The days of tissue-thin tickets collected by human attendants are over in Beijing's underground. Riders on Monday were greeted by electronic ticketing with automatic gates.
When Beijing's Line 5 debuted in October last year, riders found out what they could expect, as new electronic gates were installed but not yet unfurled. Travelers in Asia will recognize the mechanisms from Hong Kong and Shanghai.
Beijing's new subway ticketing system was previewed with the opening of Line 5 in October 2007. They came into service June 9, 2008.
(Credit: Graham Webster)Besides removing the human factor from ticket sales and collection, a feat accomplished already with debit-based ticketing cards that have been in place for quite a while, the system puts Beijing in league with advanced systems that can use rider data to adjust service.
According to People's Daily:
As the new system requires passengers to check in and out electronically, it records precisely their entry and departing stations. This enables us to accurately record passenger flow on each line and station.
"The subway company can adjust train schedules to ease traffic. This is especially important when the Olympic Games are held in August in Beijing," Zhang said.
I'm looking forward to giving the new system a shot this week.
(Credit:
Wikimedia Commons)
A power outage, possibly related to the sweltering heat, has knocked out one of New York City's most heavily trafficked subway lines as well as some lights in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. The outage, which apparently began around 3:40 PM EDT, affected the 4, 5, and 6 subway lines (the green line), the D line, and power in nearby areas of Manhattan and the Bronx near Yankee Stadium. There's no word on when power will be restored yet.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority's Web site, meanwhile, is timing out, probably due to the overload of hits.
Put on your tinfoil hats, folks: the green line can take you from 59th St. and Lexington Avenue, just a few blocks from the midtown Apple Store. It can also take you to Spring St. and Lafayette St., in close proximity to the SoHo Apple Store on Prince St. That means that the artery connecting one Apple Store to the next has essentially been severed, so iPhone fanatics may find their travel plans stunted.
Which leads us to this totally obvious conclusion: Did Bill Gates shut down the subway?
If so, he missed something: the R train will take you to essentially the same location at 59th St., and even closer to the Apple Store in SoHo. Looks like a "security flaw" in his nefarious plot. Better patch it, Microsoft.
Improved transportation data in Zurich
(Credit: Google Maps)Google Maps' new Street View feature might be getting all the buzz these days (Hello, kitty) but that's not the only thing that's new with the popular online map application. On Monday, Google announced that Google Maps now has improved information about public transportation in many cities worldwide.
Subway stops, in addition to building outlines and car traffic data, first appeared on Google Maps in February. Now, the subway and train stops provide additional information: which lines are serviced by a particular station, a link to the Web site for the corresponding transportation company, as well as upcoming departure data.
But that last feature's still being rolled out: test runs of New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and Montreal yielded only a link back to the public transportation system's main homepage. You can, however, find departure data in several European cities, like Zurich (as Mashable discovered). In addition, you can search for a particular station by typing it into Google Maps, and it'll direct you right there.
Expanded departure data in Zurich
(Credit: Google Maps)
Only limited data available for NYC
(Credit: Google Maps)Google's uber-beta Labs also has been working on Google Transit, a trip-planning application that's currently available for a handful of U.S. cities (sorry, no NYC, Boston, or San Francisco) as well as all of Japan. That is, if you're O.K. with taking trip-planning recommendations from a company that suggests you swim across the Atlantic to get from New York to Paris.
Has anybody found a U.S. city that has departure data available yet? If so, let us know in the comments.
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