Other train systems manage exactly that. In Japan being even a minute late isn’t acceptable. This isn’t some impossible fantasy thwarted by human nature.
Your comment is exactly what I’m talking about. The MTA has managed to train us to accept this awful state as unavoidable and natural. Don’t buy their bullshit.
> this is also in part due to the way people use the subway in NY -- nobody looks at a timetable and says "i'll head down to the station to catch the 6:37 express" like you would in some cities with reliable timetables/schedules. in NY, you just go to the station and wait and hope the train you want shows up next/soon.
That was true 15 years ago, but it's less true today now that there's a multitude of apps (both the first-party MyMTA app and many third-party apps which are much better) which make this easy.
Even Google Maps gives train times in their directions, and they're mostly accurately updated as delays happen, etc.
THe keyword here is “supposed”. I don’t have regular experience with NYC subway, but used to ride Toronto subway everyday, which is the subject to the similar problems. The trains do arrive every 3-5 minutes on weekdays, but then something happens (security incident on a train, unauthorized person on a track level, fires, signal problems, or - the most horrible - “personal injury on a track level”, the language for someone falling in front of the arriving train - intentionally or not. Then everything stops for tens of minutes, or hours in worst cases, stations get overcrowded, buses get sent to operate on the route, taxis and Uber’s are impossible to get and so on. Things like this push average delay times up, not the uniform slowness of the trains throughout the day.
It's downright nonsense because the NYC MTA and even the notoriously incompetent Boston MBTA can do it. Meanwhile Amtrak apparently can't do it either, but at least they have the luxury of long wait times between arrival and departure.
I have seen them wrong, it didn't ruin the goodwill. What I take away from the clocks are minor delays that don't get mentioned in the official notifications. I often see arrival times like "1 3 15 21" (literally a sample taken right now for my home station) and know something is wrong, but there is no communication from the MTA about it. I then choose an alternate route.
What the MTA needs to fix is when the schedule says that trains run every 3 minutes, the countdown clock needs to look like "1 4 7 10", not "1 4 33 36".
> * They only publish the scheduled times, not the actual estimated arrival times
Do you have a source for this? I'm positively certain it's not true. I time my commute every morning with the online subway clock that matches exactly with the one in the station -- I leave my apartment when the Q is ~8m away and it always arrives shortly after I get to the platform. I've only encountered one situation where the clock was unacceptably wrong: a downtown A train at 59th that was 1m away for over 5m. That happened over a year ago and I still remember it.
Similarly, when delays happen the clock does get updated accordingly. Today was a good example -- 24m for the next N train during commuting hours :/
I think you may be confusing the countdown clocks with the kiosks. Once upon a time they did display the scheduled time. I'm not sure if they still do but the above head displays are without a doubt more accurate. Anecdotally speaking, the margin of error seems to be roughly +/- one minute. I'm aware that's anecdotal evidence but I simply don't believe that somebody could take the subway on a daily basis and think the countdown clocks are that inaccurate.
> There should never be the case when it says a train is 8 minutes away and a train behind it is 9 minutes away when a train gets to the station in 2 minutes and the train behind it gets to the station in 5 minutes.
This is like complaining about a car trip taking less time than Google Maps predicted, due to an accident ahead of you getting cleared up before you reach that stretch of road.
Unpredictable things happen on public transit: sick passengers, police activity, signal problems, mechanical failures, cascading delays causing platform crowding and longer board times. These things cause delays, and then on the tail-end of the event, sometimes they cause trains to be "early" when the delay clears up. Even then, though, in my experience it's pretty rare that the train comes before the time on the countdown clock.
All things considered, I find the countdown clocks to be pretty accurate a vast majority of the time. And they're certainly a huge improvement over how things were before they were installed: a loud beeping noise about a minute before the train arrived, sometimes paired with a muffled inaudible announcement from the station attendant over an ancient PA system.
I knew a guy who worked for the local rail transit despots. He used to take their service into work until they told him he had to stop being late and that delays in their own service was not an excuse. At least they weren't in denial about their quality of service.
It's doesn't matter, it is not acceptable. They should refund everyone if the train is more than 15 seconds late. This is something a train can do with computer control, and good maintenance. A bus is harder to be on schedule for.
As someone who lives a couple of minutes of biking away from the train station, a train leaving 20 sec early would be extremely annoying and would cause me more delay than a train leaving 25 minutes late. I'd appreciate an apology.
Reminds me of Amtrak’s handling of time changes - the train either waits at a station until leave time (if it was less than an hour late) or it just becomes an hour late depending on which time change it was.
The German train system uses TTS in all stations to announce (among other things) delays and cancellations. Cancellations are usually followed by the phrase "we apologize". This has always been for me the most infuriating part: that the fakest of apologies was attached to it.
In contrast, getting actual information about the delay works for me, precisely because it feels more honest.
I totally agree. I was stuck at the Broadway Junction station this weekend waiting for the L. Every 5 min or so, both the screen and the announcer would claim it is now arriving. We were there for 35 min. I was supposed to meet some friends and initially I was updating them that it's about to get there. Eventually, they were almost pissed because they thought I was lying. Had to send pics.
I really really get frustrated by the inaccuracies. I'd rather they just let me know straight up that it's 30 min away and I make alternative arrangements.
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