General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

As I understand, the T actually does have an existing ERP software that's practically dictated by FTA standards reporting/grant funding qualifications. It's definitely in use by the capital investment and planning department for tracking procurement, contracts, and expenses.

I think this speaks even more to the insular nature of T management, if not at the top, in the middle tier of management where people have grown up with the agency, never left, and have never experienced further cross-industry training on best practices.

This rampant stockpiling where you order parts that don't go into use for 24 months on average also sounds a lot like the kind of planning that you get when you don't know what's next on the chopping block and that if you only order what you need, you may not have that overhead when shit hits the fan, putting your ass on the line. If our goal in outsourcing is to simply make warehousing more lean and rely on just-in-time delivery of needed parts, we're going to be up shit's creek if we still can't get reliable funding for those parts or the necessary capital toward modernisation so we're not warehousing near end of life equipment. That's another thing - I wouldn't be surprised if more than half of the equipment that sits in our warehouses for months on end has been purchased in bulk as the last replacements of their kind...
 
Lead time is what should matter. If you have a 12 month lead time on something that is mission critical, then you need to keep it in inventory. Not so if the lead time is closer to days or hours and it is off the shelf.
 
Lead time goes out the window though if you don't know if you will have the money to buy that part at all in a couple months because of funding issues.
 
This is totally random, but I notice this every time I travel down to my parents on the CR. Why do all the listings, maps & announcements say Holbrook/Randolph, but the signs at the station say Randolph/Holbrook?
 
datadyne007 said:
This is totally random, but I notice this every time I travel down to my parents on the CR. Why do all the listings, maps & announcements say Holbrook/Randolph, but the signs at the station say Randolph/Holbrook?
Click to expand...
I believe this is also the case for Weymouth Landing/East Braintree on the Greenbush line; but I don't really know why.
 
citylover94 said:
Lead time goes out the window though if you don't know if you will have the money to buy that part at all in a couple months because of funding issues.
Click to expand...

Right. But it isn't really a funding issue since the money is there. It is a budget control and management issue.

This is a perennial issue in government spending. People at every level buy things they don't need now because money might not be there when they need it later. And saving money is punished because your budget baseline goes down the following fiscal year.... Which is also a management issue in large companies.

It is only a problem at a certain level of waste. Probably small potatoes at the MBTA, but at least they shouldn't be stockpiling anything off the shelf.
 
There's a one-liner at NETransit.net that says the MBTA control board's June 2016 meeting includes a proposal to buy 60 - 75 more Rotem bi-level coaches (presumably trailer coaches without a control cab)
Potential New Order:
As part of a presentation to the MBTA Control Board in June 2016, MBTA staff stated they are exploring exercising the remaining option order with Rotem to procure 60-75 additional coaches.
Click to expand...

The tenor of the Rotem discussion at Railroad.net is:
1) We badly need replacement for single-levels that have reached the end of their service life and cannot be rebuilt (MBBs and Bombardiers)
2) Rotem Philly seems to be capable of learning from their mistakes, including learnings from all the modifications that earned the first batch the nickname Brokems (and, besides, Rotem may be in a mood to deal given that their Philly factory needs to keep busy)
3) The MBTA is a changed organization, too, better-positioned to administer such a procurement
 
I hope they exercise this option and do so smartly. Especially if they all go to the North-Side, which will benefit tremendously.
 
Paulaner Bier Garden in the North Station waiting area - a class act and a great idea. I know it's a few years old. Anyone go there often?
 
Arlington said:
There's a one-liner at NETransit.net that says the MBTA control board's June 2016 meeting includes a proposal to buy 60 - 75 more Rotem bi-level coaches (presumably trailer coaches without a control cab)

The tenor of the Rotem discussion at Railroad.net is:
1) We badly need replacement for single-levels that have reached the end of their service life and cannot be rebuilt (MBBs and Bombardiers)
2) Rotem Philly seems to be capable of learning from their mistakes, including learnings from all the modifications that earned the first batch the nickname Brokems (and, besides, Rotem may be in a mood to deal given that their Philly factory needs to keep busy)
3) The MBTA is a changed organization, too, better-positioned to administer such a procurement
Click to expand...

The MassDOT/MBTA CIP includes $150 million for coach procurement.
http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Port.../docs_materials/DraftCIP2017to2021_041116.pdf
That is enough money to buy 60-75 cars depending on the final price per car.

The document presented to the Control Board was a "state of the commuter rail" report
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedfiles/About_the_T/Board_Meetings/StateofCommuterRailSystem.pdf

it includes the simple statement "explore potential options on Rotem procurement-significantly reduces delivery time for known product"

My understanding from a friend "in the know" is that Rotem car reliability improved substantially after the agreed on modifications were made by Rotem (cars were worked on at Seaview Transportation in Rhode Island). The car availability for the Rotems on a typical day is high, they don't take up large amounts of shop time like they did when new.

They would like to buy as many cars as they can get for $150 million. They would like to retire any MBBs still in service once the Kawasaki overhaul program is done (they knew they would have to keep some MBBs in service as along as 15-20 K cars were out of service for overhaul), they would like to retire the 40 oldest Bombardier cars (350-389) and they would like to retire the 27 1600-series Bombardier cab cars (although some might be bumped down to blind trailers and not actually retired). That means some portion of the new order would be cab cars. The Board was not actually presented with a contract to vote on, just updated that talks are on going. If they don't come to an agreement with Rotem, they would need to issue a request for proposals. If that happens, look for CRRC with their plant in Springfield, looking at an MBTA order as a way to put in a low bid and get into the U.S. commuter rail car market.
 
statler said:
Link
Click to expand...


It is so nice that the MBTA is preserving and keeping these old trolleys in tune with modern technology, but with the old flavor of yesteryear! They have undergone a complete overhaul.

I also thought that they were equipped with GPS as well. They may be the oldest vehicles in service, but they have also caught up with today's modern technology, which is great!

I rode them a few times just for kicks & giggles. :cool:
 
The PCCs will be equipped with GPS eventually. There is a sort of tracking system on them now, but it's 80s-vintage, only works half the time, and is in no way suitable for funneling to a public feed. So once the Type 8s are sufficiently debugged, the PCCs (and the Type 7s) will all get GPS.
 
The EGE said:
The PCCs will be equipped with GPS eventually. There is a sort of tracking system on them now, but it's 80s-vintage, only works half the time, and is in no way suitable for funneling to a public feed. So once the Type 8s are sufficiently debugged, the PCCs (and the Type 7s) will all get GPS.
Click to expand...

GPS is only going to work above ground, so hopefully they have multiple methods.
 
tangent said:
GPS is only going to work above ground, so hopefully they have multiple methods.
Click to expand...

Underground uses a combination of track circuits (in place since... the '96 flood?) and AVI (some units from the 80s, many more added over the last several years). This is how they have been successfully tracking trains in the tunnels for, oh, over a year now...
 
State transportation officials have been moving forward on a more complicated undertaking to extend rail from Stoughton along a roughly two-mile railroad trestle through the Hockomock Swamp, driving tracks under historic downtown Easton and creating the first electrified commuter rail in an otherwise diesel system. That version would take about 75 minutes from New Bedford and Fall River and is expected to be used by about 4,500 riders a day.
Click to expand...

Here's the point where we wave the white flag. Given that pretty much no one will ride this outside of commuting, it's basically a $780,000 gift from the Commonwealth to each of those 4,500 daily commuters. For comparison, GLX will cost $1.5 billion less than this and draw 10x the daily ridership.

Take the $3.5 billion and use it to electrify lines that actually matter. Take 5% of the money and send GLX out to Route 16, and you'll probably pick up the same amount of new riders.
 
Equilibria said:
Given that pretty much no one will ride this outside of commuting
Click to expand...

Having grown up on the southcoast, I don't believe this statement is accurate. There's definitely a market on the southcoast of people who want to come up to Boston on the weekends for various purposes, including Sox games. Ridership could be helped further by lowering the absurdly expensive CR fares on weekends & implementing family passes. I believe there could also be a draw for people from Boston to visit downtown New Bedford for a day.
 
datadyne007 said:
Having grown up on the southcoast, I don't believe this statement is accurate. There's definitely a market on the southcoast of people who want to come up to Boston on the weekends for various purposes, including Sox games. Ridership could be helped further by lowering the absurdly expensive CR fares on weekends & implementing family passes. I believe there could also be a draw for people from Boston to visit downtown New Bedford for a day.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but... how many of those people are there, really? A couple hundred each weekend? If the train takes 75 minutes with one train every couple of hours on a weekend schedule, will even those people really use it when the roads are sitting there, open and free?

Lowering the fares essentially constitutes an admission that building the line isn't worth the money - if it's not worth it to people to pay to use the service, it isn't worth the $3.5 billion everyone else in MA would be spending to build it for them. You'll be running the line at a massive subsidy from the day it opens, and it will be an albatross on the system for decades.

You're making an argument about whether NB and FR should have rail, period, but that's not really the issue. The issue is whether NB and FR should have rail at $3.5 billion, when that money could go to so, so many more worthy MBTA projects.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top