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Blue Line train weighed against Ma’at's feather, Blue Line riders feel under the weather
By adamg on Sat, 05/17/2014 - 11:38pm
Standing at Aquarium, Matt Lowe shows us what happens when a train dies on the Blue Line, in this case around 8 p.m. outbound.
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Comments
More rhyme options.
The riders endure as ever they must as once more the ____ Line is gulping the dust.
Or reworked Townes Van Zandt.
The dust the Red Line bit down south ended up in the riders mouth.
More ornate German opera snippet.
The system fail instills disdain,
The way it gives the riders pain,
But Charlie draws a rule from this,
With T it must be so 'tis plain.
What's the problem?
Sign says there is a train coming in 4 minutes.
Countdown frozen
The countdown timers freeze when a train is delayed. It will stay at "4 min" for 10, 15, 20, however long it takes.
Sounds like a Software bug to me
Or is that obvious?
Adding Insult to Injury
Perhaps the countdown clock should change to DELAYED whenever a delay occurs.
Not a bug, "its a feature!"
The software is incapable of calculating holds. For one, if a train is holding (or stuck in place from being disabled), how could the software know how long it is before it is moving again? The system only knows the average time it takes to traverse a section of track. If it takes - on average - 3 minutes to go from Maverick to Aquarium, then the signs Aquarium's signs will say "3 min" for as long as the train sits in Maverick.
Not rocket science
If the train is in a location from which it normally takes 4 minutes to reach the station when the train is moving normally, but the train is not moving, then "4 minutes" is obviously the wrong answer to "when will the next train arrive." This is not a particularly complex bit of math to expect the software to perform.
except one thing
How would the software be able to figure out when the train will actually arrive when there is no movement?
Slow trains (and buses) have the advantage of being able to factor in the sluggishness. Stopped trains (and buses) just have the established parameters (it usually takes the train 4 minutes to get here from there.)
Aside from shutting the boards down, I don't see how anything can be done.
The Signs Should Say "All Service Suspended" ...
... with the second line of the display reading:
"Until Further Notice"
Or, when someone in the vast MBTA control room knows what's really happening, they should be able to program the second line to read "For 30 Minutes", "For 5 Minutes", etc.; at least some rough estimate for when service might be expected to be restored.
Surely at some point during the disruption, someone must know whether it's going to be a matter of only a few minutes, or a much longer delay. Passengers just want to be informed so they can plan accordingly.
Why should they?
The OCC is not in charge of settling people's restlessness. Their job is to ensure the most efficient movement of trains possible, and in the safest manner deemed reasonable. When there's a disabled train, you're giving the operator instructions on how to overcome the issue and/or getting an inspector to the scene, while also ordering trains to hold, releasing select trains that are holding on a station-by-station basis.
They could program it to maybe do what the commuter rail signs do -- if the trains stops at a station for unusually long (or in between stations) -- the signs will scroll "Next train not moving."
The OCC, however, is not responsible for calculating delays. Not to mention, they'd have to come up with a different calculation for almost every station.
Or Elmer could come up with the software
And own the solution to the problem.
Are you seriously making excuses
for the T providing false information to the passengers?
The information is not false
According to the software program, the train is 4 minutes away. It may be 4 minutes away for a long time, but technically, it is 4 minutes away.
If the T is not making announcements that there are delays, that is false information. And back to my first comment on this, that's what happened in DC. No announcement, just me noticing that 12 minutes was taking 20.
You may see it as a customer service issue, which it is, or an issue with the software, but as written, the claim is valid. Once the trains start rolling, 4 minutes.
More Software Is Not The Solution To This Problem
All it takes is a real, live person making an announcement with truthful and factual information about the nature of the service interruption.
A train that would be normally four minutes away is not four minutes away when service is interrupted. If they can't display correct or useful information, just turn off the countdown displays entirely whenever trains stop running,
I love automation when it's appropriate, but even the best technology still can't match the subtleties of human perception and communication. Using only software and a Borg-like voice talking down to passengers is just not the same; it treats people as an annoyance instead of valued customers.
But who's to say
There weren't actual announcements, made by completely artificial voices, saying what the actual situation was.
Or it could be as I described below. I wasn't there. I don't know. I do know that in cities with "better" public transit, the same thing happens on countdown clocks.
Because The Borg Doesn't Tell Passengers The Truth
The Borg-like voice will say something like "The Red Line is experiencing minor delays due to an earlier disabled train at South Station".
Ok, so "earlier disabled train" ought to mean that things are running again, and "minor delays" should mean, what? ... surely no more than five or ten minutes, right?
But when thirty minutes passes and the Borg is still repeating the same announcement, you know it's been lying to to you all along.
If the trains aren't running and they're not sure exactly when it'll be back to normal, then be honest and tell us. People are more understanding when told the truth up front, instead of being strung along with condescending, uninformative, and/or inaccurate messages.
I cannot disagree
However, my defense is of the countdown software, which is amoral in this situation.
Also, if it is an earlier disabled train, the countdowns should be right. Trains are running. It might mean that after the 4 minute train the next train is due in "20+" minutes (that's what they say for more than 20 minutes), again the software is right and the passengers are screwed, but in a way that reflects where the trains are. If it is "experiencing delays due to a disabled train", the countdown sign is merely aspirational. Therefore, the emphasis should be on the T providing the correct information about current conditions, with the software, as I keep on saying, tells the passengers how far away the next train is, in the context of minutes.
Of course, if a section of track is under a slow order (which I think is the case on portions of the Orange Line northbound for the past few days), then the software needs to be adjusted.
I will say this. I miss the map at Back Bay Station. We knew where the trains were, and could see the bunching graphically to boot.
That right there
represents the inward-facing rather than customer-facing attitude that is prevalent in dysfunctional organizations.
The job of the OCC, just like the job of every single other person and department at the T, is to maximize the usefulness of the T to the traveling public.
Exactly
Well, if neither the software nor anybody else knows when the train will actually arrive, then it's pretty obvious that displaying a sign that say the next train will arrive in 4 minutes is the wrong thing to do.
Seriously? As opposed to displaying "train not moving," or "unexpected delay... please stand by for more information"
So you don't take the T much
Even though I rarely take the Red Line, I know that when there are delays, they both make announcements and simultaneously note on the board that there are delays. And the voice is one of those obviously computer voices that I was excited about as a lad at the Computer Museum back in the 1980s.
Not a software bug
The computer program knows that from where the closest train it, it will take 4 minutes to get to the current station. Unfortunately, it could be stuck 4 minutes away for a long, long time. The buses are the same way.
I learned this in DC after being stuck watching a countdown for a long time.
HMI design
I've learned long ago it is far better to say design than to say something that is clearly not true.
The alternative
is what we had before the countdown signs.
Wow, that's helpful.
The next thing they'll say is that there really is another train right behind the overcrowded one!
To Be Fair ...
... there's often also a Borg-like voice that comes over the PA system to give equally useless information. Wondering when the next train might possibly arrive is futile.
wait one second (or 4 minutes)
I've loved the debate about the countdown clocks, but how do we really know that at the time the photo was taken, the trains weren't running? Could it be that this is at the end of the delay and in fact the train came roughly 4 minutes later?
Baby carriage
Of course there is the requisite mother-with-baby-carriage-and-cell-phone who is doing everything except watching the baby. A common sight on the T and elsewhere.
whine whine whine
The kid's okay. She's in the carriage (as opposed to walking on the yellow line) checking out the world and enjoying life. The mom is 2 feet away. As long at the kid is strapped in, nothing should happen.
Chill.
Actually, The Child Is Being Attended To By Another Person ...
... wearing blue jeans and seated behind the woman on the cell phone.
When you fail to look closely enough, you'll only see what you want to see.
We all know the nearest woman is in charge of the nearest baby
No man is ever responsible, no. The woman with the cellphone must be neglecting the kid! (even though she actually doesn't have anything to do with the kid).