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An article about efficiency and trains in Japan
Can you make this stuff up?
Better Late Than Never, Japan Learns
By CLYDE HABERMAN
FOR a New Yorker who once lived in Tokyo, the commuter train derailment in western Japan this week came as a fetch-the-smelling-salts shock.
There were the obvious reasons: the wreck itself and the appalling death toll, now more than 100. But what sent the eyebrows soaring were post-disaster musings from some Japanese. Perhaps, they said, the real problem is that their rail system is normally too reliable.
Call us crazy, but it sounds as if those Japanese yearn to be more like New Yorkers. We certainly know a thing or two about train service that is not fully dependable. All we can urge our Japanese cousins to do is to bear in mind the old saw about being careful what you wish for.
Perhaps you first need to understand how extraordinarily precise Japan's commuter network is, and why some blame the emphasis on perfection for Monday's fatal crash in Amagasaki, outside Osaka.
Take Tokyo's subways. Every station lists the scheduled arrival times: 9:01, 9:04, 9:08 and so on. I lived in that city for five years, starting in 1983. As a near-daily rider, except when on the road, I never saw a train arrive so much as a minute late, not once. A posting of 9:01 meant 9:01.
My initial astonishment at this precision was intensified by fresh memories of New York in the early 80's, when the subways were headed toward collapse. "Last Train From Gun Hill" was more than the title of a John Sturges western film. At the Gun Hill Road stop on the No. 2 line in the Bronx, it summed up the hopeless feeling that gripped people after they had just missed a train. Who knew when, or if, another would ever come?
In Tokyo, there were no such concerns. In its own way, subway reliability was a form of liberation. It stripped away one level of urban anxiety.
Naturally, that kind of service could make some New Yorkers suspicious. Mayor Edward I. Koch rode a train while visiting Tokyo in 1985. "Sterile" was how one of his closest advisers later described the ride. Sterile. There you have a New York definition for something that actually works.
But even good things have downsides. News reports from Japan this week said that the train driver in Amagasaki had fallen 90 seconds behind schedule as a result of his own mistakes.
Ninety seconds late may not sound like much. In New York, we call that on time. But on the Japanese rails, it can feel like an eternity. Apparently racing to make up those lost seconds, the driver took a curve far too fast and jumped the tracks, with cataclysmic results.
If only the country didn't make such a fetish about trains running precisely on schedule, some Japanese lamented later. "There is no flexibility in our society," a railway worker told a New York Times reporter. He added, "This disaster was produced by Japanese civilization and Japanese people."
ASSUMING Japan truly wants change, it sounds like a job for New York. When it comes to trains, we have oodles of flexibility ready for export.
Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit, says subway service is vastly improved since the 80's. Mr. Reuter is right, even if many New Yorkers sense recent slippage. But a certain - how to put it? - elasticity helps make his case.
Five years ago, transit officials altered the method by which they graded themselves. Presto chango, the share of trains considered to be running on schedule, 80.7 percent under the old system, leaped right away to 89.5 percent.
One subway indicator is "wait assessment," which measures the interval between trains during the daytime. By this yardstick, the interval fell "within acceptable limits" 87.5 percent of the time in the second half of 2004.
What, you may ask, qualifies as acceptable? Being as much as four minutes behind schedule during off-peak hours. Say that Train B is supposed to arrive six minutes after Train A. If it takes 10 minutes to show up, that is considered fine.
My Tokyo experience suggests that this relaxed definition of punctuality would be unbearable for most Japanese, no matter how much they may now be beating themselves up.
A change of that magnitude is about as likely as our adopting a Japanese solution for those rare moments when a train does arrive behind schedule. In Tokyo, you may ask the stationmaster for a note explaining to your boss why you were slightly late for work.
Try asking a New York subway clerk for a late slip the next time you're in the mood for a little verbal abuse.
Better Late Than Never, Japan Learns
By CLYDE HABERMAN
FOR a New Yorker who once lived in Tokyo, the commuter train derailment in western Japan this week came as a fetch-the-smelling-salts shock.
There were the obvious reasons: the wreck itself and the appalling death toll, now more than 100. But what sent the eyebrows soaring were post-disaster musings from some Japanese. Perhaps, they said, the real problem is that their rail system is normally too reliable.
Call us crazy, but it sounds as if those Japanese yearn to be more like New Yorkers. We certainly know a thing or two about train service that is not fully dependable. All we can urge our Japanese cousins to do is to bear in mind the old saw about being careful what you wish for.
Perhaps you first need to understand how extraordinarily precise Japan's commuter network is, and why some blame the emphasis on perfection for Monday's fatal crash in Amagasaki, outside Osaka.
Take Tokyo's subways. Every station lists the scheduled arrival times: 9:01, 9:04, 9:08 and so on. I lived in that city for five years, starting in 1983. As a near-daily rider, except when on the road, I never saw a train arrive so much as a minute late, not once. A posting of 9:01 meant 9:01.
My initial astonishment at this precision was intensified by fresh memories of New York in the early 80's, when the subways were headed toward collapse. "Last Train From Gun Hill" was more than the title of a John Sturges western film. At the Gun Hill Road stop on the No. 2 line in the Bronx, it summed up the hopeless feeling that gripped people after they had just missed a train. Who knew when, or if, another would ever come?
In Tokyo, there were no such concerns. In its own way, subway reliability was a form of liberation. It stripped away one level of urban anxiety.
Naturally, that kind of service could make some New Yorkers suspicious. Mayor Edward I. Koch rode a train while visiting Tokyo in 1985. "Sterile" was how one of his closest advisers later described the ride. Sterile. There you have a New York definition for something that actually works.
But even good things have downsides. News reports from Japan this week said that the train driver in Amagasaki had fallen 90 seconds behind schedule as a result of his own mistakes.
Ninety seconds late may not sound like much. In New York, we call that on time. But on the Japanese rails, it can feel like an eternity. Apparently racing to make up those lost seconds, the driver took a curve far too fast and jumped the tracks, with cataclysmic results.
If only the country didn't make such a fetish about trains running precisely on schedule, some Japanese lamented later. "There is no flexibility in our society," a railway worker told a New York Times reporter. He added, "This disaster was produced by Japanese civilization and Japanese people."
ASSUMING Japan truly wants change, it sounds like a job for New York. When it comes to trains, we have oodles of flexibility ready for export.
Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit, says subway service is vastly improved since the 80's. Mr. Reuter is right, even if many New Yorkers sense recent slippage. But a certain - how to put it? - elasticity helps make his case.
Five years ago, transit officials altered the method by which they graded themselves. Presto chango, the share of trains considered to be running on schedule, 80.7 percent under the old system, leaped right away to 89.5 percent.
One subway indicator is "wait assessment," which measures the interval between trains during the daytime. By this yardstick, the interval fell "within acceptable limits" 87.5 percent of the time in the second half of 2004.
What, you may ask, qualifies as acceptable? Being as much as four minutes behind schedule during off-peak hours. Say that Train B is supposed to arrive six minutes after Train A. If it takes 10 minutes to show up, that is considered fine.
My Tokyo experience suggests that this relaxed definition of punctuality would be unbearable for most Japanese, no matter how much they may now be beating themselves up.
A change of that magnitude is about as likely as our adopting a Japanese solution for those rare moments when a train does arrive behind schedule. In Tokyo, you may ask the stationmaster for a note explaining to your boss why you were slightly late for work.
Try asking a New York subway clerk for a late slip the next time you're in the mood for a little verbal abuse.
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And was given a name. In all seriousness o_O
Quite a change from here where a train must be more than 9:59 late to be classified as late. A train that is running four minutes late will often not even have an updated time on the boards or be announced as late. 15 minutes can be called "slightly late."
What different worlds we live in.
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And I heard that subways are something like an average of 8 or 9 seconds late per year, and that those 8 or 9 seconds are due mostly to suicides.
Japanese transit, all in all, is just incredible!
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"This train is one minute late..." followed by profuse apologies. I was utterly baffled by this, having no experience with public transportation (do we have that in Miami?) but after hearing stories.
And I've heard about the late slips. That's just so cool.
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But I have to admit, Tokyo has us beat. They're second largest in ridership and 3rd in length, but they still manage to have a kickass system. I wonder if anyone knows how much a ticket costs? They do have twice as many riders, for fewer tracks, so there's a lot more money that can be concentrated...
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And was given a name. In all seriousness o_O
Quite a change from here where a train must be more than 9:59 late to be classified as late. A train that is running four minutes late will often not even have an updated time on the boards or be announced as late. 15 minutes can be called "slightly late."
What different worlds we live in.
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And I heard that subways are something like an average of 8 or 9 seconds late per year, and that those 8 or 9 seconds are due mostly to suicides.
Japanese transit, all in all, is just incredible!
no subject
no subject
"This train is one minute late..." followed by profuse apologies. I was utterly baffled by this, having no experience with public transportation (do we have that in Miami?) but after hearing stories.
And I've heard about the late slips. That's just so cool.
no subject
no subject
But I have to admit, Tokyo has us beat. They're second largest in ridership and 3rd in length, but they still manage to have a kickass system. I wonder if anyone knows how much a ticket costs? They do have twice as many riders, for fewer tracks, so there's a lot more money that can be concentrated...