MTA Tries Out Electronic Arrival-Time Clocks

From NYT Heading downtown on the subway the other day, Nerissa Campbell bounded to the edge of an A train platform and assumed the standard straphanger’s stance: neck craned, back hunched, eyes peering down a dark tunnel. Where on earth was that train? The answer was hanging just a few feet above her head. A digital L.E.D. display, newly installed on the station ceiling, was counting down the minutes until the next express train would arrive — a basic bit of travelers’ guidance that has, until now, remained a rarity in New York. Electronic arrival-time clocks, a convenience long enjoyed by users of mass transit in London, Paris and Washington, are starting to trickle into New York City’s labyrinthine transportation network, part of a recent push to bring 21st-century technology to a system that runs very much as it did on its first day more than a century ago. Officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority say the clocks will revolutionize the way New Yorkers get around, soothing the usual anxieties that come with waiting for a bus or train that might never arrive. Three experiments are now active in the city, including a multimillion-dollar subway tracking system in the South Bronx and GPS-based bus timers along 34th Street that cost the city nothing because a potential vendor picked up the tab.