by Dylanchris73
Are Countdown Clocks REALLY needed? Wouldn't the money be better spent cutting the budget defceit down?
Railroad Forums
Moderator: GirlOnTheTrain
L'mont wrote:The countdown clocks are fantastic. I first saw them while riding The Tube in London and remember asking myself, "why don't we have this here?". It makes a longer wait much more palatable by taking away the uncertainty.They had them in the Madrid subway too, about 1996, when I was dating a voodoo woman named Karen who was taking a course overseas. So it's fairly old technology. That was one rickety subway; the windows opened, and some of the windows were missing. Kind of like the IRT in the 70's.
How do the countdown clocks work, anyway? I know the "L" is different, so how about the workings of both systems.
JoshKarpoff wrote:The countdown clocks aren't costing a huge amount of money themselves. They're part of a larger program, PA/CIS, that is an outgrowth of revamping the signaling system of the IRT lines. In actuality, the clocks themselves are a prominent fringe benefit that allowed the MTA to sell this program to the politicians. Politicians don't like spending money on unseen capital projects that they can't attend a ribbon cutting ceremony for. A signaling system upgrade usually falls into the "unseen" category and thus, frequently ends up on the back burner for ages. By adding in the countdown clocks, the MTA was able to give the politicians a "sexy" publicly visible aspect of the project that they could then point to as "progress".Your first paragraph was spot on..... however the second one was based on the theory and presentation given by the contractor and not today's reality. As presently implemented the system actually slows down trains at many interlocking areas where trains diverge to other trunk lines( .ie Nostrand JCT), because the system loses or misidentifies trains, setting up wrong lineups. A tower operator can correct the problem in less than 30 seconds, while the ATS system takes 2 or 3 minutes to do the job. As for the Lexington Ave corridor the laws of physics will not let you run more trains in a corridor that is already over capacity. I've been operating trains on the Lex express for 30 years and scoff at that claim. Check the old timetables and you'll see that we've slowed down since the system came online. The system works as designed except in the rush hours when you have the most riders. Try the MTA's own trip planner and compare the time from Woodlawn or Dyre to the Bowling Green or Franklin Ave station to an actual trip and my point becomes obvious.
What this project is really about is increasing the throughput of trains through the system by eliminating the old block system. The new signaling system will, for the first time in NYCT history, allow A division dispatchers to know the exact position of any train on their lines. Before, only the towers had a rough idea, which was then communicated over intercom to the dispatchers. This should help to improve safety and increase system capacity during rush hour on the super crowded 4-5-6. As a side benefit of the computers knowing where any particular train is at any given time, the system can then calculate when the next train will arrive at any given station. At that point, it was just a matter of installing a message board to convey that info. The message boards will also give us the familiar announcements about watching the gap, saying something if you see something, etc. Along with the message boards, they're revamping the PA systems in stations, which will then be connected to dispatch, the token booths (yes, interestingly enough most station agents couldn't address the station over a PA system if they wanted to).
So, I for one, think that this is a good thing.
Trainmaster5 wrote:TM5, you are a man after my own heart. The ATS is a colossal failure. It was not supposed to be that way. Transit injects its own archaic concepts into modern concepts. Weakness and strength do not work.JoshKarpoff wrote:The countdown clocks aren't costing a huge amount of money themselves. They're part of a larger program, PA/CIS, that is an outgrowth of revamping the signaling system of the IRT lines. In actuality, the clocks themselves are a prominent fringe benefit that allowed the MTA to sell this program to the politicians. Politicians don't like spending money on unseen capital projects that they can't attend a ribbon cutting ceremony for. A signaling system upgrade usually falls into the "unseen" category and thus, frequently ends up on the back burner for ages. By adding in the countdown clocks, the MTA was able to give the politicians a "sexy" publicly visible aspect of the project that they could then point to as "progress".Your first paragraph was spot on..... however the second one was based on the theory and presentation given by the contractor and not today's reality. As presently implemented the system actually slows down trains at many interlocking areas where trains diverge to other trunk lines( .ie Nostrand JCT), because the system loses or misidentifies trains, setting up wrong lineups. A tower operator can correct the problem in less than 30 seconds, while the ATS system takes 2 or 3 minutes to do the job. As for the Lexington Ave corridor the laws of physics will not let you run more trains in a corridor that is already over capacity. I've been operating trains on the Lex express for 30 years and scoff at that claim. Check the old timetables and you'll see that we've slowed down since the system came online. The system works as designed except in the rush hours when you have the most riders. Try the MTA's own trip planner and compare the time from Woodlawn or Dyre to the Bowling Green or Franklin Ave station to an actual trip and my point becomes obvious.
What this project is really about is increasing the throughput of trains through the system by eliminating the old block system. The new signaling system will, for the first time in NYCT history, allow A division dispatchers to know the exact position of any train on their lines. Before, only the towers had a rough idea, which was then communicated over intercom to the dispatchers. This should help to improve safety and increase system capacity during rush hour on the super crowded 4-5-6. As a side benefit of the computers knowing where any particular train is at any given time, the system can then calculate when the next train will arrive at any given station. At that point, it was just a matter of installing a message board to convey that info. The message boards will also give us the familiar announcements about watching the gap, saying something if you see something, etc. Along with the message boards, they're revamping the PA systems in stations, which will then be connected to dispatch, the token booths (yes, interestingly enough most station agents couldn't address the station over a PA system if they wanted to).
So, I for one, think that this is a good thing.
L'mont wrote:It seems that the B division (at least the ACBD) use automated announcements stating how far away the next train is. (3 stations, 1, ect.). Why do they not have the countdown clocks associated with the 1,2,3,4,5,6 trains? Is there some technical difference with the signaling system, or can us "A" train riders expect a direct countdown.Yes, there is a technical difference. The IRT has ATS up and running while the IND/BRT does not (or at least not all of it).
SouthernRailway wrote:Yes, they are needed. London had them as far back as the '80s, from my recollection of visits. Charlotte even has them for bus stops!The DMI's as they call them in LU-speak were originally based on the train describer system (which gave next train information but no countdown) which were based on block occupancy and/or manual input from signalmen (towers). The early systems were also fairly unreliable wrt countdown and many stations still to this day only have next train info with no countdown.