[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=i7rdsUa1MBU[/youtube]
The TTC recently asked for RFP submissions on subway platform screens. These structures would be placed on the edge of the platform where the current thick yellow line is located. The above video — from Toky’s Namboku line — gives us a clue to what the screens could look like in Toronto.
I have a few thoughts on this topic, as I’m sure some of our readers do too. Firstly, I wonder if this is necessary. I’m unaware of the the TTC’s rationale behind the RFP, but I suspect it has something to do with suicide jumpers and the delays these tragic incidents cause to the subway system.
The second thought is whether this is the wisest way to spend money. Again, I’m sure the TTC could calculate the the financial cost of delays from jumpers and the like. But with millions to be spent on purchasing and installing the screens, I wonder if its better to spend money on more eco-friendly buses. I know the environmentalist in me might argue that taking inefficient buses off the street could save a handful of lives too.
The last thought has more to do with the TTC shilling out to advertisers. As anyone who rides the subway system knows, advertising is continually increasing on the subway system: the wall-mounted ads are now much bigger; station domination campaigns sometimes cover entire walls that were not meant to house ads. I fear that the installation of screens will only give advertisers another surface to cover. Let me be clear: I understand the TTC needs money, but ad revenue only contributes a tiny, tiny fraction to the bottom line of the TTC. For instance, the One Stop video screens generate about $1 million a year for the TTC, which means that you would have to ride the TTC 3,733 times to save a single dollar. It seems to me that the visual impact on the the TTC’s system far outweighs what TTC riders get in return.
I’m interested in your thoughts.
34 comments
In addition to preventing people from falling/jumping onto the tracks, subway platform screens can also provide a few other benefits.
If they are full screens (rather than 1/2 screens found in some places like Paris) they can reduce station maintenance & heating/cooling costs by keeping the air in the station & dirt/dust on the tracks.
And platform screens can also increase the effective capacity of a platform by enabling people to safely stand closer to the platform edge. In some cases, this may be cheaper than widening the platform.
Thanks Dan. I thought about those things but couldn’t articulate them.
For instance, the One Stop video screens generate about $1 million a year for the TTC,
Don’t forget the kennel ads…those gotta be worth a couple hundred.
Dan’s comment on circulation is fair, but in the Toronto subway the ventilation fans etc, would all end up in the track area, so it would mess up the air flow in the passenger platform zone. Also, with full screens, there needs to be somewhere the air rush from an incoming train can go – the stations would need to have redesigned air flow plans, or the trains could blow out the platform screens.
If you picture the provincial government as two cows, you’ll almost always find that the “public health & safety” cow has much more milk than the “general revenue” cow.
Upper levels of governments love big projects, because citizens can see the results everywhere they go. I suspect this is why MoveOntario went big when they could have easily spent the money on several thousand buses instead.
Anyway, combining those two thoughts, platform screen doors are one of those projects that hit right at the heart of things governments want to fund: Big projects that improve public safety.
Maybe I’m a bit cynical, but I say milk the cow for all its worth.
They have these screens in Singapore (although I can’t imagine it has anything to do with reducing dirt or dust, because there isn’t a speck of that anywhere in Singapore).
It’s interesting, though, that the screens are only present in the underground stations there; they don’t have them in their outdoor/above ground platforms (like Old Mill or Summerhill).
not to get too morbid but the economics of jumping in front of trains are very different in toronto and tokyo. in toronto, if you jump in front of a train, your life insurer will not pay out to your family. this is not true in japan. people jump in front of trains in tokyo with alarming frequency, often after bring laid off and feeling that there is no other way to maintain honour and provide for ones family. the train companies tried to dissuade people from doing so by charging surviving family members for the clean-up costs of the suicide. different companies charged different amounts for clean-up costs (train and subway lines in tokyo are privately owned, often by different companies). so, the “cheap clean-up” lines have the highest rate of… delays. when i lived there recently the chuo line was choice in this respect. anyway, all of this factors into the decision of whether to build those barriers.
another interesting thing that is much less morbid is this: those barriers on the tokyo subway are useful for information signage. the namboku line in tokyo has posted the equivalent of a subway efficiency guide beside every single doorway!
There is a similar thread on Torontoist.
To briefly restart my thoughts in favour:
1. Better air quality due less metal brake dust particulates. Maybe less sweaty in summer too.
2. Automatic Train Operation is a prerequisite due to precise stops. Allegedly on the Yonge line by 2016.
3. If it moves jumpers elsewhere, I don’t care and I bet the drivers traumatised by jumpers and passengers stuck due to TTC’s poor information response to same don’t either.
I would also add that knowing where the doors are might create more rational queueing patterns at stations like Bloor.
I wonder if the Commissioners had lofty thoughts on how to have a better subway system or one of them went to the airport and came back wondering why the rollercoaster to the car park had platform doors and not the subway.
This also serve for future Air conditioning within the stations on hot days. The shield prevents AC from escaping into the tunnels. Hong Kong has these all over the place.
The recently-built Copenhagen Metro also has them only in underground stations, not outdoor ones. I find they really give the station a different feel, more of a horizontal elevator than a train system.
Do any TTC stations already have ductwork above the platforms? I thought they all relied on natural air movement through the tunnel (and tunnel fans for emergencies). If walling off the tunnel means adding air conditioning to each station, it’ll quickly get messy and expensive.
i would thiks it would cut down on debris on track level while also making the platforms seem much smaller without the open space across the tracks.
and i bet the folks that designed the new museum station wouldn’t like to see screens up blocking the view of their new walls.
oh, and we wouldn’t be able to see the almost-camouflaged mice anymore.
otherwise i’m all for it.
I just received this from the TTC:
– – – – – – – – – – –
Although they have been considered in the past, the context has changed a bit, and the rationale behind considering them now can be roughly broken down as:
– with the delivery of the new subway cars, and the implementation of resignalling with automatic train control, on the YUS line, this is the first time the screens could be feasible, as trains will now be able to stop precisely every time and line up with them
– with new stations being built as part of the Spadina line extension, it’s appropriate to determine whether or not screen doors are appropriate and feasible in their designs, considering the above
– given their cost, screen doors would not likely be installed across the whole system, but could be very helpful in crowd control and reducing crush loading at the busiest stations with the most overloaded platforms (e.g. Bloor-Yonge, Union, St. George) as people would now know precisely where to line up for the doors. This, in turn, would of course reduce delays and allow for improved service
– screen doors could have helped to reduce or eliminate up to 4670 minutes–almost 78 hours–of system delays in 2007 due to:
1. access to track level (2484 minutes)
2. doors (both passenger and debris-related) (1424 minutes)
2. track level fires (usually a result of debris such as newspapers blowing onto the tracks) (762 hours.)
Bear in mind that even a few minutes’ delay during a busy rush hour can affect thousands of people as the cars begin to bunch up waiting to enter the station.
A presentation on these delays and a plan for subway service improvement, including these statistics was made at the last Commission meeting. Given their potential for reducing service delays, the screen doors are really about improving service. A decision about whether or not to actually install them would come later, but now is an appropriate time to at least study them in the new context. As I mentioned, there has been no discussion I’m aware of about advertising on the doors.
Nice idea, but for all the above reasons not very economically or practically feasible in retrofit situations. Go ahead and install them on new stations, but leave the existing ones alone.
Have any cities in North America bothered doing this?
If I recall, the TTC was very interested in this back in the 80’s after a couple mishaps with passengers.
I imagine Local 113 would be against this proposal – what use would a guard have? (Although they did manage to get an operator on the “fully automated” Scarboro RT)
I say let them jump. What are the costs of providing health care to those suffering from depression to the point of suicide? It’s much cheaper for us to pay for the clean up bodies than it is for OHIP to pay for therapy, councelling and anti-depression meds. I’m just sayin’…
In my mind it would be overkill to install these across the system, especially given the costs of purchase, installation, ventilation retrofits, and maintenance. I can, however, see justification for installing them at some key stations.
But if they want to install these doors anywhere, I think they should consider the new underground LRT stations (ie. Eglinton line) first. Why? The underground portions of Transit City are, for all intents and purposes, going to behave much like a subway, with advanced signalling, vehicles coupled into trains of 2+, and short headways, which is good. The tricky part, however, is that the vehicles will be low-floor. So, imagine the subway, but with the platforms/boarding at track level, and you begin to see why this might be very troublesome. If we think we’ve got delay problems in the subway now, imagine when one step forward will put you right in the path of an oncoming train. Level access to the tracks of an underground rapid transit line is a recipe for disaster, and while we can argue about the semantics of calling Transit City “rapid transit”, at very least the underground portions will be rapid. If anywhere on the system, this is where screens should be included.
I think the idea of using platform doors isn’t entirely a bad one, however this does require that the entire air flow of the station be changed, you need somewhere to put tunnel air pressure, and you need some way of ventilating the platform area. The problem with jumpers is this, whenever there is a jumper, it means shutting the system down, for cleanup, which can take 30 minutes to an hour. It means relieving the operator, some of whom are greatly affected, and they never operate a subway again, meaning wasted training costs. Never take jumpers lightly until you talk to a subway supervisor who has had to go to track level and see if the person was successful at suicide or not, far fewer are then you would expect. Which is why cleanup takes so long, often they need to take what’s left to the hospital. Subway wheels are not cutting injuries, they are crushing injuries, and a 40+ tonne subway car does a lot of crushing…
These doors can’t be retrofit easily, as new air flow control needs to be determined, and routed. When refreshing a station or building new, is when this kind of work can be done, and is when it should be done. The idea of being able to heat stations in winter, and air condition them in summer, makes the station more comfortable for passengers. More comfortable stations also mean more people are likely to use the system. Less debris at track level means fewer track level fires, fewer dropped items, and more orderly conduct at door points, as everyone knows where the door will be when the train stops.
With respect to the argument that ads contribute such a tiny percentage of revenues that they’re not worth the visual impact — I would take the opposite interpretation. The TTC simply isn’t charging enough for permission to run ads. This is revenue that isn’t being captured.
With respect to the doors — this is a maintenance nightmare waiting to happen. In the Torontoist thread someone pointed out the frequency with which other mechanical things such as elevators and escalators are broken down and require service on the TTC. Multiply that by X doors for N stations…
With respect to suicide jumpers, a much cheaper approach would be to put up barriers at the ‘killing zone’ at the tunnel to station entrance point. A high percentage of attempts are unsuccessful because the people fail to reason out the most effective location from which to jump. (you want to jump where the driver has no chance to react and where the train is going fastest) Eliminating the kill zone at least would reduce the success rate.
Joe, the insensitivity of your comments aside, what’s the cost of the disability and treatment for the operator who has a front row seat? What’s the cost of the delays in economic loss?
My experience with these screens was in Singapore and some stations in Hong Kong where they seemed to be used purely for environment controls. Most, if not all, of the station in Singapore are air conditioned, so maintained the integrity of the space would be essential.
An irrational part of me hates seeing all the danger come out of the city…however…
I wouldn’t like to see these screens lead to something like enhanced (perhaps energy consuming) environmental controls in the stations. The London underground is either really hot or really cold and…well…we just get on with it. An excess of comfort is also something I’d rather not see in a city and it generally the domain of medium-sized cities, like Toronto…and Singapore.
“1. access to track level (2484 minutes)”
Would this be the latest euphamism for jumpers?
I suppose this could include people who go “hey, you know what, I think I’ll climb down there and take a look around just for the heck of it!” but I seriously doubt that happens very often.
Ian, yes, though it would also include idiots who decide to go get something they’ve dropped off the platform, and people spotted wandering the tunnels.
BTW, I think the 3,773 rides number for OneStop is wrong. If you spread $1 million over 460 million rides a year, each ride gets 1/460th of a dollar; or $1 for every 460 rides.
Screens are a very good idea. They have this same system in hong kong as well. One of the advantages I see as well is it allows people waiting on the platform to stand to the sides when waiting for a train, this way when the train comes people aren’t guessing where the train is going to stop in relation to the doors.
This is certainly something I can support, if for no other reason than my girlfriend feeling uneasy near the edge of the platform. I think this is a common fear.
Another point which I didn’t consider, is if these were installed and they were full screens that trapped in heat during the winter the ttc could actually reduce the amount of T8 fluorescent lamps they use at the platforms. Considering the amount of time these lamps are used would save a considerable amount of electricity and also end up saving the ttc a significant amount of money.
The reason for this is light output from fluorescent lamps is temperature sensitive.
It’s not just people who commit suicide…people have been pushed in front of trains in the past. The upshot from my perspective as a transit fan is it would eliminate the TTC’s already threadbare rationale for eliminating the front facing view out of trains, which is what they plan to do on the next generation of train car sets.
The whole question of “is this the right way to spend money?” can get tricky. Are there numerous things the TTC can do to improve? Yes. Are there ways of investing this money that could have a bigger impact on system performance and rider experience? Maybe (maybe the money should be used to restore and preserve the beloved stylistic continuity of our transit lines!).
But this is a long way off since it could not be phased in until the new signal systems and trains are in place. So how about we take this chance to pat the TTC on the back for their rare display of forethought and planning.
I say let them jump. What are the costs of providing health care to those suffering from depression to the point of suicide? (quote from above)
*****
What a ridiculous statement. By your logic, we shouldn’t offer health care or medications to those who eat unhealthy foods which cause heart disease and stroke later in life, those who smoke, drink alcohol to excess and I could go on & on. Sheesh! Where is your compassion?
Anyway, the screens make sense to me for many reasons. As subway ridership continues to increase they’ll make even more sense for safety reasons in the future.
I think the screens are required. Here’s why.
Last December I headed down the steps at the Yonge station. I was in a bit of a hurry as I could hear the train coming in. As I walked down the platform towards the end, I slipped on an invisible patch of water. In attempting to stay upright I actually ended up catipulting towards the tracks as I also attempted to hold on to two packages. It was a terrifying few moments. I almost went over the edge but stopped short about a meter. The floors should be coated with a non-slip wax too.
There have been far too many incidents of this kind of thing happening, the latest reported recently.
Barriers of some kind please.
Let’s design the subways properly.
If automated control is coming with the new trains, then I can certainly see no problem with installing doors at: 1. the new Spadina-line stations as part of their design; 2. busy stations as mentioned above Bloor/Yonge, Union, etc.; 3. any other station whose design can accommodate them without significant impact on other design aspects (ventilation, etc as mentioned above).
Doors aside, the automated-stop system would still be aligning the doors at the same spot every time from now on. This can also be referenced at existing stations with little budget output, even if it’s just markings on the platform floor (though a simple low barrier on the non-door areas could also be put in).
The train that I board today at Finch station hitted someone at North York Centre. Let me tell you, this is a MUST. Not only of the delay it cause, more importantly, is the emotion that other passengers or people on the platform has to go through. I was inside the train, I didn’t see the accident, and I was afraid to look at the arriving train on my way back home after work. I am sure the people on the platform would have more dramatic impacts. I still remember the crying and screaming faces of people on the platform as they witness the event. I feel so sad that we are not doing preventive measure to prevent this kind of PREVENTABLE accidents. To be honest, the true victims are the witnesses. If you kids is on the platform, I am sure you don’t want he/she to witness this as this will definitely has an impact on the child. The TTC operations really sucks. I have been in Toronto for 20 years, they only manage to expand 4 stations. They seems to don’t know what is important. They claim they have no money, but yet, they spent 10M to renovate the Museum station (only 8500 passenger a day there). I really don’t understand what people are thinking!
I honestly think that this is a worthwhile investment of government money, I think it is necessary and needs to be done asap. When I started reading this, I didn’t see it as being a pressing issue, but now, after reading all your comments (compounded with my fear of being pushed off the platform) I think this is necessary, at least at the more crowded stations. Maybe not at the outdoor stations because it would really ruin the look. But at the regular stations I would implement it asap.
Personally, I think the island stations (the ones where there is one train on each side as opposed to like the trains in the middle and the platforms on each side) should get the screens first. If you are not on an island station you can stand as far back as you need to to be safe, without moving towards the other platform (of course the problem is, you will get pushed out of the way when the train comes and might not be able to get on). But on the island stations you can’t move far back from one platform without getting too close to the other. So that’s why I think the islands stations should get the screens first.
The other issue, of course is that it’s safer for people dropping stuff off the platform and of course for children.
IMO, this is a good use of funding and should be implemented as soon as the automated trains are implemented as well.
From the video it looks as though there is enough space in between the barrier door and the train door for someone to squeeze in and wait for the next train if they were determined enough to commit suicide.
^An incident similar to that actually happened in Shanghai, China. A man was trying to get on a train when the doors closed, trapping him inbetween the platform and train. He was subsequently killed as the train left.
But incidents like that aside, I think these doors should be installed.
Besides the safety of passengers and their comfort in maintaining climate control a third reason is keepings peoples hands off the doors. You just will not bother trying to hold two sets of doors open. This will help TTC keep to its schedule. Platform edge screens/doors will become the norm real soon — especially at all high volume stations.
They work in many places and it makes the station feel safer especially when you are with children.