Earlier this month, The Post highlighted the mixed results for the MTA’s attempts at bringing automatic train operation to the L line. Various glitches and a higher-than-expected failure yet has plagued the three-year effort to bring this technology — a part of a communications-based train control suite — to the New York City subways, and this weekend, the news got worse. According to the Daily News, Transit had to temporarily suspend the ATO program to fix a handful of glitches with the system.
According to Pete Donohue, a series of incidents required Transit to request software updates as trains were moving on their own according. Since automatic train operation began in 2009, these problems have popped up frequently. Donohue reports on the latest developments:
In one incident, a train that was stopped at a Brooklyn platform took off on its own – traveling three to five feet before a crew member on board hit the emergency brakes, NYC Transit confirmed yesterday. With two other similar incidents recently on the Brooklyn-to-Manhattan line, the agency suspended use of the computerized train control system on Aug. 16, NYC Transit said in a statement yesterday.
Train service continued the old-fashioned way – with motormen doing the driving, not computers – until software fixes were finished last weekend, the agency said…In automatic train operation mode, the Robotrains are controlled by computers telling them when to stop and how fast to travel. After discharging passengers at a station, a train should remain idling until the motorman, who’s monitoring its operations at the cab’s computer, authorizes departure with the push of a button.
“Train operators have the authority to take manual control of their train when necessary while still maintaining a safe operation,” NYC Transit said in the statement. “It’s important to note safety was not an issue, but reliability was.”
As of now, many of the ATO-equipped trainsets have been updated and are back in service, but this problem is one in a long line of issues plaguing the L train, the guinea pig of the transit system. Since the late 1990s, the MTA has tried to bring this technology to the Canarsie Line, but various difficulties — from overcrowding to backwards compatibility concerns — have prevented a smooth upgrade. A 2007 report said the service would be ready to go in January 2010, and while ATO commenced a year before that, the implementation has been anything but smooth.
Meanwhile, the union, which stands to lose jobs if ATO is implemented properly, continue to claim that the problems prove how untrustworthy this system is. Kevin Harrington, a higher-up at the TWU, said that the recent problems show how ATO and CBTC are “potentially dangerous.” Yet, other transit systems throughout the world have brought these systems online with fewer troubles. As the MTA gears up to computerize the 7 line, the L can serve as a valuable practice run, but the kinks must still be worked as well.
18 comments
Automatic train control is not without safety concerns. And does require redundant systems to be in place to assure safety — the problems that WMATA (aka DC’s Metro) have had — including sever accidents — have been related to not taking into account redundancy. (BART had similar problems in its earlier days and so built in redundancy from the beginning. Although both BART and Muni have their share of computer glitches. I lived in SF during the infamous Muni meltdown where a switch to automatic control in the Market Street tunnels caused a massive failure — trains stuck underground. Doors that wouldn’t open. Etc.)
There have been plenty of accidents — serious ones — with human-operated trains. Does this mean that union motormen are “potentially dangerous?”
Well cute, but I think the issue to me is that you need both systems. Plus at least several types of back up systems to prevent accidents. Sure the WMATA examples all had human operators in place but did not have have any redundant safety features to prevent accidents if both automated and people systems failed. Something that happens too frequently in the WMATA history.
How is it that Airtrain operates without motormen just fine? It is also more complicated than the L with more switches on its route. Poor implementation by the mta and poor choice in contractors, if you ask me. The technology is there, but the execution is sub par right now.
Airtrain does NOT operate “just fine” without motormen.
Google “Two Doors Fall Off AirTrain At JFK” and “140 Passengers Get Stranded On JFK AirTrain, No One Notices”
Could you imagine the widespread panic if an NYC subway train became stranded for any length of time with no crew on board to help?
Robotrains? Sigh. Do I get to call overstaffed trains meatbags?
I for one am very skeptical that CBTC is ever going to be made to work well with the complicated NY subway, with its express and local services and trunk and individual lines.
Um, what? The local/express system is irrelevant. There are separate local and express tracks. It might actually matter if the subway mixed local and express trains on the same track pair, with timed overtakes, but it doesn’t.
The trunk line branching doesn’t matter, either. In fact, two of the highest-capacity CBTC installations in Europe – the inner parts of the Berlin S-Bahn and the RER A – are both highly branched.
Believe it or not, but ATO worked perfectly fine in New York for years, on the 42nd Street Shuttle. Driverless trains ran safely. The experiment was abandoned only after a fire in Times Square, which had nothing to do with the shuttle’s automation, made people decide that paying train operators was necessary for safety.
The ATO on the shuttle was only on 4 track, the track that only runs during rush hours. It is the least used of the three tracks. They weren’t driverless. The public insisted on a motorman being in the front cab. A C/r was probably needed to close the doors.
When they rebuild the shuttle(2 staight tracks running 5-car 142s) it could be completely ATO if they enclose the platforms. Even then you’d probably need some sort of platform C/r or ATD. I think they’ll only do it when the R62s can’t run anymore.
The shuttle isn’t crowded enough to need a platform C/R.
It’s not entirely irrelevant, since trains frequently get rerouted between local and express tracks (not to mention onto different lines entirely). Unless that flexibility is going to be thrown out, installing CBTC post-Flushing is going to require a lot of coordination – on Queens Boulevard, for example, either all four tracks will have to be done at the same time, or the cars assigned to the M and R (and anything else that is occasionally rerouted to the Queens express) will need to be fully CBTC capable (just to allow for reroutes from the local track), or the express tracks will need a high-capacity wayside signal system in addition to CBTC, which defeats the purpose entirely.
In practice, I assume some blend of the first two approaches will be taken.
Not really a problem. You normally install cab signals (or any signal system, really) onto a line section, and only trains equipped with cab signals are allowed onto that line section. They retain manual control for when they’re not on cab-signalled lines, and there’s a switchover point where the operator presses the “change system” button.
It’s why you install new signalling systems on branch lines first — so you don’t have to convert all the trains at once. After the L and the 7, which are each isolated systems. I would lay bets that one of the branches will be next — perhaps the 1 in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan, since the IRT needs the improvements more than the BMT/IND and the East Side IRT is too crowded to shut down for signal improvements.
The signals on most of the IRT are in a state of good repair. They’re not going to be replaced for a long time.
Most of the upcoming signal replacements will be on the IND, most of which is still using its original signals. Next up is Queens Boulevard.
Yet another article confusing CBTC with ATO. ATO is just one (small) component of this CBTC installation. This CBTC project has been remarkably problem-prone (thanks, Siemens), but the problems here appear to be with ATO specifically, not with CBTC as a whole.
Yes, the 7 comes next. If it doesn’t get CBTC, it has to get a brand new old-fashioned signal system, which probably won’t cost any less and will have lower capacity (than a CBTC system and probably even than the existing system).
Can you explain, in depth, how I’m confusing ATO and CBTC? You keep saying we mix them up, but you’re not making it much clearer. Both have been problematic; both are seemingly opposed by certain factions in the TWU; both should improve efficiency on the line. And I don’t completely see the confusion and would like to present a clearer picture of the technologies.
ATO is a system that reduces the work burden of the T/O, making it (much) easier to combine the T/O and conductor into just one position. It can be done without CBTC and vice versa, but the subway has bundled the two to save on construction costs.
Andrew should have more details, but this is what I’ve gleaned.
ATO also has benefits in terms of running time and possibly capacity, since it makes each train run as fast as it safely can.
It’s not just a matter of saving on construction costs. ATO is implemented on the Canarsie line as a component of the CBTC system.
Sorry, my criticism was primarily directed at the Daily News article. I wasn’t clear – my apologies.
CBTC is a signal system. ATO is a style of operation. Neither is necessarily contingent on the other.
In this case, the primary goal was a new signal system, since the old one needed to be replaced. CBTC was selected rather than a conventional system with wayside signals. And once CBTC is in place, ATO is a relatively small add-on, with its own benefits.
NYCT hasn’t been spending years installing an ATO system. NYCT has been spending years installing a CBTC system, of which ATO happens to be one component (that’s apparently proving somewhat problematic these days, but the entire CBTC project has been problematic from start to finish).
I don’t think anyone in the TWU is opposed to CBTC per se, aside from the ATO component.
Does that help? If not, I’ll try to explain further.