New Jersey Transit

While the MTA has decided that Clever Devices’ price tag is simply too steep for the city, New Jersey Transit is moving ahead with the company’s equipment to institute a real-time bus tracking system, the agency announced yesterday. The Board of Directors of voted to authorize a $22 million deal that will outfit the so-called smart bus equipment on around 1040 buses, and New Jersey Transit bus riders will finally have a real-time bus-tracking system at their disposal.

“The use of smart bus technology will enable NJ TRANSIT Bus Operations to improve the quality and reliability of service while reducing operating costs,” Transportation Commissioner and NJ TRANSIT Board Chairman James Simpson said in a statement. “This technology will act as the central nervous system for New Jersey’s buses, transmitting critical data pertaining to ridership, vehicle condition, bus location and more, which will allow for greater efficiency in terms of scheduling, planning and maintenance.”

In announcing the deal, New Jersey Transit played up the total package of upgrades that Clever Devices will supply. These include “automatic bus stop announcements, vehicle condition monitoring, passenger counting, and real-time location reporting.” As the agency noted, these upgrades will allow it to provide real-time bus location and arrival information for “any web-enabled device.” Customers will now know how much longer they must wait for their delayed buses. The agency’s new order of 1145 buses is already equipped with this technology.

“By equipping the entire NJ TRANSIT bus fleet with smart bus technology, we are laying the foundation for providing real-time bus service information to our customers,” NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein said. “Smart bus technology will drive improvements like ‘Next Bus’ signage at key locations and new customer information tools on the web, such as maps that display graphic representations of buses as they move across the system.”

The timing of this announcement — just over a week after the MTA unveiled its in-house real-time bus-tracking solution along the B63 — allows us to make an apt comparison between the two agencies’ approaches to real-time information. From the get-go, it’s easy to see why the MTA went in-house with their plan. To outfit 1040 buses, Clever Devices is charging over $21,000 a bus while the MTA’s pilot — 30 buses at a total of $265,000 — costs around $8000 per bus. As the MTA’s bus fleet numbers in excess of 6000, the costs associated with Clever Devices — estimated by the authority at $140 million at one point — would have been substantial, and retrofitting an aging fleet for the Clever Devices array was cost-prohibitive.

Yet, as the New Jersey Transit deal shows, there is a certain allure about Clever Devices. The computerized bus system isn’t only about real-time tracking. It also provides for internal systems diagnostics and an array of other upgrades. Since New Jersey Transit’s newer buses come equipped with the technology, it made sense for the agency, flush with money that should have gone to ARC, to spend for the best of the best.

Of course, as with any technology, if Clever Devices doesn’t outlive its system’s shelf life or if the company decides to hold its contracting partners fiscally hostage, the agency could be stuck with a steep deal. The MTA, for instance, has learned about the high costs of maintaining a proprietary system throughout the lifespan of the MetroCard, and it has determined that open systems with open-source development components are both cheaper in the long term and better for customers and private developers.

Still, despite these concerns, BusTime will arrive across the river, and the 800,000 people who use New Jersey Transit buses on a daily basis will stand to benefit. Real-time tracking, it’s the way of yesteryear finally arriving in the northeast.

The Hudson-Bergen Light rail in action. (Photo via flickr user wallyg)

Think of this story as the natural accumulation of this week. On Monday, I tackled the upcoming changes to the Bayonne Bridge, and last night, I discussed the need for more light rail within the city limits of New York. Today, we learn that if New Jersey planners have their way, the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line will indeed climb over the Bayonne Bridge and into Staten Island.

As The Jersey Journal’s Charles Hack reported on Thursday, New Jersey Transit officials have spoken with their Port Authority counterparts to discuss adding space for the light rail line as New Jersey prepares to renovate the Bayonne Bridge. Hack writes of the preliminary planning process:

Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit, confirmed yesterday there have been discussions about extending the Light Rail from the Eighth Street Light Rail Station in Bayonne – which is slated to open within a month – to Staten Island. “Our involvement has been providing technical data to the Port Authority,” Stessel said. “Any significant expansion of the Light Rail beyond the Eighth Street Light Rail Station would require further study to address capacity constraints.”

Those constraints relate to whether the existing infrastructure – which includes two rail tracks, one in each direction – could handle additional trains and riders that an expansion to Staten Island would bring, he said.

Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said it is far too early to say whether or not incorporating a rail line into the bridge is a realistic proposition. Political support for a rail extension across the bridge seems stronger in New York than New Jersey. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and Staten Island Borough President James P. Molinaro say that providing space for the Light Rail or an express bus lane on the bridge would cut Staten Island residents’ commute to Manhattan and reduce congestion.

Later on yesterday, Michael Grimm, a U.S. Congressman from Staten Island, voiced his support for the plan. Calling the project a “top priority,” he explained why Staten Island needs this rail link. “The people of Staten Island have spent too much time sitting in their cars stuck in traffic,” he said. “The Port Authority already has plans to raise the Bayonne Bridge, so it makes sense to incorporate light rail into the new design. The people of Staten Island have waited far too long for a light rail connection, which is why I plan to do all I can to make sure that it is built.”

Right now, we don’t know anything about the costs of laying light rail over the bridge, and it doesn’t make much sense to build a connection without activating the North Shore Rail Line or building the HBLR out to the ferry terminal. I also wonder about the framing here. Should New York representatives focus on moving Staten Islanders to Manhattan via New Jersey or should they view this rail link as a way to improve mobility from Staten Island to the job hubs across the Hudson in New Jersey? Without the numbers or any studies to support this contention, I believe the link to New Jersey would be more useful than the promise of a slightly faster ride to Manhattan.

Ultimately, this plan is years from fruition. While New Jersey representatives have called upon the Port Authority to act quickly as it addresses the future of the Bayonne Bridge, it will take multiple studies and much lobbying to see transit realized. But as I said earlier this week, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to better connect Staten Island, and both New York and New Jersey should work to make it happen.

Update (12:15 p.m.): New Jersey Transit’s website is back up and running. Below is the saga of their technologically frustrating morning.

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On any given day, New Jersey Transit’s website, redesigned and relaunched in October 2009, should look a little bit something like this:

This morning though visitors to NJTransit.com found a placeholder instead. Right now, when I navigate to the commuter rail, I see the following:

Essentially, New Jersey Transit allowed its domain name registration to lapse, and its registrar put up the standard link farm. According to the WHOIS record for NJTransit.com, the domain name expired on Jan. 7, 2011, coincidentally the same day that I’ve heard the agency’s CIO stepped down. New Jersey Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said that the agency was “investigating the glitch” and that there is no danger of their losing the website. “There is no risk of anyone buying the website,” he said. “We’ve got it for the next 20 years.”

Of course, if the renewal wasn’t submitted in a timely fashion, the site will inevitably go down for a few hours. According to The Star-Ledger, the agency continued to send out text alerts this morning while dealing with this so-called glitch, and customers using AT&T — but not Verizon — were able to access the website. Either way, that’s an embarrassing and amusing mishap in an age when transit agencies are trying to better integrate technology into their daily operations.

In an age of cell phones, New Jersey Transit is trying to strike a balance between convenience and serenity. Not everyone wants to hear people yammer away on their cell phones during schleppy rides home after long days in the office, and thus, in September, the Quiet Car pilot program was born.

As I explained in September, the idea wasn’t to impose silence but to impose a certain subdued environment upon the first and last cars. I wrote:

In this pilot, it is truly social norms of train ridership that are under assault and for the better. The Quite Commute cars, says New Jersey Transit, are intended to provide a “subdued environment for customers who wish to refrain from using cell phones and are willing to disable the sound feature on pagers, games, computers and other electronic devices.” Riders are urged to talk in “subdued” voices and, thankfully enough, are told to use headphones at a volume that “cannot be heard by other passengers.” To rid trains of the blight of loud and leaky headphones would be a true accomplishment indeed.

Recently, NJ Transit expanded the pilot program to include more trains and more routes. The first and last cars on all Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line, Raritan Valley Line and Midtown Direct trains traveling in the peak direction during weekday peak periods are a part of the Quiet Commute program now. Riders, though, are duking it out over the meaning of quiet. Vincent M. Mazzolli of The Times repeats a common anecdote:

Last Monday morning, Robert Arbeeny and two friends boarded a train bound for Manhattan and began chatting about the holidays. Robert Arbeeny, left, and Steven Heite last week riding in a New Jersey Transit train car designated as quiet. The rules include refraining from cellphone use and talking with “subdued voices.” “Excuse me,” said the woman sitting across from them, raising her reading glasses, and then her voice. “This is the quiet car.”

Mr. Arbeeny apologized and began whispering, which caused further agitation. The woman put down her book and summoned a conductor. “They are not supposed to be talking,” she said, wagging her index finger at the group. The conductor tried stepping quietly between both parties. “They do have a right to talk,” he said in a soft voice, “they just have to speak in a very quiet manner.”

As other passengers began looking on, the woman shot back: “What kind of sense does that make! Why would you allow them to have a sustained conversation in a quiet car, and why are you taking their side over mine!”

Conductors have been caught in the middle of this battle of interpretation, but while some prickly riders want library-like silence, others understand the intricacies of the program. “Cellphones are one thing, but people are getting the wrong impression about these cars,” Annemarie Whitney, a daily commuter, said. “They are quiet cars, not silent cars. Subdued and silent are two different words, and as long as there are misconceptions out here, there are going to be disputes.”

The problem here is one of expectations vs. reality. It doesn’t make sense to expect people to be deadly silent on a train. That’s just not the way we’re used to commuting, and that’s not why the Quiet Commute was launched. (That is, however, why Bose markets noise-canceling headphones.) Rather, it’s about creating an atmosphere free from noise pollution, free from one-sided cell phone conversations and free from bleeding iPod headphones. That is a balance easy to maintain.

The New Jersey Transit station at the Meadowlands has proven to be popular. (Rendering from 2007)

Now that football fans have had a year to get used to the idea of taking the train to the Meadowlands and New Jersey Transit has had a year to improve service, ridership is on the rise. As The Record reported this week, NJ Transit says ridership has increased by 50 percent for the NFL season. Reports John Brennan:

The Jets — with a boost from two “Monday Night Football” games — have 70 percent more fans riding the rails than in 2009, NJ Transit spokeswoman Courtney Carroll said. On Jets game days, there have been about 21,000 trips made this year — the equivalent of 10,500 fans making a round trip — compared with 6,000 such fans last year.

Giants fans are making about 26 percent more trips — about 16,000, or the equivalent of 8,000 round trips. That means that more than 10 percent of fans overall at New Meadowlands Stadium football games are taking the train.

“The schedule is about the same as last year, but we are doing things differently on the operations side to improve the flow,” Carroll said. “We’ve had a year to learn and grow with the service, to see what works.”

Anything to ease the flow of cars into and out of the Meadowlands is a welcome change, but I’m curious to hear more about how NJ Transit has improved their planning.

Last year, for a Bruce Springsteen concert, I took the train to the Meadowlands, and although the trip to the show was smooth, the trip home was anything but. People bumrushed the train station, and after the initial trains left, we had to wait an unreasonable amount of time for the next to leave. Unlike the subway after, say, a game at Yankee Stadium, Transit doesn’t have a steady flow of trains from the Meadowlands to Secaucus Junction.

Right now, the trains are running only around 20 times a year for football games and concerts. Originally, the new Meadowlands stop was supposed to service the Xanadu shopping and entertainment complex, but the mall, slated for a 2011 completion date, may not open until 2014 or beyond.

Anyway, it’s hard to believe that even 10 percent of fans heading to the New Meadowlands Stadium take the train as that complex had become so identified with automobile traffic. That the ridership is growing is proof that, if you build it, they will ride.

For the city’s neighbors to the west, Tuesday was a big day in the effort to restore a sense of peace, quiet and dignity to the often tiresome quiet for New Jersey Transit launched its quiet car pilot program. Amidst much fanfare for an early-morning hour after a three-day weekend, the nation’s third-largest transit system sent forward a Penn Station-bound train from Trenton in which the first and last cars were designated as cell phone- and noise-free zones.

“Our customers have asked us to offer a Quiet Commute option in an effort to balance the needs of people who want to stay connected while aboard our trains with those who want to relax or work in a quiet atmosphere,” NJ Transit Executive Director James Weinstein said prior to the 9:14 a.m. launch of the quiet car. “We are offering this amenity as a pilot program and will rely on customer feedback to determine whether to make Quiet Commute a permanent NJ Transit amenity.”

For the next 90 days, the instructions are simple: The first and last cars of various trains will be clearly marked on the outside as the quiet cars, and NJ Transit conductors will pass out business cards to those who offend the sensibilities of others who want to ride in silence. The cards, printed in both English and Spanish, were first employed by SEPTA during its quiet commute launch and seem as firm reminders of the new social norms.

In this pilot, it is truly social norms of train ridership that are under assault and for the better. The Quite Commute cars, says New Jersey Transit, are intended to provide a “subdued environment for customers who wish to refrain from using cell phones and are willing to disable the sound feature on pagers, games, computers and other electronic devices.” Riders are urged to talk in “subdued” voices and, thankfully enough, are told to use headphones at a volume that “cannot be heard by other passengers.” To rid trains of the blight of loud and leaky headphones would be a true accomplishment indeed.

As the commuter rail network looks to remind people that everyone is on the train together and that selfish behavior should be left at home, the proper enforcement methods must inevitably come under scrutiny. Who, wondered Victoria St. Martin of The Star-Ledger, will enforce the quiet? If all goes according to plan, NJ Transit officials hope that other rides will serve as the overseers. “We’re not trying to make the[ conductors] hall monitors. Most will respect the rules, and if not, they will tell them,” Weinstein said. “Most of the enforcement will be peer pressure by the passengers themselves — they’ll demand it. If somebody gets on and they’re not aware it’s a quiet car, and they start their cellphone, first they get killed by looks. And then if that doesn’t work, passengers will invariably get up and let folks know that it’s a quiet car and cellphones are not permitted there.”

There are, of course, no shortage of gripes about noise. Michael Grynbaum in The Times tracked down numerous commuters who are looking forward to a quieter commute. While one commuter tells tales of 6 a.m. cell phone calls being “shut down,” others are ready for a break from the incessant chattering a 24-hour business cycle brings. “It is a movement toward civility,” Professor Frank Cioffi said. “You’ve got these high-powered businessmen in the morning doing heavy-duty negotiations, while you’re trying to read a book.”

In New York, though, the quiet car seems to be an idea out of place. Officials at Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road say they’ll “monitor” the NJ Transit pilot but can’t see the Quiet Commute arriving on our trains any time soon. “Most of our trains are running pretty full these days,” Marjorie Anders, a Metro-North spokeswoman, said. “People don’t have the luxury of moving to another car.”

At the same time, though, if trains are about commuting and the demands of a global economy dictate a need for access to phones, e-mail and things that make noise, not everyone will head to the Quiet Commute cars. Still, those that do will treasure the silence as NJ Transit assesses this program. “It gives you a sense of calm,” Louis Kinscy said. “The cell phones go off and the erroneous conversations — it’s tolerable but it’s annoying. To have the quiet makes life much easier.”

As I’ve mentioned in the past, nothing grates on me more while riding the train than being subjected to another person’s else’s music. I don’t want to hear the strains of Ke$ha or the latest offering from Eminem leaking out of someone’s cheap headphones while they’re sitting 15 feet away from me, and yet, I find this happens more than not in today’s age of iPods and iPhones.

For years, Amtrak has known that the best way to approach this scourge is by designating certain sections of their trains as the “quiet cars,” and now New Jersey Transit is going to pilot a similar program in the express trains that run from Trenton to New York City. Mike Frassinelli from The Star Ledger has more:

The 90-day pilot program will apply to the first and last cars of Northeast Corridor express trains on the line that runs between New York Penn Station and Trenton. If the pilot program is successful, NJ Transit could expand it to its other rail lines and beyond express routes, agency spokesman Dan Stessel said.

Passengers on the library-quiet cars will be prohibited from using cell phones and must disable sound features on pagers, games, computers and other electronic devices. Conversations must be conducted in subdued voices and headphones used at a volume that cannot be heard by other passengers.

NJ Transit will be the largest transit agency in the nation and only one in the metropolitan region to offer the amenity, NJ Transit executive director Jim Weinstein said. “It’s one of the things people ask for most often,” he said. “We expect it to be very popular.”

To inform riders of the new quiet cars, NJ Transit conductors will be handing out business cards alerting them to the upcoming change. One regular rider predicted great popularity as commuters look for some serenity on their rides home. “I believe the quiet car idea is a great concept, as many regular commuters want to enjoy some quiet time in their morning trips and also when returning after a long day at work,” John W. Nabial said. “The only downside I predict is that seating on those cars will be in great demand. Perhaps, after the initial introduction, NJ Transit may need to expand the number of cars designated as quiet cars.”

People, you see, just want some quiet as they travel. No one wants to hear other people’s noises after a long day at work or school. While an impractical solution for New York City’s packed subway system, the quiet cars should make for a better ride through New Jersey.