<story><title>How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters</title><url>https://medium.com/@alexkharlamov/how-mta-shut-down-my-app-for-penn-station-commuters-39e1cf69395f</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>state_machine</author><text>I can see why the MTA wouldn&amp;#x27;t want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too.  Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to the right platform, but sending people to potentially the wrong platform seems even worse.&lt;p&gt;EDIT:
Penn is extremely platform&amp;#x2F;track constrained -- NJ Transit, LIRR and Amtrak are all sharing a fixed number of platforms, some of which are too short.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;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&amp;#x2F;bottlenecks, communication, etc).</text></comment>
<story><title>How MTA shut down my app for Penn Station commuters</title><url>https://medium.com/@alexkharlamov/how-mta-shut-down-my-app-for-penn-station-commuters-39e1cf69395f</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>bradleyjg</author><text>For about a year a decade and a half ago, I commuted into and out of Penn Station with my father who had been doing so since the late 70s.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;t the only one either. If you went down before they announced the tracks you&amp;#x27;d see little clusters of people waiting apart from each other on an otherwise empty track. We&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s a fascinating kind of micro-expertise that develops when you do the same thing over and over again.</text></comment>