Knowledge is power, and commuters cooling their heels on subway platforms in Brooklyn are a little more empowered today, because real-time train arrival countdown clocks or message screens have became self-aware operational. As we speak, countdown clocks installed in several stations along the 2 3 lines in Brooklyn are now letting people know how much longer they'll be seething. (These are the Bergen Street, Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum, Nostrand Avenue and Kingston Avenue stations.) And the MTA isn't stopping the countdown to ecstasy there!
Right now 15 stations along the IRT system have operational countdown clocks, and others are in a more background test phase. NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges tells us, "Depending how that testing goes will determine future roll outs, some of which could be this week." Responding to questions about why the cash-strapped MTA is spending money on what some see as a less-than essential upgrade, Fleuranges said:
For one, the investment in the overall system was made years ago. The PA/CIS system is the customer information piece of the larger, more robust Automated Train Supervision (ATS) system which monitors train movement and other aspects of the operation of the IRT division at the Rail Control Center (RCC). That system has been up since late 2007, but not fully operational until 2008. While we continued with installing the visible hardware (screens) we could not roll out or add the PA/CIS functionality until ATS stabilized. Now that we have updated the software and tested it in the lab, we are rolling the system out incrementally.
The MTA expects 152 IRT stations to have the technology by early 2011.
