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>yet kind of efficient I dispute the efficiency of London public transport. On paper it looks great but it has some major reliability problems. I don't know if

>yet kind of efficient I dispute the efficiency of London public transport. On paper it looks great but it has some major reliability problems. I don't know if "signal failure" is some sort of catch all error code but it seems to happen an awful lot. My wife and I have spent years traveling and spent significant blocks of time in a lot of big cities (most admittedly not as large as London). Tokyo, Bangkok, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur etc and have had a combined 0 delays on public transport within any of those cities. Not saying they never occur, maybe we have just been lucky, but we have had 3+ years of regular use and 0 delays. We recently spent a month in London and had at least half a dozen delays on the tube. Actually, more than that. On our way to the airport the tube was delayed 3 separate times on that single journey due to congestion.

m_t 12y ago
"Signal Failure" is also a major cause of delays in the Paris mtro and RER. You're comparing these problem with city like Tokyo and Taipei, and this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure. The métro in Paris dates back to 1900, and in London it goes back to 1863. Even with the major enhancements, I think that would explain why both are over used and congested. Running a line at full capacity, like the Northern Line that I have to take to commute, where trains are running 1 or 2 minutes from each other, will result in delays.
- andyjdavis 12y ago
  >this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure. I suspect this is the cause. I don't know what level of technology is running behind the scenes but it certainly didn't feel anywhere near as modern as many of the systems you encounter around Asia, which are generally no more than a few decades old. Often they have also been aggressively updated since their construction, both out of utility and almost as a point of national pride. One thing jumped out at me as being particularly anachronistic in 2014, which is when I was in London. Human beings standing on the platform making routine announcements over the loud speakers at stations and train drivers making announcements on the trains. The vast majority of places have all of their standard announcements prerecorded as well as a bank of prerecorded special case announcements. Not just in Asia. In Australia (Perth), where I am from, and Barcelona, where I am now, this is also the case. This has the advantage that the announcement has zero background noise in the sound coming over the speakers, a relatively accent free voice can be used and the announcements are the same every time. I am a native English speaker but still found understanding the announcements over the noise of a train pulling into the station with that same sound also coming through the speakers was often impossible. Throw in the person having a reasonably strong accent and them feeling the need to adlib the announcement format and things get even more difficult. I was genuinely shocked the first time I saw a human being standing on the platform attempting to shout into a microphone loud enough to be heard over a train. And given that the customer facing technology is sub-par it does make me suspicious of the degree to which the rest of the system has been updated over the years. It would be lovely to think that the London underground has retained its old worldy charm whilst running state of the art 21st century technology under the skin but I suspect its not the case.
lil_cain 12y ago
"signal failure" means a signal that should be one colour is either not lit, or another colour. Thus most problems that happen to trains are signal failures.

m_t 12y ago

"Signal Failure" is also a major cause of delays in the Paris mtro and RER. You're comparing these problem with city like Tokyo and Taipei, and this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure. The métro in Paris dates back to 1900, and in London it goes back to 1863. Even with the major enhancements, I think that would explain why both are over used and congested. Running a line at full capacity, like the Northern Line that I have to take to commute, where trains are running 1 or 2 minutes from each other, will result in delays.

andyjdavis 12y ago
>this makes me think that the main problem probably comes from the age of the infrastructure. I suspect this is the cause. I don't know what level of technology is running behind the scenes but it certainly didn't feel anywhere near as modern as many of the systems you encounter around Asia, which are generally no more than a few decades old. Often they have also been aggressively updated since their construction, both out of utility and almost as a point of national pride. One thing jumped out at me as being particularly anachronistic in 2014, which is when I was in London. Human beings standing on the platform making routine announcements over the loud speakers at stations and train drivers making announcements on the trains. The vast majority of places have all of their standard announcements prerecorded as well as a bank of prerecorded special case announcements. Not just in Asia. In Australia (Perth), where I am from, and Barcelona, where I am now, this is also the case. This has the advantage that the announcement has zero background noise in the sound coming over the speakers, a relatively accent free voice can be used and the announcements are the same every time. I am a native English speaker but still found understanding the announcements over the noise of a train pulling into the station with that same sound also coming through the speakers was often impossible. Throw in the person having a reasonably strong accent and them feeling the need to adlib the announcement format and things get even more difficult. I was genuinely shocked the first time I saw a human being standing on the platform attempting to shout into a microphone loud enough to be heard over a train. And given that the customer facing technology is sub-par it does make me suspicious of the degree to which the rest of the system has been updated over the years. It would be lovely to think that the London underground has retained its old worldy charm whilst running state of the art 21st century technology under the skin but I suspect its not the case.

lil_cain 12y ago

"signal failure" means a signal that should be one colour is either not lit, or another colour. Thus most problems that happen to trains are signal failures.