The MTA today announced plans to spend $1.3 million in an effort to computerize their elevator and escalator outage system. Their current system — which relies on input for notoriously unreliable station workers — does a fairly bad job of tracking outages among the system’s 158 elevators and 169 escalators. The MTA board will vote to approve this plan later this week at the same meeting during which they will probably approve the fare hike. [The New York Times]
Why does the MTA seemed hell-bent on getting new technologies installed these days? Because the Intelligent Transportation Systems’ 15th World Congress is set for NYC next November. At least, that’s what SUBWAYblogger thinks. [SUBWAYblogger]
Now, we’re talkin’ service alerts. Or is that texting?
Nearly three months after a torrential downpour led to a system-wide failure of the subways that exposed the MTA’s deep-rooted communications problems, the MTA has issued a request for proposals for a text message alert system. A press release from the MTA has more:
The MTA is seeking the services of an external firm to provide a common platform for an all-agency service alert system that can be used by operations staff and public information officers at MTA operating agencies to notify customers of any events that might disrupt their normal travel. The agency is hoping to begin providing the service to customers by the spring of 2008.
The proposed system would send text messages or e-mails to customers’ designated e-mail accounts, cell phones, PDAs and other similar communications devices – in as close to real-time as possible. Such messages would include notification of planned service disruptions such as scheduled track work that might result in weekend delays or alternate train routing, as well as unplanned disruptions resulting from fires, storms, flooding or other emergency conditions.
This plan — similar to ones already in place in New Jersey and Washington, DC — is a welcome development. It first hit the news one week after the flood and was featured as a prime recommendation in the report on the MTA’s failings during the flood.
MTA CEO Elliot “Lee” Sander noted that a text message alert system had been in the works prior to the flood. That August morning’s event simply served as a catalyst to get the ball rolling faster.
“Better customer communication has been high on my priority list since I came to the MTA earlier this year,” Sander said. “The flooding on August 8 made it clear that timely text and email alerts are necessary, and I am confident we can find a third-party provider with the processing power to carry this out. It will no doubt be the largest such customer service alert system in the nation.”
As it stands now, the MTA is anticipating well over one million subscribers to their text message alert system, and they have to search for outside agency to handle the volume because they simply do not have the server capacity to handle such a large system. We all know that the MTA’s website has a history of breaking down under pressure, and I’m glad to see the Authority calling for a little outside help.
Eventually, all the MTA’s e-mail alert systems will be housed under one roof, and we’ll all be happy knowing that the latest service advisory is just a text message away.
The MTA has put out the request for proposals for a text-message alert system that would provide real-time service alerts to the subway-riding subscribers in New York City. This alert system is part of the recommendations stemming from the investigation into the August 8 flood, and the MTA is looking for outside firms to procure a plan because they’re in-house technology cannot the anticipated one million subscribers. More on this later. [MTA HQ]
After a few false hopes focusing around the MTA’s communication gap, how, we’re talkin’. Just two days after the MTA announced the new Know Before You Go! program, New York City Transit has unveiled a mobile version of its popular trip planner site. This mobile version, which is available online at http://tripplanner.mta.info/mobile/ and still in beta, comes with an added bonus: real-time service alerts.
The new Trip Planner, first reported byNY1’s Bobby Cuza last week and officially announced yesterday by NYCT, allows riders with PDA’s or web-enabled cell phones to tap into the MTA’s trip planner system. While on the go, a rider can choose from any combination of local buses and subways and express buses to get from point A to point B. The service includes handicapped access information and offers users a variety of itineraries. Much like those old Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, t’s up to you to pick the right one.
NYCT VP for Corporate Communications Paul Fleuranges expounded on the popularity of this service. “Every day more than 5,000 customers plan their trips using our on-line service,” he said in a press release, “and we expect that number will grow now that users don’t have to be sitting at a desk top in order to tap into the Trip Planner data base.”
But the best part as far as I’m concerned is the service alert information. As I’ve mentioned over and over again, the massive problems in August originated from the lack of communications between the MTA, its employees and riders. But the new service will offer real-time service alerts for unplanned service delays and changes. That is, in a word, fantastic news for riders who often feel stranded at subway stations and confused by MTA employees who, for example, may be found telling people to travel three stops in the wrong direction instead of walking five blocks to the nearest express stop when local service is unexpectedly out.
According to NYCT’s Internet Technology Group, this service should work on most WAP-enabled phones. “A majority of all smart phones – those that are browser enabled, and PDA’s, all of which are browser enabled – can support the application, which does not use a lot of Mobile device memory,” Sohaib Mallick, senior director of NYC Transit’s Internet Technologies group, said.
For his part, Fleuranges said that NYCT is rather excited to be offering the service and decided to offer it even as a program still in development so that riders could enjoy the new system. “Neither President Roberts nor I could see withholding the application from our riders given that it could provide them with system status information,” he said to me in an e-mail. “In a nutshell, it is a start. Does it solve the problem entirely? I’ll be the first to admit it doesn’t. But again, it is a start.”
It’s a start I can wholeheartedly support. Now that we can access this information while on the go, the next step — and I’m confident we’ll see it sooner rather than later — is a text message alert system that doesn’t require riders to actively search out service alerts. But for now, let’s celebrate this step forward.
When torrential rain knocked out the subways in August, the MTA’s communications problems were laid bare for all to see. The station agents and other MTA employees, we learned, didn’t really know what to do, and the MTA’s servers couldn’t handle the crush of people looking for information about the subways.
Well, last week, the MTA began to combat this communications problem by unveiling a new offering: an expanding weekday e-mail service alert program. Called Know Before You Go!, this enthusiastically titled program covers the same ground as one currently offered by weekend service. Sign up for alerts on one line, multiple lines or simply all of them, and you’ll get an e-mail with the latest information about service along that line.
“The ongoing capital infrastructure rehabilitation and system upgrade projects taking place during the day, at night and on weekends is critical to our ability to provide safe and reliable subway service,” MTA NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts, Jr., said in a press release. “Our weekend e-mail program has been very well received by riders and we expect this new service will be just as if not more popular with our customers.”
The new service — available here for all of you eager beavers — offers subscribers a once-a-week e-mail with the planned changes to the normal weekday subway service. The e-mail will arrive in your inbox on Friday.
And therein lies the cloud to this silver lining. Now, I’m all for the MTA using newfangled technologies like the Internets and electronic mail to send out status alerts. But weekly alerts sent the Friday before serve a fairly limited purpose. The communications problems in August were due to the fact that the MTA had no real-time service available for pushing out service alerts to users on the go. While this new e-mail alert system seems flashy, it doesn’t offer anything beyond planned outages. We need to know about unplanned outages.
We know the MTA wants to develop a platform for real-time text message updates. Even though the stations are not yet wired for wireless, text message alerts would benefit enough cell phone, Blackberry and iPhone users to make a difference. Know Before You Go! is a nice stop-gap, but that’s all that it is. While progress should be applauded, hopefully, we’ll see those real-time alerts before another system-wide outage hits.
At the end of September, the MTA and Transit Wireless announced a multi-million-dollar deal that would usher in the age of cell phones in the subway. Since these two groups completed their 10-year deal, things were silent on the cell phone front, but this past weekend witnessed a flurry of news — one good, one bad, and some just plan ol’ ridiculous — concerning the upcoming arrival of cell-equipped subway platforms.
Today, I’ll tackle this news in two parts. First up is the good and the bad. Later on, we’ll get to the ridiculous.
In the age of terrorism, the MTA is astutely aware that cell phones can be used to trigger underground detonations. To that end, in case of an emergency, the MTA is prepared to crack down on underground cell phone use by non-MTA employees.
In principle, this is a great idea. Once emergency response protocols are in place, MTA workers and police officers can limit cell phone use. But what about in the first few minutes of panic and confusion when a terrorist is most likely to use a cell signal as a remote detonator? I’m no terrorism or emergency response expert, but I would have to believe that simply expressing a wish that people don’t use their phones to contact loved ones during an emergency probably won’t work.
If that’s what I consider good news, what’s the bad? Well, Michael Rundle at Metro brings us a story about the precariousness of Transit Wireless. It sounds like the MTA signed a 10-year deal worth around $200 million with a company that doesn’t really exist and may not have the funds to pay up or implement its plan. The details, if you will:
The company tasked with bringing cell phone service to 277 subway stations within six years is a startup with no secured financing and their deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could fall through, according to testimony at a City Council hearing on Thursday…
But under questioning from the City Council Transportation Committee, MTA Deputy General Counsel Jerome Page said a necessary stage in securing the plan — a Notice to Proceed — has been withheld from the company pending secured financing. “The MTA has entered into an agreement with TW that seems too good to be true,” said committee chairman John Liu. “Not only is it supposed to cost the MTA nothing, the MTA believes it may even garner some revenue for the MTA. However, a crucial element is missing — sound financial backing.”
While Liu fears that the MTA will be “back at the drawing board a year, two years from now,” I’m just enjoying a good chuckle over this story. Of course the group with the best bid is the one least able to fulfill the terms of the deal, and if Transit Wireless has to back out of the deal, it seems unlikely that the MTA could sue the nascent group because they would have no assets. Considering that no wireless carriers have signed on to the deal yet, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this whole thing fall apart in the blink of an eye.
So as we sit and wait for the cell service plan to fall apart, check back later — around 1 p.m. — for some funny stories that came out of last week’s City Council hearing on the cell phone service. I can’t make this stuff up.
No, that’s not a Wachovia ad; it’s a hyrbrid bus. (Photo by Librado Romero/The New York Times)
The New York City buses are the under-appreciated and oft-maligned part of the City’s vibrant public transportation network. Some people swear by the bus system, especially those that run crosstown, while others bemoan the slower-than-walking speeds and unreliable service as evils of the bus system. Still others would like to see the MTA be more aggressive with the buses by working with the Department of Transportation to set up dedicated Bus Rapid Transit lanes.
Love ’em or hate ’em, buses serve as a great complement to the subway system, and this morning, I’ve got two bus stories for you. Both of them involve technological upgrades to the bus system. We start with state-of-the-art hybrid automobile technology.
Yesterday, William Neuman wrote about the new hybrid buses the MTA is testing. While the city already has hybrid buses — 600 hybrids out of a fleet of 4400 — that run, as hybrid cars do, with a mix of battery and diesel power. The new bus, a product of Design Line International, looks different than any current New York City bus and runs on 100 percent battery power. Take it away, Cityroom:
The test bus is different in that it runs on battery power all the time. It has a diesel engine, but that is used only to charge the battery, although the bus also uses the brakes for that purpose. The diesel engine is different too. It is a turbine engine.
Jerry Higgins, the director of new bus technology for New York City Transit, said the manufacturer predicts the bus will get about seven miles per gallon, which is about double the fuel efficiency of the transportation authority’s current hybrid bus fleet.
Wow. I had no idea that hybrid buses got just 3.5 miles per gallon. I can only wonder what the 3800 non-hybrid buses are doing to our air, and I have to believe that those empty buses running late at night aren’t doing the environment any favors. For that reason alone, I’m in favor of a more fuel efficient bus, but this bus may just be a one-time test. According to the MTA, they will test this bus in various boroughs for two months before deciding whether or not to place an order.
Meanwhile, as the MTA looks into technology that would improve our environment, they’re also gearing up to implement bus signs telling riders just how many more minutes they’ll have to wait for the next bus. While other countries have enjoyed this technology for years, the MTA hasn’t figured out how to implement GPS bus tracking yet. A recent report on WNYC talks about the ways in which the MTA is using GPS technology to keep bus schedule regular and let riders know how long they’ll have to wait.
Beth Fertig, at our excellent public radio station, reports:
So far, only 7 bus routes are taking part in the 7 million dollar pilot study – all in midtown and the Upper East Side. There are only 15 display signs in the bus shelters, not all of which are working. New York City Transit acknowledges there are still a few glitches. Officials wanted to experiment in the busiest parts of Manhattan because that’s where GPS encounters the most interference from tall buildings and the traffic is heaviest.
If it all goes right, the MTA will expand this program to the rest of the city at a cost of $78 million. They will also attempt to integrate real-time bus information into their Website. But that just sounds like we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
It’s hard to like these bus upgrades. For years, riders have bemoaned the lack of arrival information at bus shelters, and now we’re finally getting them. If the GPS timeframe is any indication, we should see those hybrid-turbine buses arrive at the same time as the Second Ave. subway.
Amidst all the hoopla surrounding the fare hike, the MTA is starting to make preparations that will lead to the phasing out of the MetroCard, a 13-year-old subway icon. Gone will be the familiar gold-and-blue flimsy plastic cards. In its stead, we’ll have touch-and-go SmartCard RFID technology that should speed up lines and make paying for public transportation rides even easier.
Jeremy Olshan in today’s New York Post elaborates on future technological developments I’ve tackled in the past: The MTA is gearing up to extend its touch-pay system to buses and will start a one-year study to assess SmartCard technology. Here’s what Olshan had to say in what could be a harbinger to many an elegy for the Metrocards:
The MTA’s smart-card pilot program on the Lexington Line, developed with Citibank and MasterCard, will soon be expanded to 275 buses and opened up to all contactless credit and debit cards issued by banks.
“At some point, we will have a reader that says Visa, Amex, MasterCard,” said Paul Korczak, the NYC Transit official who oversees the MetroCard told Re: ID, a smart-card industry trade publication. “Card companies are very excited about this extra opportunity.”
…Later this year the MTA expects to award a contract for a one-year study to determine the future fare payment system, NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges said. There is some urgency as the MetroCard readers and vending machines are nearing the end of their useful life, officials said.
There’s a lot to like about all of this information. First, extending the pilot program to buses should improve bus load times. Other than slow speeds due to traffic, bus load times are the number one most infuriating part about riding a bus. Waiting for people to dip their MetroCards can seem endless, and anything to pick up the pace here is a-okay with me. That the pilot program will include options for 7- and 30-day unlimited MetroCards is an added bonus.
Korczak noted that the MTA will look to choose some crosstown bus lines and some north-south bus lines. This way, passengers can experiment with transfer options as well. Starting the program on only east-west lines would severely limit the number of people willing to take part in the experiment. I would imagine that the crosstown buses the MTA chooses will be the M79 and M86 lines as those also intersect with Mastercard-enabled stations on the East Side IRT lines at Lexington Ave.
Second, the article lays out what we’ve heard for a while: The MetroCard technology current in place is an aging and nearly obsolete technology. It costs the MTA money in credit card processing fees to load up all of the MetroCards, and the vending machines have also shouldered some of the blame for the fare hike. If the MTA can save money by undergoing a technological upgrade, it’s time to bring SmartCard technology to the subways. The Metro in DC and the Tubes in London, for example, both employ the technology. New York should too.
New signs illuminate the 7 train. Wonder express or local no longer. (Photos by Ryan O’Horo.)
On and off for the last few months, I’ve gotten questions about the 7 train. Take, for example, this one from my friend Carla: “How about doing an expose on why the 7 can’t get its damn local/express signage right?”
While I don’t ride the 7 train much — two trips to Shea this summer and one to the U.S. Open — I’ve wondered this lately myself. A few years ago, 7 express trains were demarcated by the diamond 7, and locals operated under the traditional round purple bullets.
But earlier this year, something changed. These signs, used interchangeably on the same trains, stopped meaning anything. Passengers had to rely on increasingly inaudible announcements to determine which trains were local and which trains were express. Well, not anymore.
This week, loyal reader Ryan O’Horo e-mailed about me about a 7 train equipped with LED lights that are designed to differentiate between express service and local service. A thread on Subchat corroborated the story. It seems like the MTA is testing out a way to allow passengers to tell the difference. The lights are hanging on only a few cars on the 7 line. Here’s what Ryan had to say:
Spent a good amount to time checking it out. It’s only this one train and the displays are mounted in the front, side and rear rollsigns both inside and outside the car. Simple modules that look custom and they’re just kind of hanging out in the rollsign, no fancy mounts.
According to the Subchat thread, the signs — using EXP for express and LCL for local — are supposed to go green or red, respectively, depending upon the service. So far, we haven’t seen that happen. But we have seen a lot of the signs as Ryan took a set of photos I uploaded to flickr. The thumbnails of a few images below lead to the larger images. For more shots, the photoset is here:
While clearly still an experimental stab at identifying trains, these LED signs are a good step in the right direction. I will forever wonder why the diamond-bullet variances couldn’t work to identify express and local services. I am also a little mystified as to why the MTA is invested in LED lights when they already have signs that should tell the difference between express and local service. But as long as the Authority is willing to listen to those Queens-bound customers who didn’t know if their trains were express or local, we can’t complain too much now.