(Source: TreeHugger)

President Barack Obama’s trip to Turkey may prove to have been a similar turning point for Istanbul.

Hope all is well at your end. I am not doing so well, as you could see from the below paragraphs, after experiencing yet another bad commute on your trains, prompting me get on the computer and write you a letter at this ungodly hour.  As a resident of the DC metro region, like millions of others, I have been commuting from a Maryland suburb to the District.  Like many of your riders, I take the metro five days a week commuting on the Red Line and Green Line and almost always enjoyed the convenience of the commute.  Except, there are those occasional days when I experience some discomfort, not one of the minor kind.  The kind that makes you wonder how on earth a human being with a wee bit of logic can do such a dumb thing.  The kind that defies logic! Oh, the human beings I am referring to are your train operators, who in my humble opinion are the primary carriers of your service-oriented message – Metro cares!

A Fitting Message Found On Metro!

Unfortunately, this evening was one of those days that I simply came home wondering if you or your staff will ever “get it”.   I mean, get the message that the trains are actually operated for the very people who pay for a service that you offer. Let me walk you through what happened so that you will somehow try and make sense out of why such a thing can happen repeatedly.

After a long stressful day at work, I arrived at the Gallery Place/China Town station hoping to catch the Redline to Shady Grove that (usually) arrives just about 9:23PM.  See, I told you I am a regular commuter, evident from the memorized train timings!  Back to the story again.  When I arrived at the platform towards Shady Grove, I saw a ton of people, most of whom were Hockey fans returning from the Verizon Center after watching the Frozen Four (the NCAA Mens Hockey Tournament Semi-Finals).   As you can imagine, the platforms were pretty crowded and the train was approaching.  Guess what!  Today, your over enthusiastic train operator decided to give a lot of the Washingtonians a free workout on the platform and pulled way past the usual position.   The 6 car train that arrived overshot the target and went past the point from where I normally board ( FYI, I normally board the middle doors on the 2nd last car).   I am sure you can imagine the helter-skelter that ensued when this happens.  The flood of people who were standing in positions where the last car will usually stop all started running with hopes of somehow making the train and getting home in a decent time.

Little do they know that the “wonderfully trained” operator of the train was in a great hurry to close the darn doors of the already crowded train that just arrived.  Before the last passenger disembarked (an older lady) who was supposedly awaiting her turn to step out, your operator thought he waited long enough and proceeded to signal his intentions to close the door with a “Doors Closing” chime! Panic ensues as the people waiting to board rushed in and the poor old lady was trying to get off the train.  Thank god she somehow made it out alive.   But many of us who were waiting on the platform were left wondering what on earth could push a your train conductor to close the doors knowing all well there are a lot of people waiting to board the train. Oh you know what, there was still so much empty space inside the train cars as most of the passengers got off at the station in question.

Now things got a little more interesting.  After the doors chimed and only a four people have gotten in through that last set of doors in that last car.  Mind you that the case was very similar in almost all the cars as far as the eye could see ( I am not too tall to see all the way to the other end of the train).  With only four people inside and at least 60 people waiting outside to get in, the driver decided to show some courtesy and opens the door briefly to allow for a passenger whose bag was stuck half-way through the door as he got on the train.  Let me ask you to guess how “brief” the window of opportunity was for that poor customer of yours to retrieve that bag?  ONE SECOND, I kid you not!

Some of the passengers who got on the train, including a couple of Mr. Hercules types, summoned all the strength in the world to hold the set of doors that had one mission – SHUT/CLOSE! In the fight between man and machine (operated by a mad man who gets paid by these commuters), the men had a brief victory, which allowed a bunch of more people to get on the train.  With swelling crowds on the platform and the next train arrival showing 12 minutes later, you can see the anxiety-laden faces of people go into further panic.  This tug of war between your train operator (who lost his mind when he arrived at Gallery Place) and the brave commuters (who were hell bent on adding a few more people to your train cars to make it worth your while to operate them at a cost/benefit ratio that somehow can justify you next round of federal funding) continued for a few more minutes.   As you see, we are simply trying to help you move more people in the limited amount of time we get to use your trains.

The story was the same when the train arrived at the next stop – Metro Center, which thankfully was not so crowded but the tug of war continued to happen with the bunch that was trying to get in.  I am not sure how many of your customers returned home with bruises & scars that can rival those of a soldier fighting to save this country in a Iraq or Afghanistan.   Unlike them, we are not trained to fight and have no “weapons” to protect from your agressive train operators.  Somehow we all managed to get home without having any major casualties in the war on Metro train this evening.

Well, this is just a sample from a day that is not very unusual.  I have seen this happen many times in the past and I witnessed and participated in this today.   Let me tell you that I do enjoy those days when you get some courteous operators who are patient enough to wait for the customers to board and show up for work with an attitude that says “customer is my god”.  If you really like to hear this, I am a transportation expert myself (hence the name TransportGooru) and I am here to offer you a friendly tip or two — purely from an expert/customer point of view. Let’s now discuss the “potential; solutions to this recurring problem:

1.  Train your operators to understand that they work for people who pay to get around safely, not just swiftly.  Safety is paramount for everyone involved – not just for the Metro operator who stands well shielded in his hardened aluminum cocoon.

2.  Run more trains on days (not all day but at least at for a couple of hours before the games start and after they end) when you know there is a game or a major event at one of our area’s sport arenas/centers.  This should be very easy to do by coordinating with the organizers of such events (Verizon Center, Nationals, etc).  BTW, you guys did an amazing job during the Cherry Blossom Festival.  Kudos!

3.  Deploy your highly trained & poorly paid police officers who always help immensely in dealing with such issues.  I have seen on many occasions people are lot more obedient and well behaved when the officers are on the platform during such “rush” hours after the game.  They also help your train operators to understand that the passengers need time to get on the train.  If this would be a surprise for you, the above mentioned situation never happened in all these years when I took the train when the police officers are standing next to the trains at Galley Place, regulating the flow of passengers into the vehicles.  I think your officers have some “fear” of getting arrested when they see police, because they do their job pretty well without screwing up.

4.  If you think all the above solutions are not good, for Pete’s sake add a couple of cars on trains that arrive that time. Make it an 8 car train so that we have more doors to board and we don’t have to run a marathon on the platform to get close to the train.   I did learn today that you are going to run 8 car trains on Red and Green lines when a bunch of train cars get delivered.  Its about time you did this as you realize we are an active bunch in the DC area and there is always something to do around the town.  We consider you to be the best option to get around from point A to point B, without polluting the environment or making some petro-terrorist nation richer by shelling for gasoline to drive our sexy cars into the City.

5.  If possible, conduct a psychiatric evaluation of your current train operators, all of them, and re-train those who are borderline psychotic/neurotic.   Before they injure someone or mangle some human body part, they be told that it is inappropriate to operate a vehicle in the above described manner.  If it does not change, you may very soon have to print the following message on your Tickets:  WARNING: RIDING METRO IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH.  WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR LOSSES OR BODILY HARM WHILE ON THE METRO SYSTEM BECAUSE WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING IN OUR JOBS.

6. Your hiring and training policies need to be revisited if the situation persists or deteriorate any further (which is highly unlikely as I already saw your staff hit the rock-bottom this evening with such appalling behavior.  It can’t get any worse than what it is now).

7. The final suggestion:  If you can’t fix it, just accept the failure and simply walk away.  Some of your customers have done that – they are resigned to the fate they suffer in the hands of your egregious operators and have decided to move on to alternative modes of transportation (read as personal vehicles a.k.a. cars, mopeds, bicycles) and happily driving around polluting the air that you and your children breathe.   If you want these people to return to your system, you have to correct these above mentioned deficiencies.. Or at least show them that you are making a sincere effort to do that.

If you still think none of the above suggestions are agreeable and you would still like to justify what your operator did is the right thing and there was a very good reason for doing so, please feel free to call me and explain what that reason would be.  Because, I am already close to being “insane” trying to find a logic/reason for how a train/system could be operated in this fashion.  Where I grew up, such a thing would be STOPPED and REEVALUATED COMPLETELY BEFORE IT IS DEEMED SUITABLE FOR SAFE OPERATION.

Before you tout the safety records of your system in yet another forum and plead your case for additional funding, I recommend you to prove to the general public that you and your staff are capable of running a system safely, smoothly and efficiently.  Safety doesn’t always mean prevention of fatalities. It can also be interpreted as prevention of loss (of limbs & other body parts) to your customers. It is a shame that no one has challenged you before and I am glad to do so with this open letter. Or may be it happened and you/your predecessors simply ignored it.

Above all, you have to understand that all your good deeds may simply be ignored when a passenger on your system experiences something so disastrous of this kind.  You and your staff are working hard all year and try to project a positive image to our city’s visitors and residents.  But the actions of a dumb few in your crew negate all the good things you accomplish or try to accomplish within your means.

Alright!  I probably sucked away a good chunk of your time reading this letter (which by now qualifies for the world’s longest complaint letter ever). Now, I’ll allow you to get back to fixing things around the Metro.  In the meanwhile, if any of the above mentioned items or issues are hard to understand or difficult to reason with, please feel free to write to me.  I’ll be glad to spend a couple of my hours to visit you and chat with you (very cordially, as you seen above) over a cup of coffee. Of course, I’ll pay for your coffee too and show our loyalty and generosity towards someone who has a keen interest in our commutes a pleasant one!

Look forward to hear from you soon. Take care, and enjoy a wonderful weekend!

Sincerely,

TransportGooru@gmail.com

(Signed on behalf of the all the suffering metro riders)

P.S: Apologies for the erratic spelling and any/all grammatical flaws you may have encountered.  It is too late to proof-read but I am sure you are a smart man who is capable of looking past the mistakes and understand the “gist” of the letter, which is:  Your service sucks!  Help us, please!

(Source: Transportation For America; CNN via Youtube)

As painful transit cuts cripple more and more agencies across the country, major national networks are gradually tuning in to the story and seeing just how bad things are. CNN is the latest to cover the transit cuts phenomenon that’s wreaking havoc on the largest and smallest of our public transportation systems.

In a four-minute segment last week, CNN used Transportation for America’s handy map — which we created to document the 85 communities that are being forced to either cut service, increase fares, or lay off workers due to budget crises at the local and state level — and took an in-depth look at some of the impacts of cutting back public transportation at a time when Americans are riding transit in record numbers.   This peice on transit is part of CNN’s “State of the Union,” in which host and chief national correspondent John King goes outside the Nation’s  to report on the issues affecting communities across the country. 

 

At one stop Wednesday, a handful of developmentally disabled passengers boarded outside a local facility where they work. One told CNN she optimistic “something will get done about it” but said she isn’t sure how she is supposed to get around after Friday.

Kimberly Barge is a staff attorney at Paraquad, the gym where the Falks and other local disabled residents attend classes.

“People are frustrated, angry — almost to the point of hopeless in some cases because there aren’t many other alternatives for the disability community as far as transportation goes,” Barge told CNN.

Jean McPherson boarded the bus with her infant daughter. The 20-year-old is going back to school to get her high school diploma and though short on cash, she says she is now forced to explore buying a used car.

“I might end up losing my job or not being able to take my daughter to day care,” is how she sees the consequence of her bus route being shortened so that it no longer stretches out to her community. “You can’t afford a car; that is why you use public transportation. So a lot of people are going to be in a bad situation.”

 

Click here to read more.

(Source: AASHTO)

Photo: Zen Skillicorn@flickr

Washington, DC – “Are we there yet? The perennial question asked by kids on a long car trip is the same one all Americans should be asking about our entire transportation network,” said John Horsley, Executive Director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). “Improving our transportation system must be a top priority for all of us since we are only investing half of what it would take to meet the needs of our nation’s growing population, demand for freight, and aging roads, bridges, and transit.”

 With the expiration date looming for the current federal transportation authorization, AASHTO has today launched a national campaign to build awareness and provide information on the critical needs of our nation’s transportation system.

Click here to explore the campaign.

Danny Moraff dressed as the D-Line for Halloween.

(Source: Boston Globe via Bernie Wagenglast)

(Source: Streetsblog)

How can federal policy encourage walkable street networks instead of highways and sprawl? 

(Source: The Transport Politic)

 23 km streetcar project to complement continent’s second metro line currently under construction

Last week, Algiers accepted the delivery of the city’s first trams from Alstom, which manufactured the vehicles at its facility in France. The Citadis light rail vehicles are as modern as any currently in operation in Europe, and they will be the first trams in operation in Algeria in fifty years. The system, which will traverse the principal sections of the 4 million-person metropolis, is expected to transport 185,000 riders a day, though the first stage will only be 16 km long and likely not carry as many passengers. If ridership predictions are accurate, the Algiers tramway will be one of the world’s most trafficked tramway lines. It was designed in collaboration withRATP (Paris’ transit operator) and Systra (an affiliate of France’s SNCF railways).

What’s interesting about Algiers’ tram program is that it is being developed simultaneously with the Metro of Algiers (pictured in the map to the right). The first phase of the Metro program will be 9 km underground and open this summer, though the project will eventually spread out over an area of several dozen km, opening consecutively over the next several years. The system, using Siemens technology, will incorporate automatic train control, minimizing gaps between trainsets and therefore expanding the potential number of voyagers.

Click here to read the entire article.

The school’s Mobile Experience Lab explores the future of life with the mobile handset

(Source: ContactlessNews via Bernie Wagenblast’  TCN)

Most trials of Near Field Communication (NFC) have involved payment applications at the neighborhood department store, restaurant or transit agency. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge took a different tact, however, attempting to illustrate the many other ways NFC could be used in everyday life.

The result was a video featuring several students and how they utilized NFC-compliant cell phones. Right now, it’s more a vision on how NFC can influence the lives of citizens, says Federico Casalegno, director of MIT’s Mobile Experience Lab and one of the movers behind this NFC project.

(Source: Earth2Tech & CNET)

According to IBM, which has just unveiled a new “smart rail” project in China, its software can help cut delays, increase uptime, reduce emissions and slash fuel costs, . The company has already rolled out software for high-speed rail projects in the Netherlands and Taiwan. As Big Blue readies for a round of layoffs, those projects could be key to the company’s bid for high-speed rail stimulus funds.  

IBM’s latest smart rail projects add computing intelligence behind the scenes — they’re less about connecting passengers with the web (Cisco’s focus in the San Francisco demo) and more about automating system management to improve efficiency.

In Taiwan, the High Speed Rail Corporation is using IBM’s Maximo software to manage maintenance and logistics (for example, reporting on conditions of signals, tracks and communication devices and automatically filing work orders) for a network of hundreds of trains, each capable of going up to 186 mph, IBM said in an announcement today. A relevant comparison for those of you in Silicon Valley: Caltrain maxes out at 79 mph.  The same software, Maximo, will power the asset management platform IBM is building for the state-owned rail operator in China’s Guangzhou City. IBM says it’s building a classification and coding system for all of GZ Metro’s software, services, tracks, trains, station shops and advertising spots as the railway operator gears up for a $176 billion expansion expected to double passenger capacity to 4 million per day.

CNET reports that Netherlands Railways used software from Ilog, which IBM bought last year, to optimize its schedule to best match its equipment–5,000 trains, 390 stations, and 2,800 kilometers of track–with passenger travel. By fine-tuning this complex system, the rail authority lowered its operating costs between 5 and 10 percent, saving about 20 million euros a year, according to IBM.

The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation is using an “asset-management package,” which IBM gained when itacquired MRO Software, to get trains running from the north side of the island to the south with a punctuality rate of 99.15 percent. The 90-minute trip replaces what would be a 4 1/2-hour trip by convention rail.

This CNET article also discussed the efforts undeertaken by the US in speeding up the High-speed rail investment.  IBM considers government funding for high-speed rail is the equivalent of “seed money” for large projects, said Ken Donnelly, transportation strategy manager for IBM’s Maximo asset-management product. As problems over traffic congestion and pollution become more acute, IBM’s Dierkx expects interest in rail to gain steam.

“In an economic downturn, a lot of green initiatives can come under pressure if you don’t have strategic foresight,” he said.

Click here to read the entire article.  Shown below is a video from IBM’s YouTube Channel (IBMSocialMedia), outlining the Transportation needs in China and how IBM is helping the government meet this challenge. 

(Source: Washington Examiner)

The majority of crimes in the system occur in Metro’s parking garages and lots, where items such as briefcases, laptops and cell phones are stolen from vehicles. Larceny rose 15 percent in parking lots since 2007.

Riders can take some solace that reported assaults declined somewhat. There were no rapes or homicides. But the number of thefts rose substantially.

Robberies, which involve theft from a person, jumped by nearly a third. Larceny, the most frequently reported crime, jumped 17 percent for a total of 864 cases, up from 739. Larceny is theft without the owner present.

“With more people in the system, more crime occurs,” said Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Jeff Delinski.

Yet not all of the increase can be explained by the 3 percent increase in ridership, which was well below the increase in serious crimes reported. And though transit police made more arrests last year than in 2007, the growth was smaller than the number of serious crimes overall.

Click here to read the entire report.