General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

It's a shame they didn't put the elevators in at Symphony now during all of the Mass/Huntington/Westland construction. All brand new sidewalks and underground infrastructure out there.
 
The "stops away" is intended as a temporary (on a months to years scale) measure; ultimately the plan is for minutes like the other signs. However, this depends on the implementation of real-time control strategies which are still in the early research stage.

Inbound signs at Courthouse are also live this week, though because there's no GPS reception in the tunnel it's not exact yet.
 
These "stops away" signs are now installed at park st for outbound/westbound green line trains
 
The EGE said:
The "stops away" is intended as a temporary (on a months to years scale) measure; ultimately the plan is for minutes like the other signs. However, this depends on the implementation of real-time control strategies which are still in the early research stage.
Click to expand...
Can't we just multiply stops by some fixed number of seconds, round up, and be about as right as any other line? Isn't that what users are going to do with "stops away" anyway: make their own estimate?*

When people ask me how long it takes from Station X to Station Y [on the Red], I usually just count stops in my head and multiply by 4mins at rush hour and 3mins any other time and it is basically right. There's got to be a "good enough" number close at hand, for the Green. 3mins/stop rush and 2mins/stop non rush, plus 1 min of padding/round-up?

*Its like "70% off" a $48 item: most people can't do that math in their head and would rather be told "less than $20" than to actually calculate $14.40.
 
The EGE said:
The "stops away" is intended as a temporary (on a months to years scale) measure; ultimately the plan is for minutes like the other signs. However, this depends on the implementation of real-time control strategies which are still in the early research stage.

Inbound signs at Courthouse are also live this week, though because there's no GPS reception in the tunnel it's not exact yet.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's temporary? I talked with someone who is associated with this project and they said they switched to stops away because the minutes approach is too "specific". The person I talked to said that they always wanted to go with stops away. Predicting a train down to the minute when it is above ground and mixed with traffic, the minute approach, is just not going to work well which will inevitable piss people off more than never see the prediction at all. Anyways I believe they said they went with minutes in the beginning because the higher ups wanted match the prediction systems of the red, orange and blue lines.
 
I actually prefer the stops away compared to a countdown sign being stuck at "5 minutes" for 10 minutes, as with what currently happens.
 
Blackdog said:
Are you sure it's temporary? I talked with someone who is associated with this project and they said they switched to stops away because the minutes approach is too "specific". The person I talked to said that they always wanted to go with stops away. Predicting a train down to the minute when it is above ground and mixed with traffic, the minute approach, is just not going to work well which will inevitable piss people off more than never see the prediction at all. Anyways I believe they said they went with minutes in the beginning because the higher ups wanted match the prediction systems of the red, orange and blue lines.
Click to expand...

The minutes away approach is too specific for the current situation on the Green Line, where dispatching is 100% manual with no algorithmic control. Until the Green Line has real-time control for dispatching - which they're actively working on but is a year or two away at best - there's too much uncertainty at the downtown turnbacks. That's why from Arlington west and on all the eastbound platforms it is minutes away, because there's noo uncertainty in train order or when they will depart.

There are no plans for signage at the surface B, C, and E stops. While there is uncertainly on the predictions on the real-time feed, it's accurate enough to be better than nothing, and the feed also shows locations for those who desire that instead.
 
Yeah, distance reporting for the Green Line is much better than constantly 'lying' to passengers on the platform with variable time estimates. You know where the train is; report that. We don't know when the train will be arriving under an array of various circumstances. The T doesn't need one more thing to break trust with riders.

I've also argued that the system should fall back to distance reporting with a persistent delay flag on the variable message boards on ALL lines. It's pissed me off for years how verbose the T is in reporting incidents and even slower at reporting them.

MBTA is continuing to work with IBI Group on real-time delay detection that then dovetails into the goal to have a highly granular performance report card - Ritesh, the developer I know who's been working closely with the MBTA, was at DC TransportationCamp last weekend to share that work. This delay detection system could soon help the T deal with reporting delays automatically rather than having to rely on a chain of command with the information officers at the ops control center. I'd love to see them freed up to communicate more effectively on long-term MBTA projects...
 
Look what the T recently (FINALLY!) activated at Maverick!! The bus time was accurate too! My prayers (read: repeated e-mails, survey responses & tweets to the T) have been answered. The board was installed mid-last year, but displayed no information until this week.

https://twitter.com/datadyne007/status/690744586868756481

CZYEhv9UsAANvt0.jpg:large
 
datadyne007 said:
Look what the T recently (FINALLY!) activated at Maverick!! The bus time was accurate too! My prayers (read: repeated e-mails, survey responses & tweets to the T) have been answered. The board was installed mid-last year, but displayed no information until this week.

https://twitter.com/datadyne007/status/690744586868756481

CZYEhv9UsAANvt0.jpg:large
Click to expand...


There was a setup almost similar to this on the platform for the Blue Line at Gov't Center Station before it closed for remodeling.

Let's see just how long it will stay there before someone tampers with it or destroys it. I never noticed it there before. And I was just through there yesterday!
 
Those boards aren't cheap - including installation, I could probably pay for one with my grad school salary and have about a week's worth of groceries left - but they're heavily ruggedized.
 
The T should find nearby retailers willing to host and protect such displays.
 
Arlington said:
The T should find nearby retailers willing to host and protect such displays.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised how many fed grant slush funds very quietly pay for those kinds of things. If there's even the most tenuous of Homeland Security relevance, they're usually the odds-on bet to be kicking in external funding for fixtures the T otherwise wouldn't be installing with its internal budget. The ruggedized hardware is expensive...but not all that expensive to them.


Also...all that fiber optic communications cable that was strung through the tunnels 10-12 years ago for the Charlie rollout pays dividends through things like this, the tunnel cell signal boosters, the security cams, and numerous other future possibilities yet to be thought up. The high-bandwidth data pipe is readily available for all sorts of extremely useful customer service applications, so they can pounce quickly with each small funding award for end-user equipment at the stations. Take a quick, semi-regular glance at the Second Ave. Sagas blog for the weekly frustration firected at the MTA for how far behind the curve NYC Subway is getting fiber installed on its very highest-usage lines.

The T gets well-deserved kudos for the big head-start it got over most other systems on the decidedly unsexy work of stringing together the entire system with high-bandwidth fiber. They've barely scraped the surface on extremely useful applications for all that data bandwidth available at each station, but it's an open canvas they can quickly pivot on for new uses. It's the kind of proactive 20-year infrastructure investment that's starting to pay off in meaningful ways.

And, absolutely...bigtime public-private exploits there for the taking. Including commercial trials that the companies themselves would crave to install on their own dime for the huge upside of live feedback from a massive captive audience. All it needs is a convincing sales pitch, somebody at the T open to experimentation, and that first tech company willing to take the plunge. The rest is only bounded by imagination and what mission statement best fits an application to transit ops, transit customer service, or transit customer amenities.
 
Jahvon09 said:
There was a setup almost similar to this on the platform for the Blue Line at Gov't Center Station before it closed for remodeling.

Let's see just how long it will stay there before someone tampers with it or destroys it. I never noticed it there before. And I was just through there yesterday!
Click to expand...

Jahvon -- Good news is that the technology curve is finally ahead of the miscreant curve -- Displays are being developed which are far less sensitive to the occasional errant swing of a baseball bat

About 15 years ago I was involved with some outdoor touchscreen displays installed in a kiosk at the then recently rebuilt Porter Sq. shopping plaza -- the spec called for resistance to a swung baseball bat -- and we met it -- but it was very challenging in the days of CRTs
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
You'd be surprised how many fed grant slush funds very quietly pay for those kinds of things. If there's even the most tenuous of Homeland Security relevance, they're usually the odds-on bet to be kicking in external funding for fixtures the T otherwise wouldn't be installing with its internal budget. The ruggedized hardware is expensive...but not all that expensive to them.


Also...all that fiber optic communications cable that was strung through the tunnels 10-12 years ago for the Charlie rollout pays dividends through things like this, the tunnel cell signal boosters, the security cams, and numerous other future possibilities yet to be thought up. The high-bandwidth data pipe is readily available for all sorts of extremely useful customer service applications, so they can pounce quickly with each small funding award for end-user equipment at the stations. Take a quick, semi-regular glance at the Second Ave. Sagas blog for the weekly frustration firected at the MTA for how far behind the curve NYC Subway is getting fiber installed on its very highest-usage lines.

The T gets well-deserved kudos for the big head-start it got over most other systems on the decidedly unsexy work of stringing together the entire system with high-bandwidth fiber. They've barely scraped the surface on extremely useful applications for all that data bandwidth available at each station, but it's an open canvas they can quickly pivot on for new uses. It's the kind of proactive 20-year infrastructure investment that's starting to pay off in meaningful ways.

And, absolutely...bigtime public-private exploits there for the taking. Including commercial trials that the companies themselves would crave to install on their own dime for the huge upside of live feedback from a massive captive audience. All it needs is a convincing sales pitch, somebody at the T open to experimentation, and that first tech company willing to take the plunge. The rest is only bounded by imagination and what mission statement best fits an application to transit ops, transit customer service, or transit customer amenities.
Click to expand...

F-Line -- You are right on the bullseye on this one -- except that the Fiber Optic cable was primarily installed to support the Homeland Security data requirements from hundreds of cameras and other sensors. Included in the various sensors for WMD, etc., was access control improvements including the new fare gates -- just as in almost anything transport related these days Charlie was under the surface really a security project

In the case of the NYC MTA -- they tried to do the same on a much larger scale and ran into problems with the various contractors and the various agencies bureaucracies and innumerable turf wars

I had some small involvement with these projects. As you said, the T actually did this one right -- providing for the future without getting mired in bureaucracy turf wars

Historical Note -- There was a precedent -- during WWII Churchill's "War Rooms" in the bunker underneath the Treasury was linked to the world including the private hot-line phone to FDR, as well connections to Eisenhower, and all the Commands, was run through the London Tube tunnels to keep prying eyes from being suspicious. Today, a lot of London high value data communications uses the Tube to "Mind the Gap" in connectivity
 
Jahvon09 said:
There was a setup almost similar to this on the platform for the Blue Line at Gov't Center Station before it closed for remodeling.

Let's see just how long it will stay there before someone tampers with it or destroys it. I never noticed it there before. And I was just through there yesterday!
Click to expand...

datadyne007 said:
Look what the T recently (FINALLY!) activated at Maverick!! The bus time was accurate too! My prayers (read: repeated e-mails, survey responses & tweets to the T) have been answered. The board was installed mid-last year, but displayed no information until this week.

https://twitter.com/datadyne007/status/690744586868756481

CZYEhv9UsAANvt0.jpg:large
Click to expand...

FYI,

The LED displays on the 100 level concourse inside the TD Garden now display similar arrival times for the OL. Noticed this for the first time the other night.
 
North Shore said:
FYI,

The LED displays on the 100 level concourse inside the TD Garden now display similar arrival times for the OL. Noticed this for the first time the other night.
Click to expand...

Northshore -- Things are moving very rapidly in this area -- We are about 3 years away from having large size rolls-up when you don't need-it displays and only about 5 to 7 years from a skin-like display similar to the the vinyl printed ads on a bus except that it displays whatever you want in HD
 
Re: The Boston Garden (TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

shmessy said:
Why not? With all the empty nesters and millennial professionals flocking to the city and residential inventory booming, it's time for Boston to put on its big boy pants.

Now, if someone could only save the T........
Click to expand...

Shmess -- don't forget the T pensioners and the soon to be pensioners currently making the $200 K to $300k

I'm sure that on one of their "Sick Day's" they can afford to spend a few $ for some popcorn and beer with a movie as as a palliative for the pain of not working
 
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