TIL that full automation of subway systems is illegal in the United States
4h 32m ago by lemmy.zip/u/Valuy in til from ifp.org
This just sounds like union busting under the guise of automation.
Transit automation can drastically reduce operating costs and improve service, but the open-ended 13(c) certification process provides labor with an effective veto on such changes.
Section 13(c) specifies several categories of required protection: preservation of rights, privileges, and benefits under existing collective bargaining agreements;
Yeah, but... If we're paying people to just sit on a train for 8 hours at a time, never actually doing anything....
Then they're really there for when things go wrong. Like pilots, the plane flies itself 99% of the time, they're just there to take over when things arent going according to plan.
In Sydney, Australia we have fully automated subway with no drivers in them, called the metro
The risk factors of a airplane and subway train are so different and you must surely know that
Obviously brother, just making an analogy.
Ok, but you do realize a subway can still catch fire, right? Or someone could have a heart attack. Just because you won't fall to your death, doesn't mean people can't still die.
I just don't understand what good would a human conductor do in those scenarios that sensors and workers at the station couldn't? Trains go in a tight loop with regular stops on the ground in special tunnels and are under constant watch. A single person adds no real line of protection to that system
Guy having a heart attack. Operator overides the controls, contacts 911, sets an ambulance to show up at the stop that will be fastest for EMS. In my city, sometimes the elevators are down at certain stations. So maybe the operator drives past the next 2 stations without stopping all while being in contact with 911 operators, and at the same time using the intercom to alert other passengers on other cars (since trains are multiple cars long) what is going on so they don't get mad that the train didn't even stop at their stop.
An automated system would have just went to the next stop as normal. Stopped, opened the doors for 30 seconds, and then resumed as normal.
Fire - If a small fire broke out, the train operator could stop the train, wherever it is, open the doors, use the intercom to evacuate the train. Then use communications to stop all other nearby trains so they don't hit any passengers now jumping off a train onto other train tracks. Then, when everyone is safe, use the fire extinguisher.
If automated systems can even detect a fire, the most it could physically do is stop the train, and open the doors. Computer code can't physically use a fire extinguisher, and I wouldn't trust AI in an emergsncy situation to get people to safety.
airplane and subway train are different
when some US president once visited china, he visited a construction site where they used shovel to excavate the ground. he asked "why no bagger?" and the chinese president replied "sothat we create more jobs". the US president said "next time, tell them to use a spoon instead!"
i think it's a fitting description. why bother with workplaces; everything that can be reasonably automated should be automated; in the end, it will be anyways. who are we kidding? how long is this game of not-doing-things-the-way-they're-better supposed to go on? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? then what? we'll face the future one way or another; why not try to face it in a clear and straightforward way?
Do you think we should still have elevator operators?
I don’t necessarily disagree with automation. I think the article is being disingenuous with their reasons for it.
To start off, the posts headline is inaccurate. It’s not against any law to have automated transport systems. The US has had automated train systems for 50+ years. They were designed that way from the start though. The article is complaining about systems that were not designed with automation in mind. They are not being retrofitted because of this particular regulation that was designed to protect existing workers.
From the posted article:
Yet no legacy US heavy rail system has been retrofitted for full automation. Many legacy US systems already use automatic train control (ATC) technology that can operate trains without a driver — San Francisco’s BART trains have run under automatic control since the system opened in 1972, and WMATA’s trains in the DC-Maryland-Virginia region are similarly automated. But no legacy system has removed onboard operators and transitioned to unattended operation.
Since they mention BART, their own website says removing train operators does basically nothing to solve their financial issues. It just moves costs around and ignores the insane cost to retrofit it in the first place that would likely take decades to recoup.
Train Operator salaries and benefits (including overtime) makes up 7.8% of the FY27 Preliminary Operating Budget $1.05B. That is $81-$83M ($71.5M in wages and benefits and the overtime budget is about $11M). The structural deficit is up to $400M per year. If regulations allowed BART to remove Train Operators, there would be costs associated with no longer having train operators on board such as increased operation control center staffing and more at the ready staff presence for incident response etc. – and that’s not even considering the significant upfront capital costs.
From budget data I could find, the BART police department was a larger slice of the budget than the train operators.
ironically they only introduced these regulations after turning public transport into a publicly-owned company? at least it says so in the article.
to me it sounds like it's actually about making public transport more expensive and therefore less competitive to the end user which will ensure that people buy more cars, which generates more revenue for the economy overall.
They’re working on changing that whole public thing…
Public private partnerships (P3s) are contractual agreements between a public agency and a private entity that allow for greater private participation in the delivery of projects. In transportation projects, this participation typically involves the private sector taking on additional project risks such as design, construction, finance, long-term operation, and traffic revenue.
The transit authority in my state is already in one of these agreements.
No private sector entity will agree to something like that with a union in place. Corporate America despises unions.
Similarly in London, trains on some Underground lines are almost automated. They have drivers, whose job is to push the open/close door buttons at stops and keep an eye on things; once the doors are closed, the train drives itself to the next stop. This is largely to placate the unions.
Partially, not largely.
The TFL would need to spend an absolute fortune to upgrade all the antiquated stations and rolling stock whilst keeping the underground largely functional.
It's just standard rightwing media cant to lay the blame on the unions.
also note the inconsistency that cars are allowed to go self-driving in some circumstances (and those are expanding) while subways are not? even though subways are simpler and safer to automate because they literally only go forward, there's no pedestrians crossing the road, etc.
yeah iirc the same is true for airplanes. technically, basically the whole flight could be automated, but for regulatory reasons there always have to be pilot in the cockpit anyways.