
Why New York Subway Lines Are Missing Countdown Clocks (2015) - BlackJack
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are/415152/
======
princekolt
> Having full-time software experts running the show turned out to be crucial.
> Previous incarnations of the project didn’t have a technical leader at the
> MTA—just old-school senior managers who would try to wrangle the contractors
> by force of will. The new in-house team, by contrast, was qualified to
> define exactly what they wanted from software providers in terms those
> providers could understand. They were qualified to evaluate progress. They
> could sniff out problems early.

I think this is the most important topic in this article. Government projects
cost so much and take so long because there is always a disconnect between the
institution paying for the work and the institution doing the work. One can’t
reliably measure the other’s capabilities and knowledge and so it becomes a
murky relationship (one that is also easily exploited by persons on both sides
willing to make their paychecks fatter).

~~~
eigenvector
As someone who works in the power utility industry - an industry that has
slowly moved from monolithic, often publicly-owned monopolies to a competitive
market where lots of functions are contracted out to service providers - I
feel that a lot of this is symptomatic of that process.

In the 'old days' when we built lots of large infrastructure projects like the
New York subway, various energy megaprojects, the interstate highway system,
etc. nearly all technical functions were done in-house at the government or
quasi-government agency responsible.

Now we have become 'leaner' and pared down many government agencies to project
management only (sometimes just business management - projects is contracted
out too), but it's not that easy to manage construction of a subway or a 500
kV transmission line if you don't actually have the base of relevant knowledge
internally. Suddenly you have 25-year-olds fresh of out of engineering school
being christened 'Senior Project Manager' and put in charge of a large, very
complex technical project when 40 years ago, they would have been doing basic
design and learning their trade as an engineer under the direction of a
phalanx of senior engineers. Then we pat ourselves on the back for 'saving'
loads of money by reducing headcount in the public sector when actual total
cost of ownership has escalated.

The people actually doing the nuts-and-bolts engineering and construction work
have no ownership in the project because the second that contractual
completion is declared it's off to the next one.

Right now I am working for a power company that refuses to hire its own
project or commissioning engineers, instead contracting management, oversight
and quality control of its construction projects to a litany of 3rd parties.
Unsurprisingly, it means very few if any people in our company have the
expertise to understand what's going on when a project is off the rails. The
result is endless delays while senior management wrings their hands and brings
in yet more consultants to manage the other consultants.

~~~
pinot
"Now we have become 'leaner' and pared down"

This happens in the Private Sector as well. I work for a _manufacturing_
company with 6+ facilities (two major, third major greenfield in design and 3
minor facilities) We have 3 engineers for the whole company. We mostly just
manage the contracted engineering firms. It sucks for me as a "junior" Senior
Project Engineer because I rarely get a chance to learn what my contractors
are doing, too busy managing them and coordinating. Naturally, in order to be
a better PM I need to know their skills at least at a 500' level. Hard to
learn to code PLCs when I'm too busy managing 5 PLC programmers on a project
for a month or two, then moving onto something else that might not even have a
PLC involved.

~~~
eigenvector
Early on in my career, a manager of mine told me about his first few years on
the job after being hired by Ontario Hydro (at that time the integrated
generation and transmission utility for all of Ontario) in the late 1960s. The
first two years was pure training and basically an extension of your
engineering degree except specifically applied to the typical problems and
practices of the power utility.

Of course, in those days a utility job came with a generous pension, a
seniority-based career track and an expectation that you would likely retire
there, so anything invested in a young employee was just investing in the
company itself.

Large engineering employers no longer feel the same social compact with the
profession to train young engineers and make experts out of them. Not only do
they not set aside time for employees to learn, there often aren't any seniors
around for them to learn from because the company hasn't bothered to create a
meaningful career track for engineers. It's promotion up to management or
stagnation at entry-level pay. With little meaningful prospect of advancement
in their technical career and no pension 'golden handcuffs', there's no
incentive for employees to stick around. Once they become experienced, they
split for the contractor they used to manage, creating a vicious cycle that
drains the utility company of talent.

~~~
ergothus
> anything invested in a young employee was just investing in the company
> itself.

We often discuss the modern lack of perks you listed, but we rarely discuss
this consequence.

I recently left a tech company and was surprised when engineering management
showed no interest in learning why I had left. It makes sense not to worry
about -me-, but why not worry about the workers who haven't left?

I concluded that since places assume you will leave within 3 years (I was at
3.5), they dont really concern themselves with trying to counter that and
consider it normal, which becomes a self-prophecy.

------
jessriedel
The countdown clocks have been be implemented more than 2 years after the OP
article came out: "After 11 years, every NYC subway station finally has
countdown clocks"

[https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/2/16840622/mta-nyc-subway-
count...](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/2/16840622/mta-nyc-subway-countdown-
clock-installation-finished)

The OP article is still relevant for understanding the dysfunctions of the
MTA.

------
ramblerouser
>You want fewer delays? You want realtime countdown clocks? CBTC is the answer

What crap. For nearly 100 years the subway has been just fine, and after 10-15
years of corruption and mismanagement we're expected to believe the only
solution is a multi-billion dollar upgrade with technology that didnt even
exist the last time the system was functioning properly?

I dont think lack of computer controlled trains is the problem here:

[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-
crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-
subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-
system-failure-delays.html)

>Signal problems and car equipment failures occur twice as frequently as a
decade ago, but hundreds of mechanic positions have been cut because there is
not enough money to pay them — even though the average total compensation for
subway managers has grown to well over $200,000 a year.

Daily ridership has nearly doubled in the past two decades to 5.7 million, but
New York is the only major city in the world with fewer miles of track than it
had during World War II. Efforts to add new lines have been hampered by
generous agreements with labor unions and private contractors that have
inflated construction costs to five times the international average.

New York’s subway now has the worst on-time performance of any major rapid
transit system in the world, according to data collected from the 20 biggest.
Just 65 percent of weekday trains reach their destinations on time

~~~
bobthepanda
The subway hasn't been "just fine" for the past 100 years. Up until the '80s
disinvestment was the norm, to the point where pieces of elevated track were
literally falling on people on the streets below. It takes a long time to
correct 50+ years of deferred maintenance, and we're not out of the woods yet.

Fewer miles of track is a legacy of that time period, as subway replacements
for demolished elevated lines never came, and then elevated lines had to be
demolished because they were a safety hazard.

As far as construction costs go, the problem is actually that the MTA is not
involved in construction union negotiations _at all_ , and the firms are more
than happy to oblige the unions and pass on the cost to their captive
consumer. The barrier to entry for new firms is quite high due to byzantine
NYS bidding rules as a result of '20s era reform, and even if you could have a
new firm start up they'd be hiring from the same pool of workers; it's not as
if specialized construction workers can be hired on visa.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-
construction-costs.html)

> At the heart of the issue is the obscure way that construction costs are set
> in New York. Worker wages and labor conditions are determined through
> negotiations between the unions and the companies, none of whom have any
> incentive to control costs. The transit authority has made no attempt to
> intervene to contain the spending.

~~~
ramblerouser
Thanks for the insight. I will look into that law more. It doesnt excuse the
political process that has kept it on the books though.

~~~
bobthepanda
The main issue is that New Yorkers are extremely cynical and detached from the
elections process, particularly on state and local elections which tend to
take place on non-presidential years. Ocasio-Cortez and Gounardes showed that
it is _possible_ to turn things around if voters are motivated enough, but for
the most part they aren't, and party machine politicians on both sides would
like to keep it that way.

~~~
barrow-rider
> is possible to turn things around if voters are motivated enough, but for
> the most part they aren't, and party machine politicians on both sides would
> like to keep it that way.

Reminds me of David Foster Wallace...

> “If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you
> are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major
> parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that
> it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to
> give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and
> watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't
> bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing
> as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and
> tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.”

------
robocat
"They even put out a video that gleefully shows off the worst stuff. Look at
how broken it is! Look at how old!"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA)

Well made video that helps understand the interlocks - if you like antique
systems!

~~~
CamperBob2
Interesting video. I'll confess I still don't understand why it's so hard to
keep track of the position of subway cars in real time. I can think of any
number of ways to do that more or less trivially. (For instance, they already
have to run power on a third rail, don't they? What's wrong with time-domain
reflectometry?)

Seems that using lots of inexpensive redundant sensors would achieve the
necessary fault tolerance and avoid frequent maintenance shutdowns. It sounds
like they have instead elected to implement a monolithic system with a lot of
expensive hardware at both the station and car levels. I guess that's how they
(don't) roll in New York.

~~~
DougBTX
> I'll confess I still don't understand why it's so hard to keep track of the
> position of subway cars in real time. I can think of any number of ways to
> do that more or less trivially.

That’s the source of a lot of error in project estimates, since it is trivial
to come up with plans _before_ considering the details.

Phrasing it as a software project: “I don’t understand why it is so hard to
find information on the internet. All of the pages are available through HTTP
web servers, aren’t they? What’s wrong with just downloading them all?”

~~~
CamperBob2
I don't follow you. How is keeping track of the position of a small number of
subway cars in a limited geographical area anywhere near as abstract a problem
as "finding information on the Internet?"

This is a relatively-trivial engineering exercise with any number of safe,
efficient solutions. If someone says it will take a billion dollars to solve
the problem, _that_ is the person you should demand proof from.

~~~
throwawaymath
_> This is a relatively-trivial engineering exercise with any number of safe,
efficient solutions._

Your comments here are another great example of how ironic it is to hear the
word "trivial" used to describe solutions. Don't you think it's a little
unrealistic that your "relatively-trivial engineering exercise" suggestions
are capable of successfully tackling a problem so many parties have thought
about? Have you considered that your insight is actually failing to account
for a variety of unknown unknowns you might have about the NYC subway system?

Look at it this way: why do you suppose your suggestions haven't been
implemented yet? Do you think the vast array of parties with skin in the game
haven't thought of them (and are thus incompetent)? Do you think they simply
aren't motivated to implement them?

I wouldn't be surprised if your proposals are technically sound (especially
for greenfield rail construction). But I would be absolutely shocked if the
problem is anywhere near as trivial as you're making it out to be.

~~~
CamperBob2
_Have you considered that your insight is actually failing to account for a
variety of unknown unknowns you might have about the NYC subway system?_

No. Whatever the unknown unknowns are, they're not going to be _that_ hard to
work around. Keeping track of a few train cars isn't exactly the Manhattan
Project, even if it has to be done underneath Manhattan.

The video suggests that the total budget for the CBTC retrofit was in the
vicinity of $1 billion. I hope that I either misinterpreted it, or that the
budget includes other improvements, because I doubt it cost that much (in 2018
dollars) to build the initial subway routes in the first place.

 _Look at it this way: why do you suppose your suggestions haven 't been
implemented yet? Do you think the vast array of parties with skin in the game
haven't thought of them (and are thus incompetent)? Do you think they simply
aren't motivated to implement them?_

I think the vast array of parties with skin in the game have treated said
"skin" as a target for optimization in itself. I'll readily admit they're
likely better at that game than I am.

~~~
throwawaymath
How can you say with any confidence that the unknown unknowns you have won’t
be very hard to work around? That’s entirely the point of unknown unknowns -
you don’t know what you don’t know.

~~~
CamperBob2
(Shrug) I know how to figure out where some subway cars are and keep track of
them for less than nine figures. I don't expect anyone to take my word for it,
and I don't care if they don't; it's just an excuse for some meaningless
chest-thumping on HN while waiting for Vivado to do its thing. :-P

If I lived in New York and had to pay for it, I'd probably find the question
less interesting and more infuriating.

~~~
Anechoic
I would encourage you to submit a problem statement with your proposed method
to TCRP research program [0,1]. Unfortunately the 2019 solicitation is closed,
but the 2020 solicitation will open early next year. A better vehicle tracking
method than the current block-level tracking is something that would be
valuable to sub-surface transit system in the USA and if what you propose (or
something similar) is feasible, the statement stands a real good chance of
getting funded for a research project. And if the project is funded, you can
even bid on the research work. I'm active on the TBR ADC040 subcommittee, if
you have questions, hit me up (my twitter is on my profile) and I'll see if I
can connect you to the right person.

I write this in all seriousness - this isn't a "if you're so smart why don't
you do it" post, I'm writing this in acknowledgement that there are a lot of
smart people on HN, and if there's a chance to improve US transit, I'm all for
it.

[0]
[http://www.trb.org/TCRP/AboutTCRP.aspx](http://www.trb.org/TCRP/AboutTCRP.aspx)
[1]
[http://www.trb.org/TCRP/TCRPOverview.aspx](http://www.trb.org/TCRP/TCRPOverview.aspx)

~~~
CamperBob2
I hear you, but unfortunately, I have no insights that any random EE (or
advanced hobbyist) with some DSP experience wouldn't immediately bring up as
well. It's safe to say that anything I could suggest has already ended up in
plenty of proposals.

It would be interesting to understand just why this is considered a $100M-$1B
problem, though. I'm curious enough to do some more reading.

------
shmerl
The countdown clocks really show the distance to the train, not the time it
will take to arrive (it's more correct that it shows estimated time). I.e. it
can be stuck at 5 min for 15 minutes. It would make more sense to actually
show that distance in addition to the ETA.

~~~
worldsayshi
The ETA tells the average passenger what they want to know. What good does
knowing the distance do you? If the ETA is bad the analysis should be
improved. There's little point in encouraging the passenger to try to outsmart
that analysis. The designer of the system has much more information to work
with.

Sure it would be be nice to supply that information in some open API somewhere
though.

~~~
Ericson2314
People can count stops. And they will learn what it means for their frequented
stations.

At unfamiliar stations just be conforted that's it's monotonic :).

~~~
freditup
Time makes a lot more sense than stops: for example, at Columbus Circle in
NYC, a downtown A train that's one stop away is about 3.5 miles out. A
downtown 1 train that's one stop away is less than a half mile out. Except if
the downtown A train is running local, in which case it's then about a half
mile out.

Time, on the other hand, can be meaningfully displayed to a rider no matter
what information they already know. (It's also fairly accurate in practice in
my experience.)

~~~
shmerl
It's accurate as long as trains are moving. As soon as they are stalled, that
time stops reflecting the real one. So showing the distance at least gives a
more appropriate info, instead of showing "5 min" for 15 minutes (which is
annoying).

------
Eric_WVGG
This is an old-ish (2015) but excellent article, the best summary of the
myriad challenges with fixing the New York subway that I’ve read.

------
buffaloo
Why hasn’t some kid with a couple Raspberry Pies and a laser and sensor
guerillaed up how to sense when the train is X distance from some stop and
heading this way - with some mailing list of people to text when the train
approaches?

------
gregorymichael
I live off the Carroll stop talked about in this 2015 article. We got
countdown clocks last year.

~~~
rocky1138
Do people still stand around outside or do they utilize the new clocks for
advice on train arrivals?

~~~
gregorymichael
They don't stand around outside. You can see the ETA boarding before swiping,
and again on the platform.

------
hansthehorse
I grew up in NYC back when a normal family could live in Manhattan. I always
wondered why they didn't suspend service between midnight and 5AM on weekdays
for scheduled maintenance. Move half the maintenance people to midnight shift
so avoid all the overtime they pay now.

Not mentioned in the article is that the NYC subway system is controlled by
Albany, not NYC.

------
aviv
I used to take the F train into the city every day for 2 years back when I
lived in NY. That ride is something I miss very much... such peaceful downtime
before wifi and all that.

~~~
magic_beans
And what decade were you in NYC? Because the F train of the past ten years is
constantly overcrowded, delayed nearly every day, and often out of service on
the weekends.

~~~
aviv
I lived in NY 2003-2006

~~~
throwaway20148
Yep you left before it got bad.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10566776](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10566776)

------
aj7
Uneconomically high salaries, and uneconomic job security provide a powerful
incentive to slow down projects.

------
paulsutter
We don't need countdown clocks, we need door-to-door commutes at 200kph with
no stops or train changes. The Boring Company should be able to drill around
and under.

The Subway is like something from a bygone era:

> All track on the New York subway (and on most American rail) is broken into
> sections, here about 1,000 feet long. An electric current is constantly
> running in a loop through each section. When a train enters a section, it
> short-circuits the loop, which allows the system to know that the section is
> occupied. The signals behind it automatically turn red.

> Fixed-block signaling systems, in use since the late 1800s, keep trains from
> getting too close to one another. The neat thing about subway signals, as
> opposed to the ones you find on the road, is that they actually force you to
> stop. When a signal is red, a footlong metal T called (appropriately) a
> “train stop” protrudes above the track; each train car has a corresponding
> “trip cock” on its wheel frame connected to the emergency brakes. If you
> were to drive by a stop signal the train stop would hit the trip cock and
> you’d screech to a halt.

~~~
sschueller
Public transport will always be a loss business if you want to serve all areas
and not just the rich. Private companies are always going to try to make as
much profit as possible, this includes profit over safety if they can get away
with it.

What we need is a reorganization of the public transport sector with competent
long term planning and the funds to achieve it.

But as long as corruption, incompetence, cronyism and a complete lack of the
public willing to pay for it. It won't happen.

~~~
tokyodude
Japan's train system is the envy of the world and is privatized. There are at
least 10 different companies running public transportation in Tokyo alone. 3
to 5 in Kyoto.

~~~
jimktrains2
Don't those companies also control a lot of details development arouns
stations, which essentially subsidizes the trains?

