L or the 4/5/6. If you wait, the next train will be much, MUCH less crowded. Another trick is that if I'm at Union Square trying to get into Brooklyn on the L and the station is packed, it ends up being faster and more comfortable to take the L backwards to 8th ave, and then grab a seat on the Brooklyn bound L at the 8th ave terminus.
  - 9y ago

stuaxo 9y ago

Why would it take 50 years to install signalling across the system ? This doesn't sound right at all.

metaphorm 9y ago
the only right way to answer that question involves a 10000 word history of the politics of the MTA, the finances of NY state and NY city, bankruptcies, budget shortfalls, political corruption and misdirection, very messy labor union politics, and the complexities of running a giant subway system 24/7 in a region that suffers significant damage every year from hurricanes and ice storms.
iooi 9y ago
Unions.
- magic_beans 9y ago
  Care to elaborate?
  - twic 9y ago
    They're not typesafe, and that slows down refactoring. The solution, of course, is to rewrite the subway in Rust.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  As much as I think unions are an absurd way to deal with income inequality by doing everything terribly and expensively, this is a really unsatisfying answer when it comes to explaining why the US is so bad at infra construction. Freaking Germany and France are hardly famous union-busters, and somehow they manage to be infinitely more efficient than us at public works projects. There's clearly something more complicated going on than "Unions."
rrdharan 9y ago
The problems with NYC subway signaling have been very extensively covered in previous reporting that you might find interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-signals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-... http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decades-old-outmoded-signals-switches-article-1.3184666 http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decade... "Even something as basic as a cable is an antique. Workers popped open a junction box to show a 70-year-old cloth-covered cable, due for the scrap heap next year, connected to newer rubber-covered wires." Basically, the system is so old that an incremental retrofit is very complicated to achieve without full shutdown. Remember the overall NYC subway system is the only train system that actually operates 24-7 so maintenance scheduling is also much more involved.

pavement 9y ago

A lot of what affects the NYC subway is the principle of the "Sick System." http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html http://issendai.livejournal.com/572510.html The system is too essential for a stop-the-world overhaul, but so far gone, that only a stop-the-world overhaul can part the clouds. Without a hard flush of antiquated mission critical infrastructure, millions of turbulent eddies and vortices will ensure that the system is always afflicted by parasitic equipment and debris.

saosebastiao 9y ago
Many of the world's oldest subways have solved this problem through the use of specialized technology transition teams whose sole job is to develop minimal downtime solutions to upgrading technology. I'm no expert on these technical teams...I merely know of their existence through my own personal obsessive curiosity about infrastructure. But at least in terms of having relatively modern performance and technology, Paris, Madrid, Hamburg, Tokyo, Berlin, Osaka, Barcelona, and even Moscow don't seem to have any problems. Some might run what appears to be really old equipment...but it runs on time without any significant downtime. And with the exception of Tokyo (which has severe overcrowding problems which exceed the natural limits of subways) and London (which has extreme geographic, geological, archeological, electrical, and real estate constraints), they have mostly never let these problems impact the daily service. New York is probably the most easily upgraded of these legacy subway systems, due to the insistence of the original subway companies on triple tracking. Not only does the triple track allow for express trains, but it also allows for zero downtime maintenance during non-peak hours. The electrical systems aren't a barrier like those in some cities. Even Tokyo and London, which have worse constraints, have fared better. If technology transition teams exist, I haven't heard of them. Upgrade engineering appears to be outsourced. The costs that the MTA quotes for transition seem absurd. Once again, I'm no expert on the engineering involved, but the upgrade costs are approaching new construction costs in other countries. We know we have a major cost problem in US transit infrastructure construction. But this is not just construction. We also have a problem with maintenance costs, operating costs, capital costs, etc. Everywhere you go in America, we have critical transit infrastructure that is hobbled by costs. Where is the cost management? Why can't we get system-wide cost audits? If annual audits are required of publicly listed companies, why isn't it required of public organizations funded by tax dollars? I'm sick of the explanation that our problem is funding...its not. Our problem is mismanagement. When you manage your systems well, nobody has any problem sending money your way. The demand curve exists for government funding just as much as it does for markets. When you provide more for a given amount of money, you generally get more money. Give us better management.

meandave 9y ago

Relevant article on a tax to fund the changes https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-will-push-for-tax-on-wealthy-to-fix-subway.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/06/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-w...

ablation 9y ago

I find it quite shocking how little of the NY subway is automated.

zanny 9y ago
What would incentivize it to do so? Upgrades come effectively from the state, and need to be passed in budgets. So you need to persuade opinionated Albanian politicians to upgrade the NY Metro.

towndrunk 9y ago

Anyone know of a documentary on the New York subway? I would love to see all this old equipment and what they are really battling in order to keep it running.

mabub24 9y ago
There is this[1] video from the MTA that goes into the signaling system, which is extremely old and in the process of getting updated in certain sections. [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA
rb808 9y ago
There are some pics in a recent nytimes article. Looks incredibly old, especially if you compare all the computing power in the phones of its riders. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-signals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

kposehn 9y ago

The biggest reason for these delays I've found over the years it the signaling system and headway spacing. Blocks on a railway system are designed to provide enough space and warning so that trains do not crash into each other. However, when you use line side signals and CTC (Centralized Train Control) to dispatch them, you end up with a set of rules that create spaces for occupancy that can easily be longer than the trains themselves. In the NYC subway, speaking as an observer as opposed to an insider, the signaling and dispatching requires certain distances between trains and headways (time between trains) to provide safety of 2-4 minutes. However, this results in the cascading delays as one train that dwells too long in a platform can have a stacking effect on trains behind. For example, if your minimum block distance is 1000 feet, and a max length train is 500 feet, a stack of five trains waiting to enter a station would actually occupy 5,000 feet of track. This could stretch to previous stations along the line. The best solution would be dynamic blocks and cab signals, where the system itself defines spaces occupied by trains and only allows a train into a space where it can occupy safely, but also can make the distances dynamic based on conditions. Cab signals would be required as you can't have dynamic blocks with line side signals. However, to do this requires a massive investment in new equipment both line side and on the trains that would take years to implement, along with a massive amount of painful work that would cause even more issues while it is being set up. Sadly, running more trains probably won't cut it as the system literally cannot handle more safely.

blibble 9y ago
London Underground trains on the Victoria line are driven by computer and use a moving block system this included the stations: you would have one train coming in the back as the previous train was still going out the front apparently they special cased the stations to not do this, as this used to cause upset amongst the passengers!
jdavis703 9y ago
Can't you also use manual train control during delays? I was once on a badly delayed train (we were second in line to the station behind a train with "police activity"). The operator pulls up to the train that's being held with maybe one inch between the bumpers and let's passengers off through only the front-most door. More creative thinking like this could help alleviate delays and increase passenger happiness.

sattoshi 9y ago

I'm always impressed how terrible the subways are in America. In Moscow the metro is running really smoothly since the day of it's creation except for a single day. But that was because of Hitler.

pcurve 9y ago
just in NYC because of its age. I don't think it's so bad in other big cities. I don't care about the delays or capacity. I just wish NYC subway stations weren't so filthy. Yes, they've gotten better in the past 20 years, but every time I go to oversea, I'm reminded of how disgusting nyc subway is.
- sattoshi 9y ago
  I honestly don't know how Moscow does it. I never saw a garbage can while at the same time never seeing any garbage laying around.
  - pcurve 9y ago
    I think Japan does something similar. http://jpninfo.com/54373 http://jpninfo.com/54373
wutbrodo 9y ago
We're really really REALLY REALLY bad at infrastructure, for reasons that experts don't actually 100% understand yet. There's plenty of possible reasons that contribute, but most of them tend to boil down to some feature of our politics (and the process by which infrastructure construction is purchased). Looking at cost per mile of apples-to-apples transit systems is horribly depressing compared to pretty much any other country.

notmtaemployee 9y ago

The MTA's problems begin and end at a weak senior management unwilling to standup to Cuomo's frivolous micromanagement and a transit union unwilling to modernize. Politicians should be pushing for serious procurement and labor work rule reforms, otherwise the systemic managerial and operational deficiencies will ensure that the deterioration of service we see now will repeat it self in 5 to 10 years, regardless of how much money or technology is poured into the MTA. London and Toronto have been able to modernize much of their transit systems in last 5 years and its not because they have more money. Once you fix the top everything else will fall into place. Look what Andy Byford has been able to do in 4 short years at the TTC. His 5-Year Plan to modernize the TTC focused on transforming corporate culture and updating internal processes, in addition to new equipment. The results of these changes have been overwhelmingly positive with the TTC recently being named best public transit agency in North America and The TR Class of TTC subway cars in May having a MDBF of over 924,000 miles. If your interested in getting involved with transit activism in NYC I highly suggest you follow @2AvSagas on twitter.

aeorgnoieang 9y ago

Anyone know whether anyone's carefully considered simply adding new parallel systems, e.g. for signalling? I can completely sympathize with the difficulty of upgrading 24/7 critical infrastructure, especially given that mistakes can kill or injure people. I'd try to just deploy separate parallel systems instead. At a comically reduced scale, businesses migrating between ERPs (or similar line-of-business apps) often run both the old and new systems 'side-by-side' for some period of time. What I've never seen or heard them doing is trying to replace components or sub-systems of the old system with those of the new system. That kind of integration work would be awful and would probably drastically increase the odds that the migration would crash and burn.

notmtaemployee 9y ago
When NYCT overlay's CBTC signalling on a line the block wayside system is upgraded at the same time and the two systems work in tandem. This allows non-CBTC equipped trains to operate over CBTC controlled territory and the wayside system functions as a backup should CBTC fail for any reason. As you point the integration work for this is complex and is usually the primary driver of delays and cost increases.
potatolicious 9y ago
This is what's actually happening to a large extent. While CBTC signaling is being installed, the original fixed-block signaling remains in place. It's nearly impossible to do this otherwise - you'd have to shut the entire line down for the entire time it takes to install new signals - which could be years. Once the new signal installation is complete the two systems may operate in parallel (with the fixed-block system acting as a possible backup if CBTC fails, and also so older trains can still run). The issue is that with 24/7 operation, there is no consistent regular time where work like this can be done. It can only be done in short spurts (late-night shutdowns) or the work crews in-lined with train service, which has obvious safety concerns as well as drastically reducing the capacity of the line.
krschultz 9y ago
I actually think this is the wrong approach. You don't get to reap any benefits until you start eliminating the old system, and with the parallel approach you defer that cleanup period until the transition is complete. It'd be far better if adding CBTC yielded the cost savings of eliminating the old system now as it rolled out. That requires more complex inter-op systems and more expensive upgrades to trains, but both of those things are not the constraint. The core constraint is the time you can shut down the subways for in order to do track & signal work in place. When you have a critical constraint, you should do lots of extra work in other places to maximize the productivity of the constrained operation.

lasermike026 9y ago

NYC MTA needs billions of dollars to fix the system. NY state must raise taxes on the rich and deploy it too the MTA. The federal must chip in too. The MTA will never make money and this is how it is.

zanny 9y ago
Where does the misguided notion infrastructure should make a profit even come from? Everyone hates on Amtrak for not being a profitable company. When in history has infrastructure ever existed for the sake of the network operators profit? It is always for the sake of profiting those who use it - the infrastructure enables profits, but in the same way sticking profits into medicine cripples the efficiency of the system, trying to stick rent seeking into infrastructure defeats the point of using it.
- qub1t 9y ago
  Hong Kong has one of the best subway systems in the world and it generates a profit every year [1]. The USPS also generates profits as well [2]. I would argue that the profit motive incentivises efficiency in both of those examples. The best innovation often happens when working under constraints; often a drive for profit results in better service for everyone using the infrastructure. Of course this isn't the case 100% of the time, like your example of medicine, which is why I think that to get the best of both worlds you need a mix of government regulation with privatized capitalism. But I think it would be incorrect to dismiss the profit incentive entirely as being bad, and probably in the case of US infrastructure we would benefit from more privatization and not the other way around. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-property/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/30/news/hong-kong-mtr-subway-pr... [2] http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-so-why-fix-it-397788 http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-aint-broken-its-profit-s...
  - casefields 9y ago
    That was USPS's first profit in 5 years just so we are clear. http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/02/usps-records-first-profit-five-years-obama-calls-shedding-12k-postal-jobs/125825/ http://www.govexec.com/management/2016/02/usps-records-first...

Nelkins 9y ago

The line about overcrowding being one of the major drivers behind delays doesn't hold much water. Ridership has essentially been flat or even declining in some areas[1] (peaked in early 2010s). Decreasing mean distance between failures in cars [2] (as well as mismanagement of crews & trains as mentioned in article) are among the main culprits. [1] http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ridership_sub_annual.htm http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/ridership_sub_annua... [2] http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/archive/160725_1030_NYCT.pdf http://web.mta.info/mta/news/books/archive/160725_1030_NYCT.... <-- See page 29

rb808 9y ago
Are you sure? nytimes recently said its doubled. (thougcomparison to 40s is interesting) > Subway ridership has risen dramatically since the 1990s, when about four million people used the system each day. Now it is nearly six million riders each day — the highest level since the 1940 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...
- Nelkins 9y ago
  They said it's risen since the 90s, which is true. That chart in the middle is a bit misleading (not granular enough). Scroll to the bottom of my first link to see the MTA's own figures on annual ridership for the past few years, you'll see it's down .3% since 2011 (although has gone both up and down in the intervening years). And just for the sake of completeness, I'll counter your NYT article with one of my own ;) [1] [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/nyregion/new-york-city-subway-ridership.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/nyregion/new-york-city-su...
- mulmen 9y ago
  What caused the spike in the 1940s? Wartime fuel rationing?
  - kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
    The spike was in 1946. Whenever this statistic is trotted out I always wonder how they made the trains run back then but MTA can't figure out how to do it today. Their handwaving about narrow doors slowing down passengers doesn't hold water.

mysterydip 9y ago

Is this just a problem with NYC's system, or is this an "elephant in the room" problem with mass transit? If an individual's car breaks down, they can find alternate means to get where they need to go. If everyone were to depend on public transit in the future, how do you handle upgrades? I know the metro in DC will run extra bus routes for some down trains, but I think that's just for certain smaller repairs. It's something I haven't really thought much about before. The simple answer is to have redundant equipment (tunnels, tracks, cars), but few would stomach the cost. Most likely it would just get used instead, in the same way that you can never alleviate traffic jams with more roads, you just get more people using them.

zanny 9y ago
Almost every Subway supports transparent upgrades during operation. In the absolute worst case scenarios you shut down single stations at night. By design almost every Subway is redundant - you at least have to have two lines, one for station bypass and one for returning trains. When you work on any Subway, you shut down one of the lines and manage traffic through the other. The NY Subway is just the most incompetent, most mismanaged, most technically indebted subway on Earth. There is no "problem with mass transit" as much as it is a problem with centralized administration of complex things, period. Anything of large scale that impacts many lives but has limited controllers to manage it is both rife for ineptitude / corruption / incompetence and easily ignored on the consumer side because of the complexity. The same issue turns up all over infrastructure - outdated bridges, power lines, internet infrastructure, water pipes. Central authorities of incompetent taxpayer dollar rent seekers run them, the people are too ignorant / ill informed about deteriorating conditions to care, legacy technical debt builds up over centuries to be impossibly large. And you won't escape them. The inverse of your scenario - rather than the car breaking down, the road collapses from age - is still wholly applicable. Car travel and vehicular routes are just as mired in corruption and bureaucracy making them a nightmare as trains. Trains breaking down is as easily solved as cars - there are maintenance stations, you take one train off, you put a new one on. The real problem is always when the tracks go bad - the centralization part. You could have a billion trains but not enough track / switching capacity to use them.
- 9y ago

bogomipz 9y ago

>"Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority acknowledged that the schedules were not being met, and they blamed overcrowding for the shortfall." No, the overcrowding is the effect of the MTA not addressing massive increases in ridership over an almost 20 year period. The MTA likes to pretend publicly that the ridership boom came out of nowhere and blindsided everyone. However the increase in ridership has been occurring and been every since 1998. "Between 1975and 1998, New York City subway ridership hovered between about 900 million and 1 billion riders annually. The net change between the annual ridership in 1975 and 1997 was about 100 million, an average increase of just over 4 million per year. However, 1997 was a turning point for the relatively stagnant ridership growth experienced by New York City’s subway system. In 1998,just after the introduction of the MetroCard, over 137 million more rides were taken than the year before. The boom continued for the next two years, during which time another 181 million rides had been added to the annual total. Over the next 15 years, the system continued to increase its ridership totals at an average of 25 million more rides per year. In 2015, subway rides totaled more than 1.7 billion."[1] To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. The MTA could have put the electronic arrival boards up on the street level by the train entrance so that people could make an alternate choice such as to use a Citibike, taxi, bus or even just walk instead. The MTA decided to reserve that space to sell advertising however. Despite their press release you will not find the next arrival times on any of these. See: http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-debut-manhattan-subway-entrances http://www.mta.info/news/2012/03/29/digital-urban-panels-deb... [1] https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of%20Subway%20Ridership%20-%20Mar717.pdf https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/State%20of...

joatmon-snoo 9y ago
To make the current situation with chronically late trains worse there is no way to know when the next train is coming until you have paid for a fare and are standing down on the platform. Little good it does you then to find out that next train is not for 12 or 15 minutes. SO MUCH THIS. Fortunately, because the MTA has exposed the live schedule data, Google Maps lets you check this (sadly, it isn't 100% reliable: oftentimes a train will claim to have arrived somewhere, or even be departing from a station, while it's still getting there).

nerdponx 9y ago

Does anyone know how much those ridiculous touch screens cost?

rkuykendall-com 9y ago
You mean the ones that allow them to show multiple ads, changed digitally, without paying someone to manually change them out? If those are net-costing anything at all, I'd guess it's a rounding error on any subway upgrades.

ddkam 9y ago

It's hard to express just how irrelevant NYC's train schedule is to problems occurring in the rest of the world.

empath75 9y ago

I know this would probably be unpopular but why not just temporarily raise prices until fewer people can afford the train. And use the extra money to upgrade the system.

BartSaM 9y ago
In current ecosystem, with so many politicians promising golden eggs, price rise will almost never end up in the decrease. Also, you are taxing the poorest. I think they struggle enough. You could start selling premium services though.
wutbrodo 9y ago
Would it be anymore unpopular than funding it in a way that makes sense? The subway is the most efficient way to move people around: if you shunt people away from it you may very well end up making your net financial position worse. At best, this amounts to accounting trickery.

stingrae 9y ago

Instead of cancelling trains, why not take the unused cars and make the running trains longer? I understand that the stations may not be able to handle the length. You could stagger entries so that the first half of the train loads, pulls forward a bit then the second half loads. If it is an issue with the strength of the train engines, could you use two train engines together? Especially if their intended routes are just getting cancelled.

rst 9y ago
The trains on the 4/5/6 lines are already the full length of the platforms. (As on every other NYC subway line except for the G and a few of the shuttles.)
- stingrae 9y ago
  I was thinking that you could have trains that are longer than the length of the platform and have multiple steps to fill it.
kalleboo 9y ago
It could be a safety thing. In case of an emergency you want to be able to just roll into a station and evacuate the train as quickly as possible.

CodeWriter23 9y ago

The worst part about this is the New Yorkers who are fleeing New York City and landing in Hollywood and Silverlake and Echo Park and Eagle Rock. No xenophobia here it's just they're bringing their adjusted economic expectations to LA making the Airbnb inflicted housing crunch seem OK.

perseusprime11 9y ago

The people in NY/NJ area have no choice but to endure the mess of NJ transit and MTA. Politicians lack vision and will to build a modern transportation system that accounts for growing number of riders through these systems. Somebody must have told try these folks to keep the "lights on" and forgot to mention that it also includes getting riders on time.