Could San Francisco Automate Strike-Threatening Train Drivers? (opens in new tab)

So ... lots of people have a financial stake in automated trains not working, and for some reason MTA is moving in a direction that consistently doesn't work. Quite a coincidence there.

Just to start (I call it BotoCrunch)

Mailgun In -> TextTeaser API [1] -> Mailgun Out to reader mailing list/Deploy to S3 site.

https://www.mashape.com/mojojolo/textteaser [1]

Everyone else's job seems easy until you actually learn something about it.

The 'Oh shit' button is not something we can reasonably expect the driver of a 'partially' automated train to be able to press: humans just aren't good at maintaining attention for these sorts of tasks with half-second reaction times once every fifty years of service. They can occasionally make useful decisions about edge-cases that represent small chances of failure (like wet-rail operation), that it is possibly for the automated operators to fail to account for.

The human driver instead serves as a sort of last-ditch assurance that the transit company values human life sufficient that a jury wouldn't destroy them in the event of an accident. He performs a sacrificial function by being the first one to die in the event of a crash, at which point it becomes a tragedy for the operator company, milliseconds before the people behind him die, at which point it becomes a tragedy for the passengers. There is no point, therefore, at which a disaster can be seen as a tragedy for the passengers but not the operating company, a position which is fraught with political-legal consequences in the US corporate and municipal environment, ever obsessed with liability. The driver's failure to respond adequately is implied to be at least partially the fault of the late driver, sufficient to draw fire until the panic dies down.

Absent liability issues, we would all be riding perfectly safe labor-less cars and trains, which were perfectly safe because we insisted on using them once they were mature enough to be safer than individual automobile drivers, and learned from each crash that happened afterwards, and improved our algorithms iteratively. Instead, every time we have a crash we blame the algorithm's existence rather than tweak it, switch to using a more human-intensive mode, let the automated infrastructure rot, add weight to our trains, and decry the tragic no-fault coincidence of driver inattention and algorithm failure that doomed the driver and the passengers.

The DC Metro was designed for full automation. Rather than implement the automation and improve on it over time, the predictable initial failures resulted in scaling back the automation partially and later fully and now it's not even a realistic capability, the infrastructure has degraded.

Sans New York also -- with one exception, all of the MTA's trains have human operators, and the majority have two-man crews. It has been possible for a single person to operate the MTA's subway trains for decades, but attempts to do so on "full length" trains (most lines; shuttles and the G are the main exceptions) have generally resulted in failures to meet safety requirements e.g. evacuating passengers quickly enough during a fire. It is overly simplistic to claim that this is strictly about labor requirements; while the TWU certainly works to keep its members employed, there are many other factors, at least in NYC. Also notable are the various attempts to increase automation, which have failed not because of the union, nor because of technology not being up to the task, but because the MTA does not know how to hire competent engineers for its projects (despite having billions of dollars available to pay them).

I don't know of many other heavy-rail systems where the control system has full authority over the control of the train. Most systems can stop the train if the operator exceeds the safety limits, but it's up to the operator to do routine things like stop at a station, open the doors, and accelerate away from the station.

  "BART was one of the first U.S. systems of any size to have substantial automated 
  operations. The trains are computer-controlled via BART's Operations Control Center 
  (OCC) and headquarters at Lake Merritt and generally arrive with regular punctuality."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Bay_Area_Rapid_...

BART is already almost automated: the train drives itself. The "drivers" only close the door, and stop the train if something unexpected happens. Some other light rail systems around the world run with no drivers on board at all.

The progress of automation will certainly result in complex social issues, and the entire concept of employment may have to be rethought.

But keeping a small number of people pointlessly in their old jobs is not the right solution. Why should a few people receive $66-92k per year in welfare just because they used to drive a train, while other unemployed people and the homeless do not? It would be more fair to share the tax funds between all unemployed, regardless of whether it was due to a new automated train system or not.

Same reason for anyone in that situation: The sooner they learn/do something else, the sooner they can acquire a new useful skillset, instead of dragging on their now useless one. It's not like this is an intermediate problem and if we just subsidize them long enough, there'll suddenly be a need for train drivers again.

Thanks for the link. I stand corrected.

Speaking as someone who tried to use the godawful abomination that is Caltrain, I have no sympathy for any Caltrain employees, and never will.

You could replace the entire staff with San Francisco homeless and it couldn't get any worse.