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A single New York subway train can carry 1000-2000 people and might carry 2500 at rush hour. There are ~14000 licensed taxis in New York. So all of the taxis i

A single New York subway train can carry 1000-2000 people and might carry 2500 at rush hour. There are ~14000 licensed taxis in New York. So all of the taxis in New York could carry the equivalent of 5.6 trains. Any given subway line has about 15 trains per hour and there are 25 or so subway lines. So you could assume there's maybe 350 trains running at any given time vs. 5.6 train-equivalents in taxi space. So unless self-driving pods can somehow squeeze together 60 times more densely than taxis as well as not need to deal with crosswalks or traffic lights, the subway has a rather large advantage here. https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-on-New-York-subways-at-a-time https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-on-New-York-subway... https://www.quora.com/How-many-trains-are-on-a-New-York-subway-line-at-any-given-time https://www.quora.com/How-many-trains-are-on-a-New-York-subw... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_services#Trains_per_hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_s...

martinald 9y ago
Keep in mind 15trains per hour is really quite poor by international standards. Victoria line in London can do 34 trains per hour currently and there is a plan to get it to 36 (anything further is really difficult because you hit a physical limitation of getting people on and off trains).
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  But as many as 3-4 lines run on the same tracks/platforms mostly in Manhattan with some running local vs express. It's usually at least 4 platforms in a station, with 1x express and 1x local in both directions. Remember, it's mostly quadruple track. So it's actually more like 45/hour for express stops.
  - martinald 9y ago
    45/hour/track? Literally impossible even with world class signalling, which the NY Subway definitely does not have. 38 tph seems to be the physical limit. AFIAK only the L train reaches anywhere near "world class" capacity (as it has CBTC), but is still only 26tph. Other lines on the NY subway must be far less than that. From my experience 3-4 min headways per track are pretty common, which equates to 15-20tph. Obviously if you have both express and local then you're up to 30-40, but it could be ~double that with modern CBTC.
    - nerfhammer 9y ago
      If you look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_services#Trains_per_hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_s... The lines with the same colors run on top of each other in Manhattan so you have to sum them. Supposedly the 456 does get 44/hour, counting express and local tracks together. I agree that most lines do not have modern signaling and most do not run at 45/hour most of the time. But also you know, 24x7 and all that.
      - martinald 9y ago
        I understand the system very well :). But you could be doing 88 per hour on the 456 or ACE if you had modern signalling. 22tph/track is really poor. If you combined that with walk through trains you could easily get a 200-300% capacity increase. There is a lot of theoretically low hanging fruit on the MTA, technically speaking. Keep in mind how screwed cities like london are which do have the theoretical max per track and no other option but to build new subways. NY doesn't have this problem, it just needs to use its assets way better and there is room for at least a decade or two of further growth.

martinald 9y ago

Keep in mind 15trains per hour is really quite poor by international standards. Victoria line in London can do 34 trains per hour currently and there is a plan to get it to 36 (anything further is really difficult because you hit a physical limitation of getting people on and off trains).

nerfhammer 9y ago
But as many as 3-4 lines run on the same tracks/platforms mostly in Manhattan with some running local vs express. It's usually at least 4 platforms in a station, with 1x express and 1x local in both directions. Remember, it's mostly quadruple track. So it's actually more like 45/hour for express stops.
- martinald 9y ago
  45/hour/track? Literally impossible even with world class signalling, which the NY Subway definitely does not have. 38 tph seems to be the physical limit. AFIAK only the L train reaches anywhere near "world class" capacity (as it has CBTC), but is still only 26tph. Other lines on the NY subway must be far less than that. From my experience 3-4 min headways per track are pretty common, which equates to 15-20tph. Obviously if you have both express and local then you're up to 30-40, but it could be ~double that with modern CBTC.
  - nerfhammer 9y ago
    If you look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_services#Trains_per_hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_s... The lines with the same colors run on top of each other in Manhattan so you have to sum them. Supposedly the 456 does get 44/hour, counting express and local tracks together. I agree that most lines do not have modern signaling and most do not run at 45/hour most of the time. But also you know, 24x7 and all that.
    - martinald 9y ago
      I understand the system very well :). But you could be doing 88 per hour on the 456 or ACE if you had modern signalling. 22tph/track is really poor. If you combined that with walk through trains you could easily get a 200-300% capacity increase. There is a lot of theoretically low hanging fruit on the MTA, technically speaking. Keep in mind how screwed cities like london are which do have the theoretical max per track and no other option but to build new subways. NY doesn't have this problem, it just needs to use its assets way better and there is room for at least a decade or two of further growth.