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EDN Europe's Editor Graham Prophet posts a selection of comments and insights prompted by the many items of industry news and rumour that cross the editorial desk or are gathered on his frequent travels to interviews, press conferences and events around Europe - and further afield - and somehow never find their way to the magazine or the web site, recovering some of the information otherwise lost in the noise level...

Friday, October 26, 2007

Lacking in the passenger information domain

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On a recent visit to California I took a ride on San Jose’s light rail system. The USA’s excursions into public transport (or, ‘mass transit’) are variable: in the Bay area you can see multiple variants.

At one extreme there’s the CalTrain, which is a real hoot – literally. It’s a commuter train that thinks it’s the '3.10 to Yuma', complete with hooters and bells, and it runs up the peninsula from Silicon Valley into San Francisco. It’s not quick: the essence of fast, multiple stop commuter services is rapid acceleration and deceleration between stations, but the construction of the CalTain is so massive that it wouldn’t accelerate rapidly out of a station if you strapped a Space Shuttle booster to the top. But it gets you there.

Then there’s the BART, which is the real thing – a full-on, proper metro train that runs around the Bay and into San Francisco. Slightly worryingly, it does cross the Bay using submerged-tube construction in one of the world’s most seismically-active locations but then, who said that life was risk-fee?

But back to San Jose’s light rail, the VTA (to give it its TLA) (Valley Transit Authority, since you ask). This is a street-level and elevated tram system, with a couple of routes crossing the heart of Silicon Valley, and it’s a good attempt to get at least some Valley residents and workers to commute other than by car.

So there you are, waiting at one of the street-level stops. This is San Jose, the epicentre of high technology, remember. You would expect there to be a passenger information display at the stop that tells you how far away the next train is (based on GPS, or RFID train location, or something like that), that lets you know how long you have to wait? Uh… no.

OK, (you say to yourself) it must be that that is not necessary, the system must run to a precise timetable… no, all the printed display information tells you is the approximate service frequency at different times of day.

Well then, you are waiting at a point where the two routes share the same track – at least there must be something to tell you where the next train along will be headed. No again. In fact, nothing at all.

Nice service, but no points for real-time passenger information.

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