[HN Gopher] Our vendor executed a system reboot that caused a sh...
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Our vendor executed a system reboot that caused a shut down of the
turnstiles
Author : danso
Score : 145 points
Date : 2021-05-17 13:13 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| offtop5 wrote:
| This feels very dangerous. While able body adults could just jump
| it, anyone with a disability could be trapped. What if their was
| a fire ?
|
| This is a good argument to just remove physical turnstiles and
| rely upon an honor system.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| NYC Building code https://up.codes/viewer/new_york_city/nyc-
| building-code-2014...
|
| > Turnstiles or similar devices that restrict travel to one
| direction shall not be placed so as to obstruct any required
| means of egress.
|
| There are some exceptions. The type of turnstile pictured may
| be used for up to 50% of the required egress capacity, and must
| fail open (for egress) in event of power loss, as well as offer
| a manual override to allow for free egress. This style of
| turnstile can also not be counted for egress requirements when
| placed in an "accessible route".
|
| Additionally,
|
| > Where serving an occupant load greater than 300, each
| manually-operated turnstile and automatic turnstile that is not
| portable shall have a side-hinged swinging door which conforms
| to Section 1008.1 within 50 feet (15 240 mm).
| neom wrote:
| Next to those turnstyles is a large grated wall, it has a push
| bar emergency exit from the inside.
| aaronharnly wrote:
| The turnstiles limit entry, not exit. Also there are exit doors
| that can be pushed open.
| gruez wrote:
| >This is a good argument to just remove physical turnstiles and
| rely upon an honor system.
|
| I think the compliance rate would be very poor in NYC
| bombcar wrote:
| According to my rough calculations, if the NYC farebox
| revenue was replaced by a state-wide tax it'd be $330 per
| person (roughly).
| jsight wrote:
| That sounds like a good bargain. The downside is that the
| MTA would no longer have as good of a reason to incentivize
| ridership. I feel like there'd be a lot of negative side
| effects to a change like that.
| jfrunyon wrote:
| The downside is that the 11 million people in the state
| who don't live in NYC might be upset about paying for the
| transit of the 8.4 million who do.
| jsight wrote:
| That is a downside, the "the" downside. I'm not even
| convinced that it is close to the biggest issue,
| considering the obvious counterarguments. Not all tax
| costs have direct benefits to the payer. That is a
| feature, not a bug.
| ska wrote:
| And those people get infrastructure spending in their
| areas that NYC dwellers never use too.
|
| What you are pointing out is a fundamental issue with
| taxes; the only hope is to have a systems that citizens
| feel is mostly equitable.
| nerdponx wrote:
| As much as I feel like NY City transit deserves state-level
| funding, I don't feel comfortable taxing people in low-
| income rural areas of the state $330 a year for this. I'd
| rather tax luxury developers and employers of white-collar
| workers who commute to the office.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > As much as I feel like NY City transit deserves state-
| level funding, I don't feel comfortable taxing people in
| low-income rural areas of the state $330 a year for this
|
| The MTA already invests disproportionate levels of funds
| on commuter rail services that are used ~exclusively by
| non-city residents, far out of line with their usage.
| It's totally reasonable to have them contribute more,
| instead of forcing the city to shoulder an even greater
| burden.
|
| And that's just looking at MTA funds, not even
| considering the amount of money spent on maintaining free
| roads and highways in other parts of the state (the
| funding for which is already drawn disproportionately
| from NYC's tax base).
| nerdponx wrote:
| Metro North fares are also pretty high, and the suit-and-
| tie Metro North riders also aren't the people I had in
| mind who would be hurt by an extra $330/year tax.
|
| Highway maintenance is another story and you have a good
| point there.
|
| But I really wish that people wouldn't treat the state's
| finances like a battle of wills between the poor
| oppressed Westchester commuters and Manhattan tech bros
| versus the greedy rural upstate leeches.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| That's a great way to chase off more of the high-wage tax
| base in NYC. What's wrong with the fare model?
| nerdponx wrote:
| This is assuming that there are no fares, as suggested by
| GP.
|
| Also I think you are overestimating the elasticity of
| demand for residence in New York City with respect to tax
| rates, at least for people and businesses with large
| amounts of money.
|
| I'm not even close to what you would call a high income
| earner in New York City, but I would be fine with paying
| increased subway fares in order to subsidize bus fares in
| outer boroughs, paying $15 instead of $2.75 for East
| River ferry rides, etc.
|
| Shuffling around pocket change from people who won't even
| notice it's gone to people who need it desperately is not
| going to keep people out of New York. The biggest problem
| is real estate, both for the city's non-wealthy residents
| and for its small businesses. And even people with good
| incomes don't like being juiced for $4k++ in order to
| avoid living like a broke student with a 90 minute
| commute.
| stereo wrote:
| City dwellers disproportionately pay for a lot of the
| infrastructure used in rural areas, where lower densities
| increase costs. Highways, postal services, utilities,
| etc. get charged the same, but cost less to deliver or
| are used less by city dwellers.
| gruez wrote:
| That $330 would be a hard sell to the 60% of the people who
| live in new york state but not in new york city.
|
| >if the NYC firebox revenue
|
| I'm assuming you mean farebox revenue right?
| bombcar wrote:
| Yes, stupid autocorrect.
|
| The basic idea would be to see how much they save vs all
| the costs spend on maintaining fair box revenue.
|
| However, there's also a political aspect (people have
| less of a problem paying for something they're using) and
| a policing aspect (you can kick out vagrants who don't
| have a ticket), and a "tax the non-voters" (out-of-
| towners pay for tickets, just like hotel tax, and this is
| popular with locals).
| gregallan wrote:
| Interesting, but I wonder what the additional cost to the
| median income taxpayer would be. Is there a straightforward
| way to figure this out?
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, it's hard to do because MTS is mainly used by
| residents of the area (which extends beyond New York City
| and even outside of the state).
|
| If it were actually done it'd probably be done as a tax
| with a credit, offsetting it for lower-income.
|
| I think it'd be interesting to make it part of the driver
| license/ID (even as an optional fee) so that your DL
| could be your subway card.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Factor in you also wouldn't have to waste money on
| enforcement.
|
| I think if someone really ran the numbers you can make an
| argument you're wasting money by charging people for public
| transit. You'd also encourage less people to drive which
| could definitely help when it comes to the suburbs
| [deleted]
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This keeps getting parroted but is largely not true for the
| NYC Subway. The fares make up $6-7B of a total $15B in
| revenues due to sheer volume.
|
| The 2021 NYC budget is $88B. Hiking all taxes across the
| board 7% is a political nonstarter.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Honor systems work where there is a culture of honesty when
| unsupervised. New York City, I'm afraid, is... not that.
|
| Also, the system is so large and geographically spread out
| that you could never have enough officers to enforce / spot
| check people to make them trust it.
|
| And one of the most frustrating things for the law-abiding is
| when law-breakers are not caught or disciplined. Law-abiding
| people themselves might stop participating out of
| frustration. The system would quickly collapse.
| adolph wrote:
| The MTA response indicated that a gate agent is present to
| perform an override. Additionally, the exit is always free.
| Folks with mobility challenges are not endangered by this.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > The MTA response indicated that a gate agent is present to
| perform an override. Additionally, the exit is always free.
| Folks with mobility challenges are not endangered by this.
|
| They're not endangered in that they're free to leave, but
| it's not true that a gate agent is always present, despite
| what the MTA claims, so it's possible people would have been
| unable to enter if they are unable or unwilling to jump the
| turnstile.
|
| (In practice, there's almost always someone leaving the
| station/train, and they'd be able to open the emergency gate
| from the inside in a situation like this.)
| Animats wrote:
| The real questions are, why does the vendor have any connection
| to the operational system at all, and how much can they do via
| that interface?
| josephorjoe wrote:
| i saw that and hoped it was a lie as the alternative is that the
| mta has granted a vendor who apparently has quite poor judgment
| the ability to shut down the subway system (or at least force
| people to jump turnstiles).
| jiveturkey wrote:
| force? why not have the attendant open the gate?
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Not every station has an attendant, especially at 2AM. But
| even then, every gate is unlocked. At worst they just sound
| an alarm. But most of the time the alarms are turned off
| anyway.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| fwiw, the gates are unlocked from inside the platform; you
| can't just yank it open if you're going into the subway.
| jmkb wrote:
| Most entrances do not have a human attendant nearby, and the
| general trend in NYC (and probably most places) has been to
| replace the humans with vending machines.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Zhenshchinu vynuli, avtomat vsunuli.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't think there are any stations that don't have at
| least one person working there at all times.
|
| The worst case here is "software bug at 2AM means that you
| have to use the staffed entrance".
| ericbarrett wrote:
| There are many, many unattended stations in the NYC
| Subway at night, if you leave lower Manhattan.
| jrockway wrote:
| Which stations? I've been reading how the MTA tried to
| eliminate extra floating staff to cover agent's "lunch"
| breaks, and they got shut down by the state. Even in the
| middle of the night, someone has to be there for 30
| minutes while the normal agent takes their lunch break.
|
| Obviously, it's relatively recent that we got 24/7
| service back, but I'm not counting the COVID service
| reductions.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| All my subway experience is pre-COVID.
|
| I dunno what the regs say, or what the MTA publicizes,
| but the reality is almost any station in Brooklyn,
| Queens, Harlem, etc. is going to be unsupervised in the
| late hours. Maybe there's somebody lurking in an annex
| somewhere, but the ticket/info booth will be locked up
| and no MTA personnel, not even a janitor, will be
| visible. This was even the case for heavily trafficked
| stops like Bedford or Lorimer on the L.
| jrockway wrote:
| OK, very interesting. I searched around for policies, and
| didn't find anything except people complaining about that
| 30 minute lack of coverage for "lunch". I assumed that if
| they flat-out had nobody in stations, there would be
| similar outrage.
|
| I live in Brooklyn Heights and used to routinely work
| until 2 in the morning; there was always someone in the
| booth a High St. and Clark St. at that hour.
| EricE wrote:
| What I find fascinating about this comment section:
|
| No one seems alarmed that ONE server reboot can take down all the
| turnstiles at the same time?!?
|
| Does that not scream there is a disaster waiting to happen at a
| moments notice if there is that little of resiliency and
| availability in their application architecture?
| aneutron wrote:
| In Paris there are similar turnstiles, but when there's a
| problem, the default is opened, not closed.
|
| It makes absolutely no sense, because the main thing is to keep
| the traffic moving, not to engorge it.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| The turnstiles in NYC are set to fail open as well unless
| manually overriden. It seems someone did that, for some reason.
| Possibly incompetence.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| Seems like not having them open would be disastrous in an
| emergency scenario.
| [deleted]
| jrockway wrote:
| You don't pay a fare to exit the New York City Transit
| system, so nothing will prevent you from leaving during a
| fire; control system failure or otherwise. There are also
| emergency exit doors (that many people open to exit more
| quickly in normal operation of the subway). One may argue
| that having to go through a turnstile at all is an
| evacuation disaster, but presumably the designers thought
| about this and the exit doors are adequate in an emergency.
|
| This is different than systems like London and Tokyo, where
| you pay for the distance you traveled, and a station
| evacuation mandates opening the fare controls to let people
| exit more quickly. For better or for worse, that option has
| never existed in New York.
| alias_neo wrote:
| It's been a while...lockdown...so I'm recalling memories
| from ~ 1 year ago, the last time I used the tube (I live
| in London), but if I remember right, each gate has a red
| emergency stop button you can hit to exit in an
| emergency.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Er. No?
|
| Gate lines in the UK are manned, if there isn't someone
| available to supervise the gate line, the gates are left
| open.
|
| There is no "red emergency stop button" on the gates.
| Perhaps if the maintenance controls are open there's a
| red button inside somewhere, but that's not what it's
| for. Most likely you're remembering other emergency stop
| buttons you saw, e.g. on escalators or in lifts?
| alias_neo wrote:
| I must be remembering the escalator ones, that makes more
| sense.
| Animats wrote:
| There are red emergency open buttons for the gateline
| operator. Here is where they are, in the London
| Underground training video for gateline operators.[1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/lRdkI09KCpk?t=220
| tialaramex wrote:
| True, but those aren't controls on the gate. I guess I
| should have mentioned them in my list of other places the
| grand-parent might have seen red emergency stop buttons.
| Dort wrote:
| I think an emergency could also require someone going in,
| like ambulance crew or firefighters and the likes.
| wil421 wrote:
| Usually here are gates with a fire alarm next to them so
| you bypass them when needed.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| One key thing that a lot of people seem to be missing in this
| conversation: The turnstiles rotate in two directions,
| inwards and outwards. They _always_ freely rotate outwards,
| so every turnstile can always be used to exit the system.
| They are always locked against inwards rotation, except for
| when you swipe your Metrocard, then they perform one partial
| rotation to admit you.
|
| The linked photo shows someone who is being denied entry into
| the system, i.e. payments cannot be made and thus that one
| partial inwards rotation cannot happen. Outwards rotation,
| however, remains unaffected; if they were on the other side
| of the turnstile, they wouldn't be trapped inside; they'd
| still be able to exit through the turnstile.
| papito wrote:
| That sounds like correct behavior to me.
| [deleted]
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| "client called and complained about lost revenue when we did
| it the way that's specified in our documentation so we're
| gonna put a note in the checklist to override it going
| forward"
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I'm not sure this is a manual override. Most likely, they
| didn't "fail" - the control system was holding them closed
| for some reason but this wasn't a failure scenario. I'm sure
| they would correctly fail open if the power was cut or the
| fire alarm was triggered.
| avs733 wrote:
| from the tweet
|
| "NYPD say no access"
| supernova87a wrote:
| In Paris it's not a problem / no difference is observed,
| because everyone just jumps over the turnstiles anyway and
| doesn't pay the fare.
| potatoz2 wrote:
| Much more likely in NYC than Paris (among other things
| because in Paris there's a turnstile _and_ a door, typically,
| and NYC has swing open emergency exit doors people use
| routinely)
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| At the same time the turnstiles in Paris are infuriating. I was
| stuck behind one of them with a stroller at the airport, nobody
| in sight to help me.
|
| I really prefer there not being any turnstiles to begin with.
| terom wrote:
| The context here seems to be that this is the first night of the
| return to 24h service, but the system was out of use at 2am in
| the morning.
|
| Have the vendors previously been using the night-time service
| break for maintenance operations?
| jfrunyon wrote:
| It returned to 24h service at 2am, and was out of service at
| 2am. Occam's razor: switch back to "open for business 24/7"
| didn't happen as planned.
|
| Besides, who actually gets around to overnight, manual
| maintenance at the very start of the maintenance break? ;)
| ciisforsuckas wrote:
| It seems like this is what occured.
| analognoise wrote:
| Who was the vendor? Cubic Transportation Services?
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| This is why you have a person operating them manually.
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(page generated 2021-05-17 23:02 UTC)