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Aside from the strikes, another aspect of automated subways is worth considering. Most subway lines in Paris have a few minutes interval between one train leav
by ElFitz 5y ago
Aside from the strikes, another aspect of automated subways is worth considering.
Most subway lines in Paris have a few minutes interval between one train leaving and the next arriving. On the automated ones, it sometimes gets down to ~30 seconds.
Seems automating the trains enables much higher frequencies, probably by eliminating human reaction times and reducing margins of error.
Now, other countries have that without automation… but I’m not sure I’ll ever live to see the day when people over here run their trains as efficiently as it is done in, say, Japan.
- mijamo 5y agoOne key factor in Paris is that automated trains are more "aggressive" in closing doors right on schedule where human drivers would tend to wait one or 2 seconds because you have a lot of people getting onboard.One or 2 seconds doesn't seem much but it can ruin the whole schedule because if you do it on 2 stations then it can add to 4 seconds, and then the next train needs to brake or even stop and lose even more time, and it cascades etc. until you can't keep a super tight schedule. It has even happened to me once that the station and trains were so packed that the train came, people barely had time to get out and the doors closed already, with not a single person able to go onboard before the doors closed. Obviously feels bad but helps train keep schedule and it is a net positive in the end, but I suppose it is psychologically tough for drivers who would have to have that kind of constraints, they would really feel like a machine.
- jbkkd 5y agoThe Victoria line in London is human-driven, and has a frequency of 60-90 seconds at rush hour.
- Symbiote 5y agoThe Victoria Line was the first automatic (computer controlled) railway in the world. The driver presses a button to close the doors, the rest is done by computer.