EDIT: Penn is extremely platform/track constrained -- NJ Transit, LIRR and Amtrak are all sharing a fixed number of platforms, some of which are too short.
To maximize platform utilization, they have to wait until the last minute to finalize track assignments -- if you reserve one too early and the train ends up late, you're wasting an empty platform. Once you send a horde of people to a platform, moving them to a different one is a challenge (stairs/bottlenecks, communication, etc).
If a full train pulls up and the platform is already full people are going to end up on the tracks. I haven't seen this at Penn but I have seen the issue happen in the subway when there are train delays. When this happens the MTA has to hold the arriving train in the station with the doors closed and clear the platform before opening the doors to let people off.
It's a nightmare. Their concerns here seem completely reasonable.
It seems pretty unlikely that 100% of the people on the outbound train would use the app and trust the historical data to go to the platform early.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/17/amtrak_s_unpe...
Although it is indeed inefficient and the MTA is completely inept, the platforms for LIRR trains are very narrow, they are shared by two trains and the escalators to get up to the main floor are also very narrow and crowded already.
So although the "mad dash" is in fact a mess, its a safer mess than overcrowding the platforms on the tracks.
The island's population doubles (1) each workday.
This view of everyday life for many is worthwhile to observe.
As well as "dont talk on the train" rule - but you have to ride at commuter times
(1) nyt 6/3/13 commuters from the other boroughs and outside the city nearly double Manhattan’s population, from 1.6 million to 3.1 million.
The idea that somehow it's unknown or occult knowledge as to which track to go to is silly, when they announce the track for the train over the PA, they sometimes say 'This is a track change', and the few hundred people who are on the platform already have to trample back up to the concourse and then back down to the new track.
That said though, just imagine how much worse it would be if that mass rush was between platforms, fighting opposing traffic, instead of just from a (mostly) open waiting area.
MTA's appeared a number of times on this website and by all accounts it's where tech innovation goes to die, most of their service is still based on switch wire systems that were built in the 60's. Whether that's due to bureaucratic inertia, inadequate funding, or unions or whatever I have no idea, but that's the real problem.
Not only did he know which track any of a half dozen trains that he might take would come in on but he knew where the doors would open for each of the tracks. And he wasn't the only one either. If you went down before they announced the tracks you'd see little clusters of people waiting apart from each other on an otherwise empty track. We'd usually go to the same car in order to reduce the distance on the other side. Other commuters would do likewise and so trains would have a contingent of regulars.
There's a fascinating kind of micro-expertise that develops when you do the same thing over and over again.
I guess the wording doesn't technically ban you from displaying historical platform information, but that would likely be a bad-faith use of the data anyway...
[1] http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Terms_and_Con...
[2] http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/static/documents/Developer_Gui... "Occasionally Time-Bound Data will become available through NRE feeds before it is ready to be published to the public. [...] One such example of Time-Bound Data is platform numbers. Early display of platform numbers, particularly at origin and destination stations, can lead to platform overcrowding and/or staff not having sufficient time to prepare the train for oncoming passengers. In some instances, platform numbers will be available in Darwin before being displayed on screens in stations."
That changed a few years ago, interesting to see the formal policy behind it, and an idea for a side-project :-)
I'm just amazed this app was even necessary in a first-world transport system. For all their faults, the UK rail network is pretty good at providing timely information (and as some other comments have mentioned have solid APIs for this stuff). Same with the LTA[1] in Singapore.
[1] https://www.mytransport.sg/content/mytransport/home/dataMall...
However, there are a couple of tools to get around this. For Starters, each revenue service train has a number (like 508). In a push-pull system like the MBTA the first coach in the consist is nearest to to the platform. This coach has a number like 1827. Luckily, the MBTA publishes which trainsets will be assigned to which departures. This makes it easy to know that 1827 is for train 508. All you need to do is walk out to the platform and see if 1827 is sitting there.. if so it's your train. You can get this mapping of trainset to train via a bunch of apps.
This has been further expanded upon by micro-social apps like "MBTA Rail Tracker" which has a comment section for every train. The whole thread is basically "which platform" followed by a bunch of responses and then snarkiness on why the trains are horribly late all the time.
It is a shame that this had to happen to OP. I personally don't see the app as an issue, because the amount of commuters that would actually use such a thing is rather low (seriously, stand in the concourse and look around at people, a large amount of them are not using their phones).
My original idea was to scrape the data from their webpage, or see if there was a way to get the data from the Train Time app's Arrival Countdown page, but according to the post, it has been removed from their website, so there goes that idea.
The lesson to me is clear though: don't try to make an app that would make commuter's lives easier. The MTA does not seem to want that, especially during the track repairs. I find it interesting that it was shut down so close to the start of the Penn Station track repairs...
As an aside, I wonder whether the OP considered charging a hefty price (>$20 or so) for the app. This would lessen the number of users and page requests.
Having travelled from Penn many times and having had to deal with the massive stampede that ensues when they suddenly reveal the track number, I would pay dearly to have this info available to me. Even if I used it once every year, not having to fight crowds or look forever to find an available seat, that would be money well spent. Additionally, many of the peak travelers are business travelers who probably have more money to spend on an app. I realize this isn't the most democratic solution, but it could be a way to lessen the crowds nonetheless.
But organizations change how they work with customers/the public all the time, and I couldn't help but say Waaah.
Things change; tell us about the alternatives you tried to move around this obstacle.
But what I don't understand is that why can't they change the seat allocation process such that people can reserve remaining available seats on the trains for free if they have arrived in station lobby? This can result is reduced rush to grab seats and will help people to make a more informed decision around whether to wait for the next train.
Instead of asking users to report the track info, it can be automated to a great extent with the use of BTLE beacons on each platform (but that again needs permission from MTA / Penn station authorities unless a long lasting BT 4.0 beacon can be sneaked in somewhere).
Sad that MTA is not cooperating. Can understand why the app had to be shut down!
Are tickets only for a specific time of train?
Or are trains less frequent than every 10 minutes?
We do this for NJ Transit with about 90% accuracy. We spent at least two months figuring out how it all works, though. It's non-trivial to do right.
Discussion upthread is about commuters being pushed onto the tracks, which sounds like a good reason not to display data that isn't 100% certain.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's fence
So the only way to gather the data would be manually from the station.
EDIT: Oops, missed that he didn't end up going live with the scraping.
It would still be great for the MTA to publish this data intentionally; but I'm sure the potential for trains to switch tracks and the associated backlash when they do is what prevents them from doing it.
Perhaps they could adopt the airline model, where there's a best effort to reach a particular pre-announced track, with notifications ringing out when they can't.
As an aside, fuck websites that prohibit scraping. If you send me some bytes I'm gonna do whatever I damn well please with them.
Isn't it the same approach? If you can abuse a site you will, because they opened themselves up to the public?
Where does it say it was against the TOS?
