Pete Lorimer had an excellent suggestion in the thread about the arrival of peak 3-car trains last month:
If Link is running a mix of three and two-car trains, people won’t want to wait at the location of the third car in case the next train doesn’t have one. Then they will have to walk forward to the second car, thus overfilling that car compared to the first car. In fact, if you wait at the third car location and there isn’t one, you increase the chances of being left behind due to a fully loaded second car.
If our train arrival/announcement system was better, I would suggest they change the announcement to add info about the train length.
“The next train… Northbound… is arriving in… 2 minutes… It is composed of… 3 cars.”
Comments on all aspects of the service changes are welcome on this post.
BART routinely announces the length of the next train, at the same time as the number of minutes, so there is a precedent. My guess, through, is that the next train announcement system is so antiquated, that the slightest tweak over what it is doing today would be difficult.
BART and MUNI both announce the length. I may have heard another system do it, maybe Chicago or DC. I never understood why; it seemed like useless information to me.
Mike, I really think this gives a platform-load of passengers a way or arranging themselves to be within a given space. The shorter the train, the closer passengers will want to group.
Depending on transit system, if trains all stop as far forward as possible, passengers will want to move toward head of the platform. If trains center themselves, passengers will move inward from both ends.
As noted, goal is to minimize moving crowds alongside moving trains- major safety consideration with rapid transit.
Mark
DC Metro puts the train length on the “Next Trains” sign, right after the color of the line and before the destination. I found it super useful out there so I knew where to wait on the platform and where I expected the busiest cars to be (based on station exits/entrances).
I would definitely use it here.
Peter is right.
Many seasoned rail users decide where to board the train so that they will get off to exit closest to their exit escalator. The train length announcements determine where they wait. I’ve practiced this when I’ve commuted on systems that give announcements and I notice many others use the info too.
It’s especially useful when trains are crowded and some passengers must get left in the platform or will have to stand packed next to the door. Otherwise it sets up a mob scene where people fight to board a train and run in a mass to the closest door. Believe me that this happens and these announcements are important.
If you really wanted to be high-tech about it, there’s the Available Places Indicator the new ThamesLink trains are supposed to have. That could show you the length of the train and how full it is.
[ad hominem, off topic]
Seriously, BigDon, I really wish you’d edit and re-comment. Haven’t seen anything from you for, I think, over a year.
Worst anybody can say about me counts as badly-needed constructive criticism. But reading public complains about needless service delays, so STB starts up the tow-truck with first keystroke from my e-mail.
What is your thinking on question of new signage, which we’re going to need for Seattle’s biggest change in public transit in any of our working lives?
Mark Dublin
That’s a great idea. Please email the Sound Transit board. The more they hear about new tech and ideas from us the better: EmailTheBoard@soundtransit.org
Display the car length on the digital displays. Not everyone will be able to hear the announcements.
Also, marking the expected door entry locations on the station floor with tape (include car count info… i.e. “4 car only”, etc) will help folks line up in an orderly fashion.
These things work great in Tokyo, there’s no reason I can think of that the same wouldn’t work here…
Charles B suggestion sounds right to me for building train boarding awareness among new light rail users already encountering crowds
DC Metro does display cars on its digital display system. It was more useful and relevant 20 years ago when 4-6 car trains were common. Now that 8-car trains are predominant it is less important because 8-car trains fill the entire platform.
This is how they do it in Helsinki too. There are floor markings for short vs long trains and there’s an icon on the readout which shows what the incoming train is. It’s mostly guessable based on peak vs non-peak, but it’s nice to see it coming.
And Munich’s S-Bahn, and San Francisco on the BART, and so on.
Alex has the winner though — this is not a problem with trains that run the length of the platform!
I think the floor markings, marking door and train car, are even more important than the train size. Floor markings would always be useful even when large trains fill up the entire platform.
Not only can you line up on one or another, but also can put yourself in the middle should your MO be about deciding between the first/second car or second/third car. You can also split the door zone into two lanes, suggesting that you leave/enter on the right so people can board while others deboard. One of the advantages of a new, large set of riders is that they can set up the transit culture.
Plus the artistic side of me has to think that one can do it artistically.
These are all good ideas, and shouldn’t be that hard to handle. If KCM had ever used the dispatch system the DSTT was designed with, we could have done it with the buses too.
MUNI Metro has some other lessons too. More than enough for another posting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muni_Metro#Beginnings
The article isn’t entirely complete. The Muni meltdown occurred when the Mission Bay segment opened, which required that the new train control system be used. They also introduced a short line that ended at Castro station, which has no tail track, and the practice of reversing trains would freeze trains in both directions for a few minutes.
Al, I’m afraid that majority of MUNI Metro passengers will tell you, as saying goes, “You don’t know the half of it!” Meaning- every single STB reader should memorize it, for our own future.
Very much as with BART and other contemporary systems, lesson I mentioned was that the fresher and stronger the idea behind a new system- the refurbishment of the light rail system that accompanied the new BART, trains and stations, was a “stunner”- the less it dares stagnate.
Bob Dylan was right: “He (or transit) not busy being born is busy dying!” Bus-only and joint ops phase of DSTT suffered “growing pains”, for a healthy rapidly expanding system. SF? Like everything civilly-engineered, any work there much harder than here.
But San Francisco has always had a lot of energy- of which Seattle could use a transfusion. From first contact, have always admired how hard and well “first-line” MUNI works. And its city too, in spite of itself,
Wiki piece shows very accurately how much needs to be done right now.Like everything in SF, desperately. Word “slowest” says it all. But as with another system I could name, next phase will be best next 30-year career for somebody really into transit.
Best thing about BART is that it’s only chance to find a place to live while you help build MUNI.
They can’t even get real time arrival done right…
What have you seen going wrong with the signs?
As other have said I have too seen both signs saying that the train on that platform was the first to depart, also the departure times are not accurate, my train left with 2 mins remaining on the display.
I’ve seen the signs at UW Station telling people the wrong platform for the next train to depart. Same thing I’ve seen at the airport. I agree – get the current info accurate before adding new info.
Also, I’d say that putting signs up in convenient locations with complete bus information is a much higher priority than train length. At UW Station, this must include Stevens Way buses. And there should be bus info in the DSTT too. If I’m at Westlake, I’d like to know when the next 76 is coming so I can choose between 76 vs Link + 372.
Last Saturday, I saw the displays saying that the next train would depart both platforms at the same time.
Last night at 7pm, both signs said “Next train this platform”, and neither train said “Out of Service”. This is definitely something they should fix.
Some of the MAX operators have gotten in the habit of announcing their departure over the external PA. “Train leaving for city center in one minute on track one.” Of course, that assumes you noticed the track number signs.
They attempted to have a next train pointer at some if the terminals for a while, but it never worked well.
The real-time screens at Capitol Hill Station have improved dramatically since the first week of operations. During that first week the screens showed evenly spaced trains per their schedule, and they may have arrived +- five minutes from the posted time. Lately though, they’ve shown times that correctly reflect the actual spacing of trains going northbound (southbound is still schedule based beyond the first train on the list, as those trains haven’t started southbound service yet). The arrival of the first train on the list is now within a minute. My understanding is that ST’s contractor is still working on the SCADA software which this info is integrated into. As they finish work on that, I could see the train length info being integrated into the signs, though we need these new monitors to be added to the existing ST1 stations to make the experience uniform.
The countdown time was there, then it was gone, then it was back. But it’s still not always accurate as of last week. I watched a timer go down from 2 minutes, 1 minute, then cool as a cucumber switched to 10 minutes as if it was just idly counting nothing. The train arrived a few minutes later.
As for the two “Next train this platform” signs, sometimes it’s the correct one, sometimes the wrong one, and sometimes both of them say it. Sometimes it switches from one to the other, and then a bit later it switches back again. You also can’t count on the train waiting the longest to be the next one to go out. Sometimes it’s the one waiting the shortest, and more often the past week there’s only one train and the other side remains empty. Sometimes a train is waiting, the it goes out of service and a security guard comes and tells everybody to get off the train, then it leaves, and then a train on the other side comes or has arrived more recently. Sometimes a train comes in, unloads people, won’t allow people to load, goes out immediately, then a train comes on the other side comes and loads people.
Sure, but they should be concise: “3 car northbound train arriving in 4 minutes”
Maybe skip “arriving”
You don’t want the very first word of a spoken message to have any information. The first word (or first few words) are just to get people’s attention, since they weren’t listening before. Nothing else you say will register.
Right. How about, “Next train in 4 minutes, northbound. 3 cars.
Hey there, 4 car northbound 2 minutes.
Continuing with the Muni/Bart theme, this is why Muni play the two-tone audio bit at the start of the message, along with either “Approaching” or “Outbound/Inbound Trains” as a prefix. This gives your brain a few seconds to tune in, or your hands a few seconds to pause your music.
Another nice thing about Muni: The sounds played differ for inbound and outbound trains. That can be really useful when you’re at the fare gates and wondering if you need to run down the stairs to catch the approaching train. Trains also announce their line and direction at each stop: “Montgomery Station. Castro Shuttle. Inbound.”
You also want one of the first words to distinguish who the message applies to.
“The next train will be four cars. Arriving in two minutes.”
Imagine being at an airport and hearing: “the flight closes in 2 minutes. Final call. Alaska flight 2227, gate C2D,” definitely panic inducing.
Here is an example of what they do in Germany to handle this situation. This example is from Frankfurt but many other cities (and intercity trains) use a similar solution.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxZ_-q2wRYpad21XVXV5R1E1bHc
I like it. Pretty obvious.
To add a little bit more on BART and Muni Metro.
Muni Metro runs six lines (JKLMNT) in all and the gives slightly different information depending on the direction. Neither is quite complete.
Heading inbound/downtown it doesn’t provide the line letter: “Inbound, one-car, Mission Bay, in 3 minutes” (that recording is odd since Mission Bay isn’t going to be a final destination for a few more years)
Heading away from downtown, the announcements provide the direction and letter, but not the destination. In this case it would be confusing since three of the lines run different routes to the same terminal “Outbound. two-car. NN, in 2 minutes.”
The platforms don’t have any specific markings for where a one or a two-car train board, only a general “Boarding Zone” because our platforms were designed to fit up to four-car trains, but trains don’t currently run more than two-cars. Many of us who know where the trains board and wait in the middle.
BART runs five lines between four and 10 car trains, with markings on the platforms where the doors line up. Shorter trains board in the center with signs on the walls and on the digital signs, but not in the audio announcements. Platforms are numbered with signs and in the audio announcements. The audio goes, “10-Car train for Dublin/Pleasanton in 5 minutes.” or when a train arrives “10-car train for Dublin/Pleasanton now arriving platform 2”
Marking where shorter trains board was only added in the last few decades, but BART is still running off the original 1972 computer control system which doesn’t support the additional boarding info.
Outbound, the system *can* announce terminals, and does so when ATCS is actually told the terminal is different than the usual. I’ve heard both “One Car J To 22nd St.” and “Two Car N To Church and Duboce.”
I’d imagine Muni have recordings for every possible terminal in the system, much like how the Breda LRV’s have rollsigns for Fisherman’s Wharf and Fort Mason.
I have a suggestion unrelated to announcements. At the last ST meeting the subject of the small, often irregular parcels left over from Link property acquisition on MLK came up again.
For those that are obviously undevelopable, why can’t ST sign those over to SDOT for aggregation into the MLK right of way? Maybe for a nominal fee, but fair market value on an undevelopable triangle of land can’t be much. From a fiscal perspective I they’d save on maintenance in the long run.
Or at a bare minimum, why can’t they pull down the unsightly chain link fences? What overcautious idiot of a lawyer thinks there’s a liability issue with twenty square yards of flat grass or gravel? They don’t have fencing enclosing the freaking RAILWAY where people keep bumbling in front of trains, but can’t risk letting a small section of grass near a sidewalk look open and approachable?
Absolutely! Those fenced, unkept parcels make the neighborhood look much dumpier than they are! They also violate doing what Jane Jacobs said, which is designing for more eyes in the street!
Part of why Muni does this originates to the setup in the tunnel, where train cars were linked together. They would say something like ‘Four car train. K-K-L-L in two minutes.’ Riders would move to the place on those platforms to match the right line. That went away with the Breda cars.
As did enormous amounts of efficiency and money, as is the case for every transit system that buys this company’s equipment.
Including places like Oslo, Norway, and Gothenburg, Sweden, whose venerably-experienced systems have absolutely no excuse whatsoever for letting Breda anything set a wheel on the tracks or pavement of their respective countries. Norway’s got naval artillery, and Sweden’s got a jet in every barn alongside a highway.
Can anybody give a good reference, or even reason, why this company is even allowed to bid?. Let alone why anybody would become a customer. Me and everybody else who cares about the future of transit- Oslo’s passengers have been suffering since 1995, and Seattle’s since early ’80’s- need to know cause, so we can cure!
Re: signage, I like the little rail cars. Even better, re: beginning with certain deliveries, graphic could show little rails breaking underneath the little wheels.
Mark Dublin
For what it’s worth, Breda was barred from bidding on Muni’s latest order of LRVs – that contract has gone to Siemens, and is designed to allow for a full fleet replacement. Breda sued over it, but Muni won anyhow – something everyone is thankful for.
For those who don’t know, the Breda LRVs are a menace: they regularly break down, have incredibly fragile door opening mechanisms, even more fragile couplers (one reason Muni don’t couple Metro cars into 4-car trains), draw so much power they damage the OLE if more than three cars are coupled (that’s the other reason), and are so heavy you can easily *feel* them from a block away.
Nobody I’ve heard of is happy with Breda products. Buses, trams, LRT, Metro, commuter rail, passenger rail, high speed rail, Breda has failed at all of it. Yet somehow they still keep getting contracts. My guess is one of two things: they keep low balling bids or they are bribing officials to win contracts.
First let’s try to make the arrival times meaningful.
My experience at U District station leads me to believe they just plaster the screen with random departure times, just for show.
Also, those times when you come downstairs and two trains are sitting there, there’s absolutely no indication of which one is going to leave first. I’ve found that the best strategy is to go for the most crowded one, but that’s left me waiting an extra six minutes on a couple of occasions when the other train has left first. It’s very frustrating.
They’re not arrival times, they’re departure times.
The platform TVs have a “Next train at this platform” display, but they’re only sometimes correct, and sometimes they switch back and forth or both platforms say it. I haven’t seen a case where both sides were loading passengers at the same time, usually one is waiting with its doors open or people are inside, and the other isn’t. I assume the other one has its door open buttons disabled, although maybe it doesn’t.
> They’re not arrival times, they’re departure times.
Sorry – I was talking about departure times. The posted departure times, in my experience, have nothing to do with the actual departure times.
> The platform TVs have a “Next train at this platform” display,
And the “Next train this platform” sign is, in my experience, generally on for both platforms, so does not provide any assistance in choosing the correct train.
> I haven’t seen a case where both sides were loading passengers at the same time, usually one is waiting with its doors open or people are inside, and the other isn’t.
Several times I’ve arrived in the tunnel to find two trains, both with doors open and people waiting in them, and “next train this platform” above both trains. At that point you just have to flip a coin, I guess?
Trying to deal with our nit-pickiness on the RTA signs (which we, not ST, are calling RTA signs) may be hampering getting full use of the third cars.
One thing that would help, regardless of signage, is for those boarding at UW Station to board the third car, when it is available, especially if they are going past Capitol Hill Station. You will be less crowded from Capitol Hill south, and have a quicker time alighting.
But if we weren’t so obsessive about following the schedule, ST could more freely jigger the departures so that the 3-car trains wait a little longer after their scheduled time, in order to naturally balance the loads.
ST actually operates very few 3-car trains. On the 3 days I was checking (including the busy Friday when the Mariners played their home opener), most trains were still only 2 cars. Every 4th or 5th train was 3 cars long.
Not surprisingly, ridership on each train appeared about the same — just more spread out and fewer standees on the 3-car trains. The point of longer trains should be to accommodate more riders, but the present scheme doesn’t support that. If the train at the platform is too crowded, riders cannot assume the next train will be longer with more space.
I’ve casually noticed this too. Promising the public more three-car trains and then only running a few token three-car train sets is more offensive than saying that there will not be three-car trains and then running a few.
I feel like the public was deceived in a PR stunt about this. It is this kind of treatment of the public that creates animosity towards the agency. With a ST3 vote soon, it’s truly not smart.
I think the belief is that some 3-car trains can clear crowds partly as well as all 3-car trains. Metro has also started doing something similar by alternating articulated and single buses on some runs. This is probably because it doesn’t have enough articulated buses for all runs.
I’ve been noticing that on some of my routes that have a lot of mid-route turnover.
Roger, my first ride north of Westlake literally left me feeling like we’d really broken through into the future. Or at least the present-day world of real transit. Very glad, though, that ride will now include the wonderful “Old Seattle” tunnel that really did start the system.
Bet me we couldn’t convince the whole passenger public, starting with local ones, that the huge black wheel on south mezzanine at Pioneer Square was in service May 25, and is now only kept in reserve in case somebody can’t re-start a hybrid!
Really, think of how many of this morning’s riders haven’t even ridden to Broadway or UW once! Though really sudden increase in passenger loads should give everybody a sense how much has changed. Give it another week.
Mark
This has been mentioned several times before, but larger LRVs are a better solution to combat over crowding. With a four car LRV train, there are eight (8!) Cabs, taking up space and adding dead weight to the train. Kinki Sharyo already produces middle sections to be added to their LRVs, it isn’t difficult to make our LRVs longer.
Also, Portland’s newer Siemens cars don’t have operator cabs in the middle, only the ends. They always have to operate as a 2-car consist, but I don’t think this is an issue for Link since we’ll probably never see single-car operation again.
Or, if you do need single cars, it can be handled by the existing fleet, seeing how the single car trains would only be needed at low ridership locations or times of day.
ST says they’re unlikely.
… but further down the thread, they say they like the idea of putting a card saying “3-car train” in the driver’s cab. Which is better than nothing, I guess!
I’m glad they liked my inexpensive idea.
Not an acceptable answer. If, as has already been pointed out, BART can do it with their antiquated 1970s technology, Sound Transit certainly should be able to furnish this information to their customers.
Basic usability guideline: a spoken announcement should carry a single piece of information as concisely as possible. Overloading announcements with multiple details – especially multiple numerals – is confusing to a lot of people, especially hearing impaired people, second-language English speakers, and inexperienced riders.
There’s also a matter of informational hierarchy. Every rider cares when the next train is, but not every rider cares how many cars there are. Low-priority information should be available, but not presented in the same manner or with the same frequency as high-priority information.
Visual announcements, particularly with pictorial elements like the ones in Adam B Parast’s link above, are very effective for conveying this kind of information, although they benefit only experienced riders.
A meaningful improvement would be to run electronic displays in several places above the platform, with a sequence along the lines of…
FIRST DOOR HERE
WAIT HERE TO BOARD
WAIT HERE TO BOARD
LAST DOOR HERE
NO CAR HERE – MOVE (RIGHT/LEFT) TO BOARD
…and if you’re really slick, you pair these with platform screen doors, so people know exactly where to go.
I’ll also note that in systems where conductors are responsible for ensuring proper platform berthing, like New York (and Chicago, even though the conductors are gone), the trains stop at different positions along the platform according to their length, thus ensuring the center of the train is always in the same place. It means that cars further from the station entrances are sometimes less full, but it’s a bit more efficient in terms of crowdflow than having trains of all lengths pulling to the frontmost point on the platform, especially when there’s an entrance at the far end.
Thanks for the advice! How about “The next train to Sea/Tac Airport Station is arriving in 2 minutes, and is a longer train.” For two-car trains, skip the last five words.
How about…. how long until a chrome train comes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEQyjLJSYXQ
played right before the train enters the station.
A [2/3/4] car train to [DESTINATION] is arriving
A 2 car train to Sea-Tac Airport is arriving
A 3 car train to Bellevue is arriving
Plays inbetween trains
The next [COLOR] line train to [DESTINATION] will be [2/3/4] cars
The next blue line train to Northgate will be 4 cars
The next red line train to Lynnwood will be 3 cars
etc….
It works for the future when we have different lines to different destinations.
Why not just use the middle of the train as the alignment point at the platform?
If we’re talking about +\- 1 car, that’s only a 50 foot difference.
Isn’t there an equilibrium with behavior here? Chicago runs trains of vastly different sizes, don’t remember it being a big deal. You can either hop in the crush car for fun, or figure out the tricks, and load would seem to spread naturally.
Oh, and incase it’s not obvious, by aligning in the middle you solve the second-car-full fallback problem because both ends of the train have “ghost” doors that don’t materialize, so both cars in a two car consist share the load of people aligned on the platform for a 3-car.
One more suggestion: Since the part about “is arriving in 1/2 minute(s)” does not seem to match the actual arrival time for the train, standardize it to “is arriving in a minute”, and save the numerical information for train length.
What 3-car trains? I haven’t seen one in weeks after the initial announcement. I’m almost always riding during rush hour too.
ST could avoid the intending rider confusion of varying train length AND provide a bit more capacity by running three-car trains at seven-minute headway in the peaks. the average wait time would increase to 3.5 minutes from three minutes. also,it would be good to improve midday service to 7.5 minutes headway instead of 10-minutes. let’s reduce waiting. routes 71-72-73 provided eight trips per hour in the midday.