Canadian Urbanism Uncovered
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The TTC announced today that, in addition to Dundas station, 12 more stations are now equipped to display the next train arrival time. These stations are: Finch, Union, King, Queen, Eglinton West, St. George, Bay, Yonge, Keele, Bloor, High Park, and St. Andrew. The TTC says more stations will be added throughout the year.
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18 comments
Finally. It’s about 10 years too late. It’s about time.
cool, sure, but pretty useless in a system with a max headway of 5 minutes!
I am still of the opinion that they should be spending their money towards providing 24hr subway service and stop wasting money on “luxury items” like this.
too bad it’s buried beneath ads, weather commercials.
RE: Dan
Trust me, you’re not alone in the sentiment. I mean it would have been fine if the TTC upgraded the current red marquee signs already in use in the stations; a lot of metros use that sort of system and it seems to work fine plain and simple. Copenhagen, Denmark uses a system like that and so does San Francsico, CA. They should be cutting frivolous costs like these and saving for better projects.
But you guys are mostly alone in that sentiment. The next arrival times are in no way frivolous. We all know how bad the announcements are on the TTC so this is one cheap way of counter-acting that. Too often, in off-peak hours, I can wait at a station for 10-15 minutes without a train. If I knew the next train arrival time, I could get out and take a bus or streetcar.
Everyone complains about customer service on the TTC. This is one of the few things that will help us and does not take away anything. The savings form doing this project would be so minimal in comparison to the suggestion made by Dan (24 hour service of subways). We’re talking about $90,000 an hour to keep the subways working. AND, even if we had 24 hour service on the lines, these arrival times would be extremely useful then – no dount that the subway service at that time would be 10-15 minutes.
Stop complaining and be grateful that the TTC is actually listening to what riders want.
Today, Tuesday, April 14, St. George Station, southbound. As I reach the platform, the next arrival time shows 5 min. It turns to 4 min. A southbound train enters the station, stops and the doors open. The next arrival time continues to show 4 minutes as I enter the train.
Great idea in theory but…
Useful, but crippled by the fact that only the next arrival time shows up on the screen. Viva has multiple; even the Spadina steetcar has multiple. Having only a single arrival time in a tiny corner of a huge screen is ridiculous.
BTW, this is a prelude to Automatic Train Control, so it’s in no way frivolous. It’s just badly presented.
Ah, but multiple arrival times would mean taking away space from advertising, doncha know.
Really, to me, it’s bells and whistles. It will be a totally different thing when (if) it is rolled out at surface route stops. On the subway you have frequent service on average, and it is usually fairly reliable. Transit Control has very strict control of train headways (they have a big display showing time since last departure for each station, and things start flashing red if a train is more than 2 minutes late).
The one plus is that, as Moya says, it is probably a fairly low-cost feature to implement, again because of how closely Transit Control monitors subway operations and because the displays are already installed in most stations. This is the low-hanging fruit, if you will.
Leo Petr: why would you want to know when the second train comes? Most people get on the next train that comes. The only reason would be if you are waiting for someone at that platform, if that is the thing then you won’t care about the immediately next train.
Dan and anyone who wants 24hr. subway service: that would be a disaster.
Between 1:40am and 6am (9am sundays), they conduct repairs and replacements to signals, switches and the actual rails. When do you think they would be able to do it if there is 24/7 service in the subway? If they are replacing a switch, the train can’t go over it, if there is an out of order signal or if they are actually replacing the rail…I am not 100% sure but I am sure that
no track = no subway train , unless you feed the subway train RED BULL so it can grow some wings.
To ANY and EVERY service adjustment you have to look at the good and bad, and every change has a bad aspects.
Do you want more frequent service on your nearest route? sure: you will need more buses and drivers.
To get more buses and drivers you have two options (having super powers is not one of those options).
1) Take the buses/drivers out of another area, bad aspect: that area will loose quality so YOU can have more frequent service, how would you feel if the buses/drivers were taken out of your area.
2) Hire more drivers (remember we got to train them, even circus monkeys need some kind of training) and purchase more buses, bad aspect: IT COSTS MONEY, and I am sure you won’t want to pay more in fares or tax hike.
Bad aspect of 24hr. service: repairs and maintenance time goes down, thus things will break down quicker.
Too bad many stations still can’t even get next train countdowns because the One Stop screens weren’t installed systemwide as promised. It’d be especially useful on the Spadina Line stations north of St. Clair West when the TTC operates half-service in the AM Peak. Only Eglinton West has the telescreens on that section.
I think this borders on useless. I rarely wait more than two minutes for a train, and maybe once in a blue moon I’ll have to wait five or more. Having this at Finch station is particularly amusing since there is almost always at least one train in the station, and quite often two! Next arrival times would be far, far more useful on the surface network. There are many times I’ve waited 15 minutes or more for a bus and had I known I’d be waiting that long, I would have walked.
Agreed. This will be great on the surface network when it starts to roll out (in the fall, I think).
If subway/streetcar service has been stopped will a notice appear or will the next arrival time stay constant because the GPS system says it is still 4 minutes away? I have a feeling it will not be updated.
Next bus/streetcar signage on surface routes would be fantastic. How much revenue would they loose because now you know it is faster to walk those short distance trips? I rarely use tokens for short distance trips but would definitely walk it if I knew it would be faster.
Has there been any official talk of eventually providing next bus/streetcar signage at the shelters?
This is only useful if it is accurate, by which I mean it MUST be updated to immediately reflect any delays/stoppages/etc. Otherwise it risks making the situation worse as people catch on to the fact after 20 minutes that the train that is 5 minutes away is never coming.
If anyone can shed light on whether or not it will in fact be updated automatically/promptly it would be much appreciated.
Sorry, but this endeavour is more hi-tech PR than anything particulary of real added value for passengers. Most people should know how frequent trains arrive during rush hour (2 mins) and non-rush hour periods (5 mins). (HEY! maybe they can post signage to that effect on platforms or at entrances!) If times between trains are longer because of a delay, TTC already has the capability to make announcements on the trains and on the platforms. (HEY…maybe they should use it as needed.)
Now if the TTC really wanted to make some effective use of hi-tech wizardry, maybe they can install some properly functioning time-pieces on ALL platforms. Why is it that some stations have not had properly functioning time pieces for years? I’m not exaggerating. On the Pape, Donlands, Greenwood platforms, the clocks haven’t been working for years. There is no excuse for this — especially when money is being spent on “next-train” technology for other platforms.
Now if the TTC really wanted to make some effective use of hi-tech wizardry, maybe they can install some properly functioning time-pieces on ALL platforms.
If you don’t have a cellphone (doubtful), ask the person standing next to you. I can’t even remember the last time I looked at a clock.
Anon,
The issue isn’t whether I have the time (since I do have a cell phone). Not everbody does though — and also, not everybody’s watch is set with equal precision. The benefit of platform clocks is that it should in theory show the exact time, at all platforms.
Also while I admire new technology as much as the next person, a lot of these new gadgets seem to be more about generating PR than about making actual improvements. For me, there is something out of synch when an organization that has so many nonfunctionning time-pieces on its platforms (and in fact, seems to have stopped repairing them alltogether) goes ahead and spends millions of dollars on a feature so that some platforms can show what time the next train will be coming. Why is this feature such a big deal given that the train should be coming within 5 minutes max (2 minutes during rush) — and that delays longer than that can already be announced with existing technology? Is it really worth spending millions of dollars for a feature that enables people to distinguish between the next train coming in 2 minutes vs. 3 minutes? Is being able to make this distinction the best use of these resources? Sorry, but I don’t see this as a wise expenditure.
PS. Of course, in suggesting that this new feature will allow us to make such distinctions, I’m making a very big assumption — that it will in fact be kept in WORKING ORDER. And given all the non-functionning clocks on subway platforms, that really is a very big assumption.