MBTA collectors
I spent the weekend in Boston and got in a few rides on the T. It seems a labor-intensive system. The Green Line trains (which run as light-rail cars in much of the city) require one operator per car. I'm not sure how much the operator does in cars behind the lead car.
Many of the stations have a "collector," who dispenses tokens. Hand this person $2, and she'll give you one T token and 75 cents in change. I'd think a machine could do this, freeing the human being to watch the station and interact with customers. (Some stations do have machines, which are in various states of repair.)
But then, it seems labor bloat is common in the Northeast. Both the New Jersey and Massachusetts Turnpikes feature humans who dispense tickets, a task performed by machines in parking garages. And in New Jersey, it is unlawful to pump your own gas, which helped create quite a line for gasoline at the stations on the New Jersey Turnpike on Monday.
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massysett | 02:39 PM |
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you said: "...freeing the human being to watch the station and interact with customers."
Do you mean like on the Metro system? Ha ha ha ha. That's not the kind of interaction I want: people holed up in plastic bubbles who can't hear your questions, whose voices are muffled beyond hearing, who are (in some stations) difficult to see behind the glass at all, and who seem upset that you might bother them with a pesky question.
I sure liked being able to go up to a ticket window in Toronto. Because transactions take place, the windows had to be designed to allow things to be passed back and forth, which meant that I could look at the person and hear what they said. In addition, it was awfully nice to be able to buy an inexpensive ticket using a twenty-dollar bill without walking away with lots of coins.
The MBTA has plans to one driver per car operations on the green line trains as well as redeploying the ticket sellers as customer service/station agents once automated fare collection is in place. The latter will happen, the former proposal is being contested by the unions who claim that not having a driver in each car would compromise safety. Of course, they are just protecting their workers, that's what unions do. I love the idea of organized labor, but it has gone too far in many places in the Northeast.
Next time you're in Boston go to the Airport station on the Blue Line. The new Automated Fare Collection is in place now and dispenses "Charlie Tickets". Once all the stations in Boston have the new equipment, the new "Charlie Cards" will be in use which are touch-less, like SmarTrip in DC.
