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Mexico’s subway drivers depend on WhatsApp to keep the trains running
- soumyadeb 4y agoAfter the outage from yesterday, maybe FAA should do the same :)
- blahblah1234567 4y agothat sir, is pathological combustion! (sick burn ;) )
- morog 4y agoYou can guarantee that much critical infrastructure in the 3rd world runs on WhatsApp
- est 4y agoChina runs on Wechat. Including the govn't
- open1414 4y agoWechat is the government
- selfhoster11 4y agoCCP is the government, WeChat is merely an extension of it.
- el-salvador 4y agoYeah, in Central America, many groups coordinate using WhatsApp group chat. Most companies have customer facing WhatsApp numbers too.
- dguest 4y agoI've traveled to a few places where it's impossible to buy a data plan that doesn't include free unlimited WhatsApp messages. I don't really know why this was true, but it made using any other messaging app a non-starter. My assumption was that Meta was lobbying companies to bundle free WhatsApp data to increase their user base, but I'm not finding any proof. Does anyone else have an explanation?
- nisegami 4y agoI think it's actually just something their customers like.
- dguest 4y agoI assume it can be both: every customer likes free things, and WhatsApp likes having more customers. The existence of Free Basics isn't exactly news, but not all countries that have free WhatsApp have Free Basics.
- karrot-kake 4y agoIt is the other way around. Clients use it so much that they began offering those plans. I'm from Brazil and I saw the change from SMS to WhatsApp happen. Today, several small business rely on WhatsApp for orders and general communication. When the service went off last year, it was quite chaotic.
- paxys 4y agoNothing too surprising or nefarious about it. Unlimited WhatsApp is the equivalent to unlimited SMS in similar bundles in the past. Carriers offer it to attract customers.
- dguest 4y agoI don't think it's particularly surprising or nefarious for WhatsApp to be paying carriers to become the default messaging client. That's just good business (unless you want to bring things like net neutrality into it). The reason some exchange / sponsorship seems likely is that there's no option without WhatsApp. If you're a carrier, a GB WhatsApp data is the same load on your system as a GB of Telegram data. What's the incentive to make the most popular part of your product free?
- ComodoHacker 4y agoIn some places, it's WeChat. In others, it's Telegram.
- closewith 4y agoNot just the 3rd world (assuming you mean developing world, not the non-aligned movement). Ireland's national health service allowed the (already prevalent) use of WhatsApp during the pandemic (and which helped save it when internal email was taken down for months alongside almost all other IT services due to a ransomware attack). Now non-clinical comms is dominated by WhatsApp and the service would literally halt without it. Source: https://healthservice.hse.ie/staff/procedures-guidelines/digital-health/guide-to-whatsapp-for-hse-staff/ https://healthservice.hse.ie/staff/procedures-guidelines/dig...
- totalZero 4y agoDespite good connectivity, some drivers can’t afford to stay online all the time, said Jaime. According to Jimena, about 98% of the train operators on her line use WhatsApp on the job, but some will often run out of data, which they must pay for out-of-pocket. Seems like WhatsApp isn't the problem here, but rather the solution. They need better comms infrastructure and more funding for maintenance.
- donkeyofd00m 4y agoPerhaps I'm being pedantic, but it seems moreso that proper comms infrastructure design and preventative maitnance plans is the problem Whatsapp is a readily available and an accessible solution... one that is better than current comms infrastructure. A local maximum I used to know a marketing specialist in Mexico who lived there her whole life. Apparently 90% of advertising for cheap consumer goods is done on TV and radio. <10% on websites or streaming services, since many choose not to use them or can't afford subscriptions Not to say that there aren't beautiful, well developed global cities with wonderful people and opportunities there. Guadalajara and Mexico City are great and growing. I see the country in a state very similar to late 1800s indusdrial America; high inequality, poor low-skill workers rights and pay with backlash occuring, large government backed infrastructure projects, fairly patriarchal buisness elite (and corruption within the "boys club"), fairly absent middle class relative to other countries. Moreso two classes. "Well off, global citizen" or "making ends meet, live in my town for my whole life or move where the work goes" Relying on a phone app seems like an unstable solution, as when the next budget cut comes, it could include scrapping the company phones in the case they were provided. Or downgrading data plans that are so slow that latency is too high. Wouldn't be a problem until the next accident Or, if workers are underpaid (low-skill, non corporate in Mexico), selling provided company phones on the 2nd hand market for cash could be fairly common... lying and saying they still have them Unless if Mexico further lowers it's gini coefficient... something I'm very optimistic with (but over decades) OR provides rudimentary smart phones (or even dated tech like pagers) for work, to me this whatsapp method seems as an easy means for middle managers just to save on their spending budgets. Unless there is middle management buy-in to further develop its usage in a stable way, it seems like a piecemeal (yet effective and creative) solution by the workers due to infrastructure neglect
- saint_fiasco 4y ago> If there is ever a WhatsApp outage, Metro workers have parallel Facebook chats to maintain communication. I hope the different chat services run by Meta don't share any critical infrastructure.
- fragmede 4y agoOctober 4th, 2021 proved that they at least used to. If the SREs did their jobs, that may no longer be true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Facebook_outage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Facebook_outage
- bigiain 4y agoYeah. Maybe they should choose a different more reliable company like Twitter? https://localtoday.news/wa/twitter-bans-the-metrobusinfo-account-used-by-the-dc-area-subway-system-158944.html https://localtoday.news/wa/twitter-bans-the-metrobusinfo-acc...
- el-salvador 4y agoNot sure about now, but a BGP error affected all Meta services one or two years ago.
- parabyl 4y agoA similar practice is common in South Africa in order to find out when the train is arriving (if at all). You'd have to ask the person at the ticket office to check the Whatsapp group for you (or if you're friendly enough with them, to add you to the group) where the ticket officers at other stations along the line update when the train has passed them.
- Scoundreller 4y agoI know this will never happen in Toronto because our subway system has virtually no cellular service.
- donkeyofd00m 4y agoHey, but isn't part of the fun going on the young-university line and having the exciting supprise that you have to take buses to the next station due to maitnance? :)
- etblg 4y agoUnless you use Freedom Mobile, the one operator that uses the cellular service in the tunnel, in which case you'll get pretty good coverage close to downtown.
- Yhippa 4y agoChatGPT tl;dr Mexico City subway riders are expressing concerns that distracted train operators might be putting commuters’ lives at risk, following a collision of two trains that left one dead and dozens injured. However, due to the system being poorly maintained, drivers depend on their phones to communicate with each other and keep the trains running. The use of cellphones during working hours is not condoned by Mexico City’s mass transit workers’ union as per the organization’s general guidelines but it is essential for the trains to run smoothly. The Mexico City subway is one of the cheapest in the world: 5 pesos (about 25 cents) per ride, but the budget only covers operative costs. It would require double its current budget to cover maintenance costs.
- selfhoster11 4y agoWhile I get their reasons, I think it's disgusting that someone is running critical infrastructure out of what amounts to a centralised (single point of failure) consumer communications app being run by a social media. Something like this should only ever be a stopgap measure until proper, dedicated, supported infrastructure is put in place.
- sneak 4y agoWhat makes you think WhatsApp is centralized or has any single points of failure? What makes you think that dedicated infrastructure run by the train people would be less centralized or more reliable than that run by Facebook?
- anthk 4y agoCustom LOCAL XMPP servers could do the same. Whatsapp has had connection issues globally.
- selfhoster11 4y agoI'm sure the WhatsApp backend is redundant and HA and all that jazz behind the scenes. WhatsApp as a service, however, is not. Facebook could discontinue it, pivot it to something else, start making undesirable changes, or sell it to someone who would make changes like that. This wouldn't happen with a system that's under the subway system's own management. > What makes you think that dedicated infrastructure run by the train people would be less centralized or more reliable than that run by Facebook? For one, it avoids all of the issues above. For two, it is much, much easier and cheaper to achieve enough nines for a couple thousand users than for a couple billion users. For three, they don't need to have the expertise to run it themselves in-house - they can subcontract it to someone who knows how to run internal systems like that. The third item does put a supplier risk into the chain, but you already had that with Facebook; and at least you can swap out the supplier if you don't like them.
- aerojoe23 4y agoIt sounds like malicious (but not really) compliance would quickly get this solved. This would go something like an open letter to management and the public. "Dear metro users and management, On X date we will compile with the rules. We'll all stop using our phones. If our radios aren't working we're required to run the trains even slower to maintain safety. (Hopefully that's actually a rule.) We understand this will effectively shutdown the metro, but it needs funding to operate safely. We cannot in good conscious continue endangering the lives of our passengers and ourselves." The public will demand funding.
- red_admiral 4y agoThere is a far, far bigger problem than WhatsApp here, starting with the fact that the article reports a recent collision with fatailities. This is not a system the size of the US so there's no need for "dark territory" [1] - this is a metro system! Best practice would be to have some kind of block-based system where only one train can occupy a block at a time, and signals control this (if you've ever played factorio, you know what I mean). It seems that what happened is they tried to implement an automatic "moving block" system where trains would keep each other safe, but when that fails, they're back to no block at all, and relying on WhatsApp for SAFETY-CRITICAL communication. There is only one way this can possibly end. Europe has been trying to design moving block as part of ETCS "level 3" and it turns out that's really hard to do to the usual safety standards. The only place I know of that does this in production is the Wuppertal overhead monorail (which is worth a visit, by the way). [1] https://www.frauscher.us/en_us/solutions/dark-territory https://www.frauscher.us/en_us/solutions/dark-territory
- leoedin 4y agoThere's already loads of trains using moving block signalling - the Thales SelTrac system has had it for at least 20 years. It tends to be used on single-purpose metro lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelTrac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SelTrac
- michael1999 4y agoIt sounds like their moving block system was working, but it has been slow-motion failing for a decade due to maintenance budget. So the emergency WhatsApp backup has been normalized as operations. But normalizing drivers handling their phones introduces new risks. So, yeah - there is only one way this ends. The alternative is follow Toronto and New York, and slow the trains down and require full exclusion. But that has its own problems reducing system capacity, which Mexico City can scarce afford.
- xtracto 4y ago> There is a far, far bigger problem than WhatsApp here, starting with the fact that the article reports a recent collision with fatailities. Oooh Mexico Májico. The Mexico City Metro system is falling into pieces. There have been several terrible accidents in very recent times: - Line 12 Overpass Collapse (3 May 2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metro_overpass_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metro_overpass_col... ) - Line 3 Collision (couple of days ago) https://www.npr.org/2023/01/07/1147728625/mexico-city-subway-train-collision https://www.npr.org/2023/01/07/1147728625/mexico-city-subway... ) - Line 5 Fire (couple of days ago https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2023/01/11/metro-cdmx-reportaron-incendio-en-la-estacion-politecnico-de-la-linea-5/ https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2023/01/11/metro-cdmx...). This is the result of years and years of corruption and lack of maintenance. Officers of EVERY level stealing money that is supposed to go for maintenance. Or "contracting" their cousins, friends and other co-conspirators to perform the maintenance, but in reality they keep the money and let the infrastructure to rot.
- Abhitaneja89 4y ago[flagged]
- benced 4y agoSeems like the issue is CDMX’s government (which I’d note tends to be on the left of Mexican politics) is keeping fares down. I get why, it’s an appealing policy and raising fares would actually hurt people (in a way that a 25 cent hike in the US really doesn’t) but the long term cost is high.
- absrd 4y agoThe maintenance funding being gutted by 40% seems like the bigger contributing factor here
- ars 4y ago> If there is ever a WhatsApp outage, Metro workers have parallel Facebook chats to maintain communication. That's smart to have a parallel system, but not great that both systems are the same company! A major Facebook outage would take down both systems at the same time.