Comment by contingencies
13 hours ago
In Sydney we are very close to Asia so the shame of our rotting train system finally caused the city to invest in modern driverless underground transit, termed 'the metro'. I believe planning began in the 1990s and it only really launched about 5 years ago, so 20 years or so in the making. This system is much faster, cleaner and more modern than the older surface rail, largely helped by the fact it's way underground in most sections due to a lack of surface land availability. However, it frequently stops or requires maintenance and is run by a totally separate bureaucracy than the rail system, who apparently refuse to communicate despite having shared stations. This leads to situations such as one encountered this weekend whereby the rail operator had track work scheduled on a major section of their route, and simultaneously the metro system had disrupted service, such that a great number of passengers were stranded. More importantly, even when it is working they do not coordinate arrival times, such that it is exceptionally common to arrive on one mode, where the platform faces directly the other mode, but it has just departed. 30 seconds of scheduling either side would greatly increase efficiency, but it's nobody's department. This is the sort of thing they do perfectly in Japan, but Australia is a country of 1000 little scams with everyone fervently minding their own scam. We urgently need to replace corrupt humans with AI.
"More importantly, even when it is working they do not coordinate arrival times, such that it is exceptionally common to arrive on one mode, where the platform faces directly the other mode, but it has just departed. 30 seconds of scheduling either side would greatly increase efficiency, but it's nobody's department."
This worked perfectly when I was in Sydney.
Where and in which case? I'm referring to mode-change connections. Of those, two of the last two I've had failed. That's a 100% failure rate. When queried, the station staff said the metro don't communicate with them so adaptive schedules are impossible.
> This is the sort of thing they do perfectly in Japan, but Australia is a country of 1000 little scams with everyone fervently minding their own scam. We urgently need to replace corrupt humans with AI.
Have you even see how sad people in Japan are ?
Go watch a few youtubers travel around Japan and tell me what you see ?
I only see kids to adults to seniors ALL going to school or work.
Why are tehre almost no people having a day off ?
Now you know why they have those gates on trains, they are too stop people jumping...
Specific to the context of proving there is no insurmountable challenge in having multiple disparate mass transit operators provide combined services in an efficient fashion, they are the obvious poster child. This may be true even while I share similar conclusions to your own analysis when considering the broader failures in their society.
The public transport system in JP makes the work culture possible.
Since the trains stop at midnight, that also means workers who are delayed by work, also end up sleeping in the streets because no service would take them all the way home.
Having a train system that enables very long trips also means people are forced might be a hard word but they are expected to travel becaue trains are tehre.