Can We Do It?
Ask any Bostonian to describe their hometown, and watch them beam at their mention of world-class universities, stellar cultural institutions, innovative technology companies, and championship-caliber sports teams. Although public support for the 2024 Olympics has dwindled recently, our civic pride will certainly move Olympics fans who reach our shores. But unless drastic changes occur in the next nine years, something else won’t go unnoticed: our transit system.
Future visitors will inevitably encounter the MBTA’s quirks. But Boston’s recent blast of record-breaking arctic weather made the T’s deficiencies more obvious. If it can’t weather storms, how can it handle waves of Olympics visitors?
What is more discouraging is that the MBTA’s services will likely be the first experiences of Olympics spectators in Boston, when they go from Logan Airport into the city, or from event to event. First impressions can leave lasting impressions. What impression will the T leave? Will its performance match the capital forward-thinking its citizens have invested in its institutions, industries and sports facilities?
If there is ever an opportunity to raise the T’s bar to an Olympic standard, this is it.
As a first step, our fair city’s brainpower could adapt the world’s best mass transit techniques and technologies and create strategies for advancing its public transportation to new levels before the first influx of Olympics guests arrives. To start the conversation about transit design and technology (not policy), an introduction to its best examples might be helpful.
Fully Integrated Multimodal Travel
Berlin’s U-Bahn is highly efficient. Electronic signage alerts commuters to incoming trains, which run every 5 minutes at peak hours, and every 10 minutes after dark. Transfers between subway stations are easy. Underground transit (U-Bahn) is integrated with Berlin’s above ground travel (S-Bahn) and its schedules, limiting waiting time between travel legs. Multimodal stations are linked into Intercity-Express (ICE) train networks that can whisk travelers away to more distant cities like Hamburg and Munich in as much as 250 km/h (155 mph). Frankfurt connects its international airport directly to high-speed trains. (Imagine exiting a plane at Logan and embarking on a train to New York within 15-30 minutes!) These successes demonstrate how solid planning and execution provide excellent service while expanding mobility options by applying the right resources and equipment where needed.
Automated Network-wide Control Systems
Japan’s Shinkansen (“New Trunk Line”) is a high-speed rail network using an Automatic Train Control (ATC) system. Instead of waiting for personnel to correct signaling issues that jam up commutes, all train operations are managed by centralized traffic control systems that network and computerize all functions relating to train movement, tracks, stations and schedules. Since its implementation in 1964 for the Tokyo Olympics, Shinkansen evolved in sophistication as it integrated new technologies and software. Similarly, Boston’s capacity to create cutting-edge technology and artificial intelligence (AI) software could drastically improve the T’s efficiency.
Making Maintenance Sexier
AI systems and strategies could combat mechanical failures in the MBTA’s dated maintenance system. New technologies in Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) use algorithms that schedule around 3,000 engineering duties, assigning them in real time to different maintenance crews. Designed by Dr. Andy Chun, Chief Information Officer for the City University of Hong Kong, this system saves valuable administrative time and effort in tasking repair and maintenance schedules as needed. Consequently, workers may devote more time to their repair tasks vs. their administrative ones. This improves service while saving the system money (some $800,000 over the last year).
Driverless Trains
Driverless trains may be unwelcome news for MBTA motormen, but science fiction they’re not. Just visit Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, host to the 2010 Winter Olympics, for which SkyTrain was developed through public-private partnerships. It now serves 112,000 riders a day. Besides saving labor costs, SkyTrain operates at a consistently high level of service and punctuality. (Imagine sitting on the front of a subway cabin as you cross the Salt and Pepper Bridge from Cambridge to Boston: what a view—and you’ll arrive on time!) Furthermore, SkyTrain’s profits are recycled into its efficiency improvement as well as Vancouver’s economy. Denver and Maryland’s D.C. suburbs are already lining up to emulate SkyTrain.
Olympic Challenges
Boston’s transit system was once ahead of the curve. In 1888, City Council members visited Virginia’s Richmond Union Passenger Railway, America’s first electric trolley. By 1897, Boston had the nation’s first underground trolley. (Visit Boylston Station, and you can see vestiges of the original subway.) While improvements were made to the T in the 1960’s, the 1980’s and more recently, the scale of transformational intervention required to upgrade it goes beyond Band-Aid solutions. Why not build on the strength of this city’s considerable pool of design, technology and management talent to create a new T worthy of Boston’s Olympic City identity?
