4 ms·
> It is feasible to know everyone's destination station at the time of boarding. I challenge you to find a mechanism that works for this and is quick enough to
by dfcowell 6y ago
> It is feasible to know everyone's destination station at the time of boarding.
I challenge you to find a mechanism that works for this and is quick enough to keep up at rush hour in the average Tokyo train station.
Additionally, people move at different speeds through the station due to factors like age, familiarity with the network, disability, bladder capacity etc.
It’s a non-trivial problem to solve, and likely only marginally improves user experience.
- dmurray 6y agoPut an electronic sign up on each station platform indicating where the cars with most space will be on the next train. Some people will rush to those cars, some will just stay where they were. By varying the amount of notice given or the threshold where you consider a car "less full", you can distribute the travellers more evenly. I suspect the reason this isn't valuable is that the feedback loop is already pretty good at high occupancy rates: when one car is at capacity, every other car is too.
- vinay_ys 6y agoYou can indicate your destination at the entry turnstile to the platform and it will tell you two things: (a) the car you should board, and (b) the car you should exit from at the destination station. Most times, (a) and (b) are same. Some times, (a) and (b) can be different – say when you have more cars than then length of the platform supports, then some cars will hang off the platform length and hence their doors won't open. If you were assigned to board such a car, you have to make way to another nearby assigned car whose door can open, which is assigned to you so that everyone won't crowd the same last car aligned to the platform.