General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Problem is that it's really hard to discern 'bad' overtime from 'good'/necessary overtime until the T is allowed to hire the proper staff in the middle/back office for oversight.

With an ageing fleet and the shitstorm of snow we had last year, I don't doubt for one second that people over at the Everett heavy maintenance shops necessarily had to pull significant amounts of overtime to keep pumping out in-house refurbished traction motors for the Orange and Red Line fleets. I applaud these one-off crackdowns on people earning 2-3x their wage and abusing the system, but I'm not so cynical as to assume that anything resembling a majority are also abusing the system...

This is a relatively tiny win for the operating budget. It's not going to go down any further until we start pumping money into management staff where it's needed for oversight and into the capital budget to modernise and achieve further operating efficiency.
 
datadyne007 said:
The Text-to-Speech really is terrible. It's like 80s robot terrible. Amazing how you can still have an engine so primitive in 2016.
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Pretty sure the ADA complaint Text-To-Speech is incredible expensive, which is why they haven't updated it.
 
Blackdog said:
Pretty sure the ADA complaint Text-To-Speech is incredible expensive, which is why they haven't updated it.
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The software isn't necessarily expensive, but it's extremely hard to implement well enough to net semi-natural functionality. Training it to cover as wide a listening comprehension range as would be needed by a public info kiosk in a major transit station is an orders of magnitude bigger challenge than setting one up at a community center for the blind. Thus, you can spend tons and tons of money bogged down in endless debugging even though the base system specs were nothing all that special on cost.

Not the sort of thing to entrust to a generic IT staff. You need to hire an integration specialist who does nothing but ADA TtS for a living and has proven success getting it right on other equally mission-critical public installations. Somebody who knows what software tools suit the job, knows every little micro-calibration in the training data needed to make it comprehensible to every possible English-as-second-language constituency using transit in Boston, and so on.

Basically, takes knowing who to call to find that ace integration specialist who does this for a living and has the body of work to be able to tell them "I got this if you stick to the plan." Can't just pick up the phonebook and find that person. They'd need a recommendation from another domestic transit system or high-traffic public facility that did this successfully, and there aren't too many of those examples around. Searching for that expert rec is almost more about luck than skill.
 
Thanks for the clarification F-Line. Still finding someone with the expertise you listed is not only going to require luck but I imagine that specialist is going to command a lot money to hire.
 
Blackdog said:
Thanks for the clarification F-Line. Still finding someone with the expertise you listed is not only going to require luck but I imagine that specialist is going to command a lot money to hire.
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Yeah, that too. But this hotshot would be worth every penny if they can do the implementation cleanly. Getting caught in endless debugging quicksand ends up way costlier than getting it right the first time. That's the natural peril of public IT projects of this sort. Recall the MAHealthConnector debacle. Would anyone have cared if the state had spent a premium amount of taxpayer $$$ up-front on experts who could've ensured the site worked right from Day 1? The outrage ended up being all about how much they had to shovel down a black hole trying to fix the portal's systemic brokenness.

That's the risk/reward here. If they have internal point people who can get good leads on the right vendors to hire who know how to implement this stuff right the first time, paying the going rate is money in the bank. Inexperienced low bids and sketchy political cronies are the ones that suck the life out of these projects. IT, especially when it's this mission-critical kiosk stuff, is more all-or-nothing than most other types of procurements when it comes to getting what you pay for.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
...

That's the risk/reward here. If they have internal point people who can get good leads on the right vendors to hire who know how to implement this stuff right the first time, paying the going rate is money in the bank. Inexperienced low bids and sketchy political cronies are the ones that suck the life out of these projects. IT, especially when it's this mission-critical kiosk stuff, is more all-or-nothing than most other types of procurements when it comes to getting what you pay for.
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F-Line -- that is why the T hired David Block-Schachter with his MIT degree and the right kind of experience and expertise -- these kinds of small fixes should be immediate pay-off of his hire
 
Edit: The photos below are recreations:

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CcflmexWAAEhN06.jpg:large


The report about the throttle rigging incident is out:

Runaway Red Line driver had prior safety violations
By Nicole Dungca GLOBE STAFF MARCH 01, 2016

According to the report, Vazquez had wrapped a microphone cord around the throttle of his train and forgotten to set the emergency brake, as the Globe reported in December.

The report said he had juryrigged the switch in order to put on his gloves. He said it was dark in the cab and he had forgotten he had rigged the switch after talking to a dispatcher. As a result, the train took off without him when he stepped out of it.

Vazquez, had gotten in trouble with the MBTA before, according to the report. In 1995, for example, his train derailed in the train yard after he failed to follow instructions and operated a train from the wrong track.

His other safety violations included going through areas in which he didn’t have proper clearance, and changing his train’s operational settings without proper permission. The remaining violations were related to attendance, courtesy, and failing to make the right announcements.

The report, dated Feb. 26, said that Vazquez in December had “inhibited the cineston’s dead-man feature by wrapping the public announcement microphone cord around the dial, wedging the cord between the handle and the base plate indicator.”

Full article:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...ations-mbta/nnm0n5j7FjpdhssAzs6rmJ/story.html
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There's so many deep problems wrapped up in that incident, the focus chiefly being on the operator himself. All of those violations point to a failure of attention to detail of this particular employee and a failure of an agency to proactively react, whether through inability or oversight.

Aside from decrying the crumbling infrastructure that had to fail in order to allow this type of human error - had the signals been working, he wouldn't have been undertaking the process to circumvent ANOTHER fail-safe protection system in the first place - I will continue to beat the drum on pointing-and-calling as a small but necessary safety procedure that significantly reduces incidents due to human factors, whether it's on the road or in the shop.
 
DigitalSciGuy said:
I will continue to beat the drum on pointing-and-calling as a small but necessary safety procedure that significantly reduces incidents due to human factors, whether it's on the road or in the shop.
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I hope you have beaten on this drum to Secretary Pollack? She strikes me as the type to care down to this level of detail, and she is very clearly trying to overhaul the entire workplace culture at the T.

I lived in Tokyo for three years, and while I never rode in any train cabs, I certainly observed station masters and train drivers signaling and calling back and forth in the manner described in your link. Bus drivers, too. When one first sees this as a newly-arrived gaijin, it’s easy to think something along the lines of “oh isn’t this quaint, all these folks wearing their white gloves and making all these crisp hand gestures and verbal calls back and forth.” But while I’ve never worked in transit, I have worked physical labor in construction, and as such I’ve directly experienced both effective and sloppy work systems (damned near got badly injured more than once because of the latter). So it didn’t take me long in Japan to recognize that there was a direct link between all that calling / hand-gesturing and the absolutely astonishing level of efficiency and reliability that the Japanese have achieved in their transit system. And sure, they spend way the hell more money and never let systems decay like we do, and so on – there’s lots of reasons for their success aside from just the point and call habits. But you are right, this is a very significant component of making a complex system work as well as possible, with a low level of accidents.

We could do without the white gloves; I never did stop thinking that was silly. But the rest of it we should adopt.

ETA: And I do realize it's not just calling back and forth. I recall seeing the bus drivers doing the point and call thing, and sometimes I could see into train cabs where there was only one driver, doing the point and call routine alone. I didn't mean the above post to suggest it was only useful when drivers and station masters are talking to each other. And when I'm doing work around the house, I use the method, talking to myself and pointing at things as I go through the steps. Gives my wife a laugh, but it does in fact cut down on mistakes, especially since I no longer do construction work as my main job, so I'm waaaaay more prone to mental errors now than when I was doing this kind of thing full time.
 
MBTA board approves fare hikes

The price to ride MBTA buses with a CharlieCard will go up a dime to $1.70, and monthly passes will cost riders $114 more a year after the transit agency’s board on Monday unanimously approved a package that will increases fares systemwide by 9.3 percent.

Board members unanimously approved the changes as transit activists loudly protested the move, calling the board corrupt and urging the public to “fight the hikes.”

The price increases, scheduled to go into effect in July, come despite a flood of opposition from dissatisfied riders and several elected officials who said lawmakers had intended to cap fare increases to 5 percent every two years under a 2013 law.

...
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Horrible. Gas tax indexing gets voted on (and against), while transit fare increases get shoved down riders throats. [sarcasm]That makes sense.[/sarcasm]
 
West said:
I hope you have beaten on this drum to Secretary Pollack? She strikes me as the type to care down to this level of detail, and she is very clearly trying to overhaul the entire workplace culture at the T.

I lived in Tokyo for three years, and while I never rode in any train cabs, I certainly observed station masters and train drivers signaling and calling back and forth in the manner described in your link. Bus drivers, too. When one first sees this as a newly-arrived gaijin, it’s easy to think something along the lines of “oh isn’t this quaint, all these folks wearing their white gloves and making all these crisp hand gestures and verbal calls back and forth.” But while I’ve never worked in transit, I have worked physical labor in construction, and as such I’ve directly experienced both effective and sloppy work systems (damned near got badly injured more than once because of the latter). So it didn’t take me long in Japan to recognize that there was a direct link between all that calling / hand-gesturing and the absolutely astonishing level of efficiency and reliability that the Japanese have achieved in their transit system. And sure, they spend way the hell more money and never let systems decay like we do, and so on – there’s lots of reasons for their success aside from just the point and call habits. But you are right, this is a very significant component of making a complex system work as well as possible, with a low level of accidents.

We could do without the white gloves; I never did stop thinking that was silly. But the rest of it we should adopt.

ETA: And I do realize it's not just calling back and forth. I recall seeing the bus drivers doing the point and call thing, and sometimes I could see into train cabs where there was only one driver, doing the point and call routine alone. I didn't mean the above post to suggest it was only useful when drivers and station masters are talking to each other. And when I'm doing work around the house, I use the method, talking to myself and pointing at things as I go through the steps. Gives my wife a laugh, but it does in fact cut down on mistakes, especially since I no longer do construction work as my main job, so I'm waaaaay more prone to mental errors now than when I was doing this kind of thing full time.
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I've mentioned it to safety compliance staff who were at a MassDOT/MBTA job fair; they had never heard of pointing and calling... Honestly, not surprised. It's kindof a weirdly Japanese thing, though I want to say that OSHA may have done studies on it as a way of mitigating occupational hazards. American policy toward safety seems to lean heavy on signage (especially roads and workplace safety regulation) and/or extremely laborious procedure...

The only US transit operator I know who uses pointing and calling is NYC MTA, where conductors point at zebra boards hanging above the platform parallel to the direction of train travel. This is visual confirmation that their driver has indeed stopped at the correct position on the platform. MTA, however, does not have employees actually call out the confirmation. If I'm remembering correctly, even mouthing confirmation is enough to further reduce operational error.

In pointing and calling, it's less that they're calling to each other so much as they are verbalising confirmation to themselves. They do this during coupling procedures, but, apparently accidents still happen on the very rare occasion.

I've brought up a number of things with Secretary Pollack, but to be honest, she has MUCH bigger fish to fry than to worry about introducing pointing and calling as safety practice... It would probably require significant negotiation with the unions, effort I don't think she/her team conceivably has capacity for. We'll probably see more traction from capital investment in signal system repairs and replacement.
 
MBTA FARE CHANGES - EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2016

1-Day LinkPass: $15.00 (No Change)
7-Day LinkPass: $19.00 > $21.25 (+$2.25)
Monthly LinkPass: $75.00 > $84.50 (+$9.50)
Local Bus Pass: $50.00 > $55.00 (+$5.00)

Rapid Transit - CharlieCard: $2.10 > $2.25 (+$0.15)
Rapid Transit - CharlieTicket: $2.65 > $2.75 (+$0.10)

Local Bus - CharlieCard: $1.60 > $1.70 (+$0.10)
Local Bus - CharlieTicket: $2.10 > $2.00 (-$0.10)

Inner Harbor Ferries: $3.25 > $3.50 (+$0.25)
Hingham, Quincy & Hull Ferries: $8.50 > $9.25 (+$0.75)

Avg Increase: 9.22%

Bus-Rail-Bus transfers will finally be free too.
Paper 10-Ride CR tickets are gone. The option will remain on mTicket though.

Full table available in link: http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/FINAL FARE CHANGES.pdf
 
bigeman312 said:
MBTA board approves fare hikes



Horrible. Gas tax indexing gets voted on (and against), while transit fare increases get shoved down riders throats. [sarcasm]That makes sense.[/sarcasm]
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They are different. One is a tax, one is a user fee. Plus a portion of the gas tax is used to fund the T (both federal and state).

Edit: Folks want the T to have more revenue, but object when revenue is raised. I can see the personal objection to paying more as no one likes it, but if the T needs money, why isn't this a good thing?
 
bigeman312 said:
MBTA board approves fare hikes



Horrible. Gas tax indexing gets voted on (and against), while transit fare increases get shoved down riders throats. [sarcasm]That makes sense.[/sarcasm]
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So Charlie Baker's henchmen, aka the fiscal control board, decide to opt for the higher fare option. The control board disregards the legislative intent of the recently passed law that fares shall not go up by more than 5% every two years. I hope the legislature cures the ambiguous language asap so mass transit users are not looking at potential 10% or more increases each year. I want to see more investment in transit but not on the backs of riders. I'd like to see some global approach to transportation funding including tolls and gas taxes etc.
 
commuter guy said:
So Charlie Baker's henchmen, aka the fiscal control board, decide to opt for the higher fare option. The control board disregards the legislative intent of the recently passed law that fares shall not go up by more than 5% every two years. I hope the legislature cures the ambiguous language asap so mass transit users are not looking at potential 10% or more increases each year. I want to see more investment in transit but not on the backs of riders. I'd like to see some global approach to transportation funding including tolls and gas taxes etc.
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They also made a (probably non-binding) agreement to not raise fares again until 2019. Also, members of the Board stated they wanted the funds from the increased fares to go to a dedicated repair/maintenance fund so that the fare money is "directly invested back in the system."
 
datadyne007 said:
They also made a (probably non-binding) agreement to not raise fares again until 2019. Also, members of the Board stated they wanted the funds from the increased fares to go to a dedicated repair/maintenance fund so that the fare money is "directly invested back in the system."
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The maintenance 'lock box' is a great idea, though it pains me to see that come out of a draconian fare increase rather than Baker and/or the legislature authorising more money from the general fund.

I guess in some way, this is the board attempting to legitimise the much steeper fare increase in spite of a purportedly reduced budget gap that is allowing this money to be spent on the maintenance backlog - we're still trying to figure out this crazy back-of-the-napkin math that's been cited at different amounts in various articles last week. It makes sense that they're trying to pull what levers they have and I know that on some level these hearings aren't for them to hear the riders but as political theatre for the state to really see how many angry, upset, and varied riders and arguments are out there. It still doesn't look great on either the MBTA or the governor's appointed control board, purportedly with the power to do 'whatever needs to happen'. I think this is proof positive that even the FMCB - as a part of the MBTA/MassDOT governing struture - still doesn't have what leverage it needs to get the job done.

We've been driving this narrative that fare hikes are especially difficult to swallow by the general public because they appear to yield no benefit. Your fare goes up faster than inflation but you're still paying for the same shitty, unreliable service and your fares are only going toward plugging a financial gap that grows year over year because of a systemic underinvestment in capital - funded by a separate budget that hardly anyone ever attends meetings for and barely bats an eye when underfunded by the legislature/authorised bonding. (The Red/Orange Line cars went unauthorised behind billions of dollars in safety-priority capital projects - it was tender-ready in 2010 - but no one gave two shits until the last year of Deval Patrick's term when everyone was suddenly asking themselves 'What do you mean it'll take 4 years for the trains to arrive on property!?!')

I get where we're going with this, but the spirit of PAYGO in transit is that you're spending money you already have and are putting it directly into the capital budget for maintenance, new trains, etc rather than increasing the debt by that much in bonding. Even in New York State, where the 'lock box' concept - while basically nullified by the state's repeated raiding of said lock box - is in reference to dedicated state revenues or portions of the general fund that are set aside for MTA's capital budget.

When us advocates say we want more revenue from the T, this isn't what we meant. We fully acknowledge the money must come from SOMEWHERE, but riders already pay their fair share of 'user fees', especially among systems that run much tighter ships - either from being younger or having better weathered the transit funding nightmare of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

I'm personally at a loss for words, but I'm okay with walking away from this fight - it's pretty much over unless ACE/TRU and T4MA have something up their sleeve - and shifting focus onto the next hope: Regional Transportation Ballot Initiatives... The T is a major component of our regional transport network; we should start funding it that way. Argue what you want about gas taxes going (marginally [PDF]) to the T's operating budget - we can start to cut that down if we can double down on our modernisation of the system because I'm really tired of reform reform reform AND THEN revenue ...on rider's backs.
 
Even the July 2014 fare increase was enough to inspire me to cancel my monthly pass. I only spent $200 on my CharlieCard in the subsequent year, rather than $900. The savings was more than enough to pay for my bike.
 
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