mdrejhon
Senior Member
Analytical people like me, are often necessarily super-wordy (example work --www.xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0301.html -- a large, dry-looking Internet specification document that's one of my creations -- formatting worthy of an ISO or FCC government document). The above document has been peer-reviewed and vetted by over 50 people, including people at Microsoft and Cisco. My wordiness comes with my territory (to a fault, sometimes). So on that note, I have good document analysis skills, see? That's no longer a subject of dispute, I hope. Doesn't mean I'm correct in 100% of my predictions, but I would succeed far better than the average individual.
I do recall some of our past disagreements is in respects to EMUs and train performances.
Some of the things I've said about EMUs were certainly inaccurate, after I learned more afterwards.
But I do recall that one thing you said was EMUs won't bring faster GOtrain journey times or tighter headways. That I still disagree.
EMU's will put a general average corporate pressure to create more-aggressive timetables. We can nitpick over the detail whether EMUs will bring faster timetables or not, but if it happens like at other companies, eventually management *could* provide GOtrain drivers a more aggressive timetable if corporate boardroom notices reliability % hits targets better with EMUs, enough drivers report that they're being more conservative than usual, more drivers eager to push safer-feeling trains harder on a well-upgraded rail network, etc. Those trends do show up during fleet tracking at the head office, and often analyzed by the best transportation/transit companies.
Drivers fall into new habits (like accelerating at say, 75% throttle from specific stations, with a different kind of nicer-performing trainset) and new driver habits even shows up in GPS tracking data at the back office! Same for when it appears a trend of drivers feels safer with a new type of vehicle or network (e.g. more safety features, extra infrastructure, reduced congestion) and more comfortable pushing a specific timetable's limits; a trend appears among all the drivers, some drivers appear to work-to-rule, some drivers appears to be more punctual, how frequently speed limits are being reached or not, more drivers speeding up on an improved network, etc.
Whether it's a fleet of taxis, a fleet of military vehicles, a fleet of cargo planes, or a fleet of trains.
There's actual data that EMUs do indeed, in fact, perform better in many transit networks. So on that note, not everything I said about EMUs are 100% all wrong --
Assuming the network is well maintained and upgraded, EMUs, on average, do perform better timetable-wise and do provide a route to more aggressive timetables, sometimes imposed upon drivers by the management, because they see reliability going up. It's just the way the cookie crumbles -- even though I am not a manager & am not involved in those specific decisions, some of which I don't necessarily agree with.
Perhaps operations-wise, I don't know everything about train driver's knowledge about the performance of their particular trains, but I have an understanding of what I see a fleet of drivers (of any vehicle) are doing, what's trending over days, weeks, years. With a series of moving dots on a mega-sized map, 3D bar graphs for a whole day/month/year, or it's a scatter-plot graph, or visualizing data into a graph (I've also worked on stock trading apps too), and running data analysis to mine details out of that sort of data too. As a software app developer with GPS/mapping/tracking experience. I also have an appreciation of all the complex programming that goes into an traffic control room, and how some of them become disasters, with lots of harebrained problems, while others become really good efficient with superb Japanese-style fleet management par excellence. There's a lot of really interesting learning that occurs on the 'other side' even among people who's never been in the driver's seat. Yes, decision mistakes can occur at the corporate level which the field staff hates, driver's complaints go unheeded, etc.
smallspy -- we can agree to disagree on some details, but I will be glad to continue to be corrected on various specific details, without retracting the whole general message, of which other details are still true.
Certainly, not everyone likes my posting style, but I still provide valuable content that some people like (even if not necessarily to you).
I do recall some of our past disagreements is in respects to EMUs and train performances.
Some of the things I've said about EMUs were certainly inaccurate, after I learned more afterwards.
But I do recall that one thing you said was EMUs won't bring faster GOtrain journey times or tighter headways. That I still disagree.
EMU's will put a general average corporate pressure to create more-aggressive timetables. We can nitpick over the detail whether EMUs will bring faster timetables or not, but if it happens like at other companies, eventually management *could* provide GOtrain drivers a more aggressive timetable if corporate boardroom notices reliability % hits targets better with EMUs, enough drivers report that they're being more conservative than usual, more drivers eager to push safer-feeling trains harder on a well-upgraded rail network, etc. Those trends do show up during fleet tracking at the head office, and often analyzed by the best transportation/transit companies.
Drivers fall into new habits (like accelerating at say, 75% throttle from specific stations, with a different kind of nicer-performing trainset) and new driver habits even shows up in GPS tracking data at the back office! Same for when it appears a trend of drivers feels safer with a new type of vehicle or network (e.g. more safety features, extra infrastructure, reduced congestion) and more comfortable pushing a specific timetable's limits; a trend appears among all the drivers, some drivers appear to work-to-rule, some drivers appears to be more punctual, how frequently speed limits are being reached or not, more drivers speeding up on an improved network, etc.
Whether it's a fleet of taxis, a fleet of military vehicles, a fleet of cargo planes, or a fleet of trains.
There's actual data that EMUs do indeed, in fact, perform better in many transit networks. So on that note, not everything I said about EMUs are 100% all wrong --
Assuming the network is well maintained and upgraded, EMUs, on average, do perform better timetable-wise and do provide a route to more aggressive timetables, sometimes imposed upon drivers by the management, because they see reliability going up. It's just the way the cookie crumbles -- even though I am not a manager & am not involved in those specific decisions, some of which I don't necessarily agree with.
Perhaps operations-wise, I don't know everything about train driver's knowledge about the performance of their particular trains, but I have an understanding of what I see a fleet of drivers (of any vehicle) are doing, what's trending over days, weeks, years. With a series of moving dots on a mega-sized map, 3D bar graphs for a whole day/month/year, or it's a scatter-plot graph, or visualizing data into a graph (I've also worked on stock trading apps too), and running data analysis to mine details out of that sort of data too. As a software app developer with GPS/mapping/tracking experience. I also have an appreciation of all the complex programming that goes into an traffic control room, and how some of them become disasters, with lots of harebrained problems, while others become really good efficient with superb Japanese-style fleet management par excellence. There's a lot of really interesting learning that occurs on the 'other side' even among people who's never been in the driver's seat. Yes, decision mistakes can occur at the corporate level which the field staff hates, driver's complaints go unheeded, etc.
smallspy -- we can agree to disagree on some details, but I will be glad to continue to be corrected on various specific details, without retracting the whole general message, of which other details are still true.
Certainly, not everyone likes my posting style, but I still provide valuable content that some people like (even if not necessarily to you).
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