One of the main underlying causes is that the working class hasn’t been allowed to benefit as much from productivity gains due to automation as the Epstein class has.
We’ve all seem the graph about productivity vs wage, but what it implicates is an intentional divide set up between tech advances and labor rights to paint workers as a bunch of Luddites stifling progress.
UBI and tax code overhaul would help eliminate resistance to applying new technology
Originally enacted in 1964 to protect workers during the transition from private to public ownership of mass transit, the provision now blocks the modernization of transit operations: no legacy US heavy-rail system has automated its operations to permit trains to run without onboard crew. In contrast, countries like France and Canada, each with robust labor protections, automate without conflict.
Okay, can we get those robust labor protections first, and then fully automate public transit?
Okay that’s it were overturning Brown v. Board of Education.
To each their own. Door.
Any more comments on the law or the Great Orange One and it’s magna Carta next
This just sounds like union busting under the guise of automation.
Transit automation can drastically reduce operating costs and improve service, but the open-ended 13© certification process provides labor with an effective veto on such changes.
Section 13© specifies several categories of required protection: preservation of rights, privileges, and benefits under existing collective bargaining agreements;
Do you think we should still have elevator operators?
I don’t necessarily disagree with automation. I think the article is being disingenuous with their reasons for it.
To start off, the posts headline is inaccurate. It’s not against any law to have automated transport systems. The US has had automated train systems for 50+ years. They were designed that way from the start though. The article is complaining about systems that were not designed with automation in mind. They are not being retrofitted because of this particular regulation that was designed to protect existing workers.
From the posted article:
Yet no legacy US heavy rail system has been retrofitted for full automation. Many legacy US systems already use automatic train control (ATC) technology that can operate trains without a driver — San Francisco’s BART trains have run under automatic control since the system opened in 1972, and WMATA’s trains in the DC-Maryland-Virginia region are similarly automated. But no legacy system has removed onboard operators and transitioned to unattended operation.
Since they mention BART, their own website says removing train operators does basically nothing to solve their financial issues. It just moves costs around and ignores the insane cost to retrofit it in the first place that would likely take decades to recoup.
Train Operator salaries and benefits (including overtime) makes up 7.8% of the FY27 Preliminary Operating Budget $1.05B. That is $81-$83M ($71.5M in wages and benefits and the overtime budget is about $11M). The structural deficit is up to $400M per year. If regulations allowed BART to remove Train Operators, there would be costs associated with no longer having train operators on board such as increased operation control center staffing and more at the ready staff presence for incident response etc. – and that’s not even considering the significant upfront capital costs.
From budget data I could find, the BART police department was a larger slice of the budget than the train operators.
Hmmm. When it’s retrofitting, I tend to agree with you. It’s a stopgap for building a new integrated system that was built from the ground up with no operators in mind. Also, regarding BART, that’s a passenger system, which is its own can of worms. A ton of wheat, in a receptacle designed for it, does not generally start making trouble that you haven’t thought of yet.
People, though…
Do you think we should try to comprehend what we read?
Sorry, I don’t speak Latin.
Skill issue
ironically they only introduced these regulations after turning public transport into a publicly-owned company? at least it says so in the article.
to me it sounds like it’s actually about making public transport more expensive and therefore less competitive to the end user which will ensure that people buy more cars, which generates more revenue for the economy overall.
They’re working on changing that whole public thing…
Public private partnerships (P3s) are contractual agreements between a public agency and a private entity that allow for greater private participation in the delivery of projects. In transportation projects, this participation typically involves the private sector taking on additional project risks such as design, construction, finance, long-term operation, and traffic revenue.
The transit authority in my state is already in one of these agreements.
No private sector entity will agree to something like that with a union in place. Corporate America despises unions.
Yeah, but… If we’re paying people to just sit on a train for 8 hours at a time, never actually doing anything…
Then they’re really there for when things go wrong. Like pilots, the plane flies itself 99% of the time, they’re just there to take over when things arent going according to plan.
In Sydney, Australia we have fully automated subway with no drivers in them, called the metro
when some US president once visited china, he visited a construction site where they used shovel to excavate the ground. he asked “why no bagger?” and the chinese president replied “sothat we create more jobs”. the US president said “next time, tell them to use a spoon instead!”
i think it’s a fitting description. why bother with workplaces; everything that can be reasonably automated should be automated; in the end, it will be anyways. who are we kidding? how long is this game of not-doing-things-the-way-they’re-better supposed to go on? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? then what? we’ll face the future one way or another; why not try to face it in a clear and straightforward way?
funny that this has flipped around now, with china’s many entirely automated factories that can run without internal lighting
The risk factors of a airplane and subway train are so different and you must surely know that
Obviously brother, just making an analogy.
airplane and subway train are different
Ok, but you do realize a subway can still catch fire, right? Or someone could have a heart attack. Just because you won’t fall to your death, doesn’t mean people can’t still die.
I just don’t understand what good would a human conductor do in those scenarios that sensors and workers at the station couldn’t? Trains go in a tight loop with regular stops on the ground in special tunnels and are under constant watch. A single person adds no real line of protection to that system
Guy having a heart attack. Operator overides the controls, contacts 911, sets an ambulance to show up at the stop that will be fastest for EMS. In my city, sometimes the elevators are down at certain stations. So maybe the operator drives past the next 2 stations without stopping all while being in contact with 911 operators, and at the same time using the intercom to alert other passengers on other cars (since trains are multiple cars long) what is going on so they don’t get mad that the train didn’t even stop at their stop.
An automated system would have just went to the next stop as normal. Stopped, opened the doors for 30 seconds, and then resumed as normal.
Fire - If a small fire broke out, the train operator could stop the train, wherever it is, open the doors, use the intercom to evacuate the train. Then use communications to stop all other nearby trains so they don’t hit any passengers now jumping off a train onto other train tracks. Then, when everyone is safe, use the fire extinguisher.
If automated systems can even detect a fire, the most it could physically do is stop the train, and open the doors. Computer code can’t physically use a fire extinguisher, and I wouldn’t trust AI in an emergsncy situation to get people to safety.
Can’t all that be done by remote control from HQ?
Sounds like, as with so many things, we’re getting the worst of both worlds. USA! USA! USA!
Maybe it’s just me, but I find fully automated transit slightly creepy, at least when it comes to passenger trains. I personally prefer when there’s somebody human still on board having an eye on things.
the ideal is automated trains with conductors going back and forth keeping an eye on things and helping people
also note the inconsistency that cars are allowed to go self-driving in some circumstances (and those are expanding) while subways are not? even though subways are simpler and safer to automate because they literally only go forward, there’s no pedestrians crossing the road, etc.
Long sections of the Los Angeles Metro rail run “at-grade” meaning street level. Pedestrians have been killed at intersections and also by trying to cut across the tracks between official crossings because they’re spaced too far apart. Editing to add, cars have also been hit. There are signals and crossing arms but it’s possible to get around them. Not 100% sure if it’s better having a human in charge since they probably can’t stop and will feel bad. But if you’re automating, you’d need to program in Asimov’s 1st Law.
You basically can’t automate unless you have full grade separation
In the aviation world, we have this concept called Pilot In Command. The buck stops with the PIC, they are solely responsible for and the final authority as to the operation of the aircraft. Something goes wrong, it’s on the pilot. This is borrowed from the maritime industry.
Meanwhile, we’ve got driverless cars on the road right now with no clear legal authority over them.
But just the 1st, we all know what happens when you implement all 3.
No… the problem is that they wouldn’t have an incentive or even the ability to implement them
So instead of workers rights, we get pointless jobs. Nice.
and worse public transport! :D
Similarly in London, trains on some Underground lines are almost automated. They have drivers, whose job is to push the open/close door buttons at stops and keep an eye on things; once the doors are closed, the train drives itself to the next stop. This is largely to placate the unions.
Partially, not largely.
The TFL would need to spend an absolute fortune to upgrade all the antiquated stations and rolling stock whilst keeping the underground largely functional.
It’s just standard rightwing media cant to lay the blame on the unions.
The DLR is fully automated, though there is a fold away drivers position for use when necessary. iirc It never runs at street grade and sometimes does have software issues which makes things interesting.
I am pretty sure the victoria line has drivers for show. It was one of the very first lines to be automated and, at the time, it was thought that passengers would panic if there were no driver, so they kept with tradition.
yeah iirc the same is true for airplanes. technically, basically the whole flight could be automated, but for regulatory reasons there always have to be pilot in the cockpit anyways.
This isn’t just US and it isn’t just trains. You’re not getting fully automated airplanes either. Risk is just too high
you can’t compare trains to airplanes, automated trains are the safest way to travel.
