[HN Gopher] Beyond the route: Introducing granular MTA bus speed...
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Beyond the route: Introducing granular MTA bus speed data
Author : Nelkins
Score : 126 points
Date : 2024-09-24 19:26 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (new.mta.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (new.mta.info)
| vavooom wrote:
| _We are excited for Open Data users to dig into this dataset,
| experiment, and find insights from the "speed sample of NYC's
| streets" that the MTA's 4,900 buses collect each day. This data
| will be uploaded on a monthly basis, and can be found on the NYS
| Open Data portal._
|
| What a great dataset and effort to allow for further research
| into areas of the city that could benefit from anti-congestion
| measures ( _cough cough car tax_ ) to improve bus services!
|
| Also - where does one even store 4,900 buses in NYC? I guess most
| of the fleet is out on the streets all day, but I imagine
| servicing all of those is quite the feat.
| socki wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_depots_of_MTA_Regional_Bus...
| jhgaylor wrote:
| I was sure it would be off the island somewhere so I looked it
| up. There are many depots around the boroughs and they seem to
| handle their servicing internally there.
|
| There is one not far off of Times Square.
| MarCylinder wrote:
| Exactly this. Lots of bus depots all around NYC. Several
| across Staten Island alone.
|
| My uncle worked at the MTA for his entire career as a bus
| mechanic. My favorite story was when a rep from a company
| selling "green" buses was visiting. Rep said "These buses
| never break! You guys might be out of work." and then asked
| "So when do the buses stop running for the day?"
|
| He was less confident in the reliability of his product when
| he learned the buses in NYC don't stop.
| mmmlinux wrote:
| So this is something I had vaguely always wondered about NYC.
| Is there actually enough space to park all the personal cars,
| Or is it assumed that some percentage are always on the road. I
| didn't hear about serious parking congestion during covid so I
| now assume that yes, there do seem to be enough car spots.
| chipgap98 wrote:
| Parking isn't too much of a hassle in the outer burrows
| compared to Manhattan.
|
| Also lots of cars get driven in from outside the city, so
| presumably there were fewer of those during Covid.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Yeah I think commuters are the biggest reason. It's fairly
| easy to find parking in Manhattan after 9pm. At noon
| though? Good luck.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| There is plenty of parking space for the cars that you see on
| the streets of New York. It's just mostly in the outer
| boroughs, on Long Island, or in New Jersey.
| woodruffw wrote:
| What is "all" the cars? Less than half of NYC households own
| a car[1]; if 100% of households did (or owned more than one,
| as is common outside of NYC), the city would have nowhere
| near enough space for them.
|
| (The city already has virtually no space for the 2 million
| cars that are owned by the city's residents, plus the
| millions that enter the city daily. We have laws on the books
| that are intended to reduce the number of unnecessary car
| trips in the city, but our feckless state leadership has
| decided that it doesn't need to follow already-passed laws.)
|
| [1]: https://www.hunterurban.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2024/06/Car-L...
| willmeyers wrote:
| NYC has one of the best open data portals out there. Kudos to all
| the teams and agencies who manage it.
| mastercheif wrote:
| Shoutout to Philippe Vibien for creating "NYC Subway
| Stringlines", one of my favorite (and certainly most used) data
| visualizations ever. Made possible by the MTA's GTFS RT feed.
|
| https://pvibien.com/stringline.htm
|
| Note: If you're checking this out around 6 PM EST, look at the
| E train to get an idea of what a bad night on the subway looks
| like.
|
| Each line on the graph represents a train with the Y axis as
| stations and the X axis representing time. You can follow the
| trip of the train and get an idea for how well the line is
| running based on the straightness of the line. If you see areas
| where the line is flat in the Y axis, you know that a train is
| being held at a station.
|
| Here's an example where "stringlines" provide information that
| a countdown clock couldn't convey:
| https://i.imgur.com/u5VGqH4.jpeg
|
| Because the "line" is not progressing past 5th Ave/53rd st, we
| know that that is where the issue is occurring. A countdown
| timer would simply either say static or start adding time, but
| you wouldn't know how far the next train is from you.
|
| Here's another example: https://i.imgur.com/mrvrbUt.jpeg
|
| What I can glean from this is that the E train is running with
| much lower frequency than it was an hour ago, so I should
| expect longer wait times.
|
| It's truly a marvelous invention.
| SushiHippie wrote:
| The embedded video does not work for me on Android (neither
| chrome or firefox, I think it is because it adds an iframe with a
| /embed/ link with autoplay via javascript after the "Watch this
| video" button has been pressed)
|
| This is the youtube link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MsHGqVuIK5g
| pininja wrote:
| In case anyone wants to do a similar visualization on their
| own, this looks like a screen capture of kepler.gl which is an
| open source web tool for this kind of map data exploration.
| woodruffw wrote:
| A fun fact about NYC's buses: many of the routes are turn-by-turn
| replicas of previous streetcar routes; Brooklyn alone had
| dozens[1]. The B46[2], for example, follows the Utica-Reid line
| as it ran until 1951.
|
| They never actually tore up most of these lines; the city just
| paved over them. You can see them poking through the pavement
| whenever the city redoes the roads.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_streetcar_lines_in_Bro...
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B46_(New_York_City_bus)
| Contusion3532 wrote:
| Ignoring the huge issue of political will, how much more or
| less effective would street cars be on these lines, compared to
| buses?
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think it would depend: one of the reasons the streetcars
| were originally eliminated is that they were increasingly
| held up in traffic, and the argument was that buses could
| navigate (like cars) around traffic, make detours, etc.
|
| In practice however that hasn't really been borne out: the
| city's buses are notoriously slow. The city has (correctly)
| reprioritized bus lanes (including lane enforcement for
| scofflaw drivers) and express services (SBS) in response, but
| at that point we're essentially back to rights-of-way (i.e.
| how much of Europe runs timely and efficient streetcar
| networks).
|
| In short: I think streetcars would be less effective if not
| (partially) separated, but more effective otherwise. Given
| that the city is moving towards bus lane separation anyways,
| I personally believe they should revitalize the streetcar
| network instead. But that's (1) expensive, and (2) involves
| impressive amounts of local political spaghetti, given that
| the buses are currently run by state-level MTA while the
| roads are owned by the city.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Ya the idea that buses are better than streetcars because
| they can go around traffic is just completely detached from
| reality. Maybe a bus can go around one double-parked car
| but during rush hour that's not happening. It was always
| just an excuse to avoid taking an inch of space away from
| cars for dedicated transit right of way.
| ochoseis wrote:
| From the perspective of "vehicles on the road" buses make a
| lot more sense to me:
|
| - They can maneuver around double-parked cars and trucks
|
| - They can switch up the route when there's construction
|
| - There are no tracks tripping up pedestrians and cyclists
|
| - They're [probably] easier to get to a service hub for
| maintenance
|
| - They don't require overhead wires to provide electricity
|
| - I would guess they're cheaper to purchase and maintain, but
| don't have a reference
|
| One area where street cars _might_ win is noise. Busses can
| be loud.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Your last four points are good, but in practice the first
| two have not netted significant advantages for NYC's bus
| operations: many of NYC's buses run on narrow one-lane
| streets, where any amount of double parking makes the road
| completely un-navigable. Similarly, it's more common to see
| a bus route taken out of operation entirely for a week than
| to have it re-routed on the fly (the latter does happen,
| but the network also dense enough where most riders can
| take the next avenue's route).
|
| I think a significant understated advantage to streetcars
| is their effect on local neighborhood development: like a
| subway line, a streetcar line is a semi-permanent
| _installation_ that can 't be easily taken away by a short-
| term replanning of the network. Bus lines, even when dense
| and well-developed (like NYC's are!), simply _feel
| impermanent_ in a way that rail transport doesn 't.
|
| (Or as another framing: if you build a rail connection to a
| neighborhood, there's a good chance there will still be a
| thriving neighborhood there in a century. It's not as easy
| to guarantee that with a bus route that can be taken away
| overnight.)
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Rail-based transit also provides major side-benefits to its
| routes: development and improvement.
|
| The principle is that bus routes can change, bus stops can
| move. Rail right-of-way and train stations are quite
| permanent and immobile.
|
| Therefore, if a city invests in rail, the developers will
| follow, and redevelop, revitalize, or gentrify
| neighborhoods along that route. Conversely, folks in the
| neighborhood may fight the rail expansion, because "there
| goes the neighborhood" usually in a more upscale fashion.
|
| It was smart for cities to build out streetcar lines in
| their early expansions, enticing developers into areas that
| promised long-term access. Of course, rail lines don't last
| forever, but the point is being more permanent and staying
| put, more reliably, than rubber-tire-based transit.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Light rail provides mostly equivalent service to streetcars.
| Brooklyn-Queens is getting the Interborough Express at some
| point.
|
| https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express
| nashashmi wrote:
| > They never actually tore up most of these lines; the city
| just paved over them.
|
| Any place there is a comprehensive utility construction
| project, there is a pay item that orders the contractor to
| excavate the rails out of the way for utility installation. A
| survey is done using a meta Detector to find if any rails
| remain in a site.
| bonyt wrote:
| > They never actually tore up most of these lines; the city
| just paved over them.
|
| I spotted one of these in July in long island city by vernon
| blvd while they were repaving. You can see them embedded in the
| cobblestone. Here's some impromptu phone pictures:
| https://imgur.com/a/MLdjvxo
| mrtimo wrote:
| Just downloaded all the data as a 2.45GB csv file. It took about
| 10 minutes to "export", before the download started.
| mbo wrote:
| Seems like a Parquet or SQLite file would have been more
| appropriate
| voytec wrote:
| From the context (buses mentioned) I'm assuming this about the
| Metropolitan Transportation Authority? I had to search for how
| the "MTA" abbreviation can be expanded. My mind resolves "MTA" to
| "Mail Transport Agent".
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Do you need the data to know that busses are insanely slow?
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Never underestimate the bandwidth of a double-articulated bus
| filled with people going to work/play/shop.
|
| Also, slow = safe. Around here, the operators are cautious,
| diligent, and the best drivers on the road.
| selectodude wrote:
| MTA bus drivers are maniacs. I mean, I appreciate that they
| are but cautious or diligent aren't the adjectives I'd use.
| elijaht wrote:
| FWIW I regularly take the bus and find it to be comparable or
| better than the train for many of the routes I regularly
| travel. I do have to be more mindful of traffic, but rarely
| find myself thinking the bus is slow
| kiwijamo wrote:
| Am curious as to where this happens. Everywhere I go around
| the world, train is much faster than buses (a general rule is
| 2x faster but express trains can be even faster). Anytime
| there are buses replacing train services, the bus is often at
| least 2x slower than the equivalent train service (and
| sometimes they even end up skipping certain low-usage stops
| for the bus to try and achieve a manageable timetable for the
| buses). I've not seen anywhere in the world where buses are
| faster.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| It appears the purpose of this post was primarily to encourage
| others to explore the dataset, not necessarily to state, "Buses
| are slow".
|
| It's possible some "bored data nerds" may find some patterns
| that help real people in real life while poking around on a
| Thursday afternoon!
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(page generated 2024-09-24 23:00 UTC)