NYC subway gets a computerized facelift

Some resistance
Yet for all its promised benefits, the plan has met some resistance.

Several city council members and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum have joined the train conductors’ union in raising safety concerns. The union acknowledges that its opposition stems partly from the fact that 119 conductors will be made redundant in the first phase of the plan alone, while about 2,700 more could lose their jobs systemwide.

Opponents worry that without conductors, evacuation in emergencies could be slow and disorderly, and train doors could close on passengers. Conductors typically ride in a middle car, checking to see that passengers get on and off trains safely and overseeing the safe opening and closing of doors.

Transit officials counter that in the new system, doors won’t be able to close and trains won’t be able to depart a station if there’s an obstruction.

Opponents are also wary of a system that puts so much trust in computers and automated signals, which they fear could be vulnerable to malfunction or terrorists.

“They’re going to be sending signals via radio waves,” said Councilman Lewis Fidler, a Democrat from Brooklyn. “I don’t want to find out that someone hacks into the system and makes a train disappear and another train rams into it.”

Such a scenario is unlikely, said Tom Sullivan, an independent transit consultant with Transportation Systems Design in Oakland, Calif., who helped design the L-line upgrade.

The data carried on radio waves are encrypted, so only an internal leak could compromise its security, he said. Though it’s possible to jam the radio signal, he said, that would only make the train stop.

Sullivan, who also helped develop an automated line for San Francisco Municipal Railway in the 1980s, said he knows of no serious problems from hacking or malfunction.

He is more concerned that the piecemeal approach the city is now taking could mean technology becomes obsolete by the time new lines are upgraded in the future.

Compounding the problem, several different companies currently manufacture CBTC equipment, and parts from one company are not compatible with another.

To have a truly integrated system, the city would have to continue buying all its equipment from Siemens AG, effectively giving it a monopoly.

“The challenge is to get the companies to build equipment that’s compatible with each other, so different trains can run on different lines,” Sullivan said. “You don’t want a winner-take-all situation.”

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