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How the M.T.A.’s Attempts to Improve the System Hurt Commuters

The M.T. A. is the main medium of transportation used by commuters in New York. Thousands of New Yorkers rely on the transit system to get to and from work but they are used to the unreliable wait times and overcrowded congestion on trains. The M.T. A. was not always like this, but two major decisions in the past two years have caused on-time trains to decrease 84% to 58%. The two decisions to slow down trains and to increase space between trains to improve worker safety caused an exponential increase in the amount of delays. The authorities and the workers who drive the trains utilize information cascading to determine when to slow down and speed up the trains.

When a train is delayed, it slows down the system and can lead to a cascade of delays that cause an entire line to be late. Increasing the spacing between trains caused works to make decisions that slowed down their train too much and too often because either the train ahead of them was too slow or they were afraid they were going too fast. The M.T. A. also decided to install more signals throughout the railway lines to slow down trains and avoid collisions. The way signals work is that when a train passes a signal switch, its emergency brakes are automatically triggered if the speed at which it is traveling is faster than the speed limit. This caused workers to slow down right before signals because they did not want their emergency brakes triggered, causing a ripple effect of an overall slower train service if all the drivers decide to slow down to avoid involuntary brake-triggering. In this case, information cascading influences others at the detriment of the commuters who use this service.

Source: New York Times

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