New York Has Too Few Subway Countdown Clocks
When I was visiting New York in June-July, I was stricken by how hard it was to figure out when the next train would come. Every subway station is equipped with countdown clocks, the A Division (numbered lines) and L trains having older installations than the rest of the B Division (lettered lines). However, the B Division stations that I used did not have many countdown clocks, and I found myself having to walk long distances along hot platforms to figure out which train to take. I counted the number of clocks at a few stations, and asked ETA members to do the same; now back in Berlin, I’ve done some counts here as well, confirming that it’s not just me – New York’s B Division platforms have fewer and harder to find countdown clocks than the standard on the Berlin U- and S-Bahn platforms, even though New York’s more complex subway network requires if anything more clocks as passengers have multiple options. Based on what I’ve seen in Berlin, I recommend that New York install a minimum of four overhead clocks per B Division platform, with the screen going in both directions.
The situation in Berlin
The U-Bahn platforms seem standardized to me. The traditional norm was that stations were built cut-and-cover, right underneath a major street, with an entrance at each end of the central island platform. Nowadays almost all stations have elevators and there are plans for retrofitting the rest, which BVG estimates will be completed in 2028, the date having been pushed later over the years I’ve lived in the city. The elevators always connect two levels, with opposite side doors for the two levels, so that wheelchair users don’t have to turn.
There are, at the stations I use, two overhead countdown clocks for each platform face. Nearly all platforms are islands, and each direction has separate countdown clocks. The clocks display the times on both sides, and are typically located at the quarter points of the station, so that passengers are never more than a quarter of the platform length from a clock, with good sight lines; the platforms are 100-110 meters long.
The S-Bahn is less standardized. A full-length eight-car train is 150 meters is long. The countdown clocks are double-sided and overhead as on the U-Bahn, and each platform face has a separate clock even when the tracks are in the same direction (as at Ostbahnhof), but the number is inconsistent; there are stations with just one, but Friedrichstraße on the North-South Tunnel has three.
The situation in New York
The A Division has overhead countdown clocks, connected to the train control system (automated train supervision, or ATS), installed in the early 2010s; the L has countdown clocks of the same provenance. The number of clocks per station is not fixed, but ranges between two and four per track. The B Division’s train control system let the control center know where trains were but not which train was which – that is, which train on the same track is an A, which is a D, and so on – and therefore the same system was not installed at the time. Years later, a different system was installed, with nicer graphics and a different connection to the control center, which is sometimes less accurate.
This newer system on the B Division has a combination of overhead clocks, often single- rather than double-sided, and floor-mounted clocks facing sideways, toward the tracks rather than toward the front and back of the platforms. The floor-mounted clocks are difficult to read unless I’m standing right there. The platforms are obstructed so it’s hard to tell from a distance where the clock is. Worse, many floor-mounted installations look identical from a distance to the clocks, but instead display advertisements or service changes but no information about the next train.
What’s more, there just aren’t a lot of these clocks. At 2nd Avenue on the F, heading downtown toward Marron, I counted a single clock, but six boards displaying system maps or ads. ETA’s Alex Sramek checked several stations in Lower Manhattan, including Chambers on the A/C/E and on the J/Z, Fulton Street, Cortlandt Street on the R/W, and Broad Street, and found one to three clocks, always a mix of overhead and floor-mounted – and the floor-mounted clocks sometimes would only show the next train and not the subsequent ones, even for platforms serving multiple routes.
There should be more clocks in New York than in Berlin. The platforms are much longer – the A Division platforms are 155 meters, the L and J/Z platforms are 145 meters, the other B Division platforms are 185 meters. The extensive branching means that even while waiting on the platform, regardless of what information is displayed outside the station, it is important to know when each service using the station will come, to plan out which line to take. I made mistakes on trips from Brooklyn to Queens just because I wasn’t sure what to do when transferring at West 4th, where, having just missed the E, I needed to make a decision on whether to wait for a delayed F or try to make the B/D and transfer to the E at 53rd, opted for the latter, and missed the E at 53rd.
If a Berlin U-Bahn station has two double-sided clocks, and a major S-Bahn station has three, then New York should have four per B Division platform. These should be overhead and double-sided – the floor-mounted screens are difficult to see from a distance along the direction relevant to most passengers, and easily confused with ads, ensuring that their utility is marginal.
Pedestrian Observations 
Agree that IND/BMT platforms should have 4 displays /large type and ceiling mounted. I would also locate a display above the fare gates adjacent the agent booth. IRT stations could get by with 3.
Not only at subways, but also at bus stops!
Not only on the platforms. For instance, I noticed that the central part of Times Square station only has countdown clocks for 1/2/3. Not the yellow, A/C, shuttle, or 7 services. There should also be more clocks at the entrances of stations.
Also, I love that the screens on trains in Japan often will clearly describe what’s going on with connecting lines. For instance, line such and such is delayed due to deer strike, or when the next connecting trains are. Other than TOD, wayfinding is probably the best part of Japanese train transit.
Wayfinding like that would go hard for systems like New York with their regional/express/local layers. Imagine your metro train calling out the next departures on the LIRR when pulling into Jamaica, but only visually because that would be a lot of info to speak.
100% agree with train info at entrances. It’s nice to know whether I want to use the toilet before getting on the train or after getting off, whether the rapid is going to save time vs the local for a shorter trip, etc..
I agree. (I faced the E/F decision daily–with inadequate information–for over 10 years, commuting from Brooklyn to 53rd & Lex.).
Improved WiFi in subway could help. I am frustrated when riding a NYC subway train that the login procedure cannot be completed while the train is in a station (in part due to ads). So I usually cannot get info on potential train and bus connections while on a moving train.
Also, info for bus connections could be improved. NYC Transit has neighborhood maps posted in stations, but they do not show the locations of bus stops. In contrast, Paris Metro not only has maps indicating bus stop locations and appropriate exit markings, but also often has screens near Metro exits indicating when buses are due at the nearby stops.
The data is available. It should be made more accessible.
Now that cell service is available in every station, I think the MTA is assuming that people will just use their app to check for live train times.
There’s not much you can do once you’re on the platform other than feel better that a train is coming. I’d prefer a countdown timer at the staircase, so i know how fast to run to the train. It sucks rushing only to see that the next train is coming in 5 mins.
In New York, there’s a lot you can do, because there is still the decision of what train to take – and often one gets on the platform via another train rather than via a station entrance.
No, a countdown at staircase encourages people to run on the staircase with risk.
Heck, at that point might as well not give next train or bus info to mapping apps either.
Where staircase clocks are, they often cut off times based on the amount of time it would take to walk them quickly. If you’re worried about that, that seems like the solution.
Cutting off based on the time needed to walk to platform sounds a good idea. In Hong Kong, such approach has been applied at MTR Lo Wu station, where a screen shows which platform will the next train depart from.
People in a hurry will run ANYWAY, but with extra knowledge, they might not.
The NET result might be the SAME number of people running, as today, many people who are in a hurry will always run, but now they won’t.
This is not just a subway problem. I regularly change from Amtrak to commuter rail. Stamford has countdown clocks on the platforms, but shockingly little signage about which platform a rider actually needs to be on. Since platforms aren’t standardised, I have to walk up to the main station to confirm platforms. Newark has better signage, but train information is obscured by closed caption text of the verbal announcements. Wayfinding is definitely not the New York area’s priority.
Same issue with the TTC in Toronto: with 150m platforms, most stations only have one or maybe two bidirectional screens showing ads across the top and the next train (only the next singular train) across the bottom.
One can argue that you should not have countdown clocks for passengers, but should have countdown clocks for drivers.
Countdown clocks for passengers implies your frequency is so low that passengers need to know how long they will be waiting or when to rush to catch a train, instead of knowing that waits will never be long and that missing a departure will never really delay them. Such low frequency also implies that the choice between an E or F train could meaningfully affect travel time, instead of a passenger being able to take whichever came first (knowing that the connection somewhere down the line will have a short wait) or being able to wait for the one-seat ride (knowing that the direct train will be coming soon).
Countdown clocks for drivers (telling them how long they have until they leave) implies your frequency is so high you need a mechanism to keep trains properly spaced without gaps or bunching, and that you value punctuality and performing to standard.
It should be obvious which of these two paradigms is better for passengers and will deliver higher ridership.
Note that driverless trains are equal to having countdown clocks for drivers, just instead of a visual signal an electronic one is sent to tell the train when to leave. Note also that wayfinding signage is fine and should be encouraged. This includes signs telling passengers which platform to go to catch a regional or intercity train, or signs on a subway telling passengers where the next arriving train is going on lines that branch (i.e. is it an E or an F, a Blue Line or Orange Line, etc.)
It costs money to run empty trains even if they are unstaffed.
It costs very little to run trains if they are unstaffed, such that you can run several driverless trains for each one that is crewed.
In places like NY, Berlin, Chicago, etc. there will never be empty trains, even at high frequency.
Providing service at higher frequency leads to higher ridership, which means the trains will be more full than a simplistic “twice as many trains equals half as full.”
If you do get to the point that you are truly over-providing capacity, with driverless trains there is no penalty to running 24 tph with 4-car trains versus 24 tph with 8-car trains; you can cut operating costs in half this way while maintaining high frequency.
In Railfanlandia. It cost real money to run empty trains. Run half as many of them them it costs half as much and they are half as empty.
No, run half as many of them and then it costs 90% as much. All the fixed costs – infrastructure, infrastructure maintenance, rolling stock acquisition, rolling stock maintenance – still have to be paid. Crew costs are degressive because it’s easier to timetable flat than peaky schedules – there’s a reason the Berlin U-Bahn gets about twice as many service hours out of each train drivers as the LIRR even with 6 weeks of paid vacation.
You also get more passengers so if you increase passenger numbers by 10% then it makes sense to run the extra trains.
Some maintenance is done on distance. Or hours of service.
You cook your books your way and I’ll cook mine my way. Running twice as many trains costs money.
For infrastructure maintenance, there’s published literature on this, for figuring out how to price track access charges on privatized networks, for example here and here.
For rolling stock, I’ll just point out to you that London buys rolling stock on the same on paper 40-year, in practice slightly longer cycle as New York and Paris, even though Tube trainsets average 140,000 service-km/year, New York City Transit trainsets 90,000, and Métro trainsets 70,000.
Then there are the estimates of high-speed rail maintenance costs as in the California HSR docs, likewise showing rather low marginal costs.
And no matter which way you slice it costs money to make trains move.
We ran a big natural experiment in 2020 where we sharply reduced the number of passengers and reduced the number of trains as well.
The result was that running costs for the railway increased faster than inflation.
Also in the late 1990s and early 2000s our privatised railways started running more trains to win the contracts for the railway network. Passenger numbers increased significantly even without much new infrastructure.
Passengers on a train are the epitome of not-empty.
……and I thought the cost were fixed and didn’t matter whether or not trains were running. Youse people have to decide which books you are gonna cook.
The whole reason Lou Haigh opposed the ticket office closures was because the vast majority of the railways costs are fixed.
This means that even if ticket offices are expensive to run the revenue you would lose by closing them flows through to the bottom line and increases the government subsidy of the railways.
Passengers on a train are the epitome of not-empty.
And yet you keep saying “it costs money to run empty trains” even though none of the trains in any of the places we are discussing are anywhere close to empty.
It is a simple fact that with driverless trains the incremental cost to run them is a fixed multiple of the mileage (for running gear) or cycles (for things like doors) or hours (for things like air conditioning and signage). Running ten four-car driverless trains costs the same as five eight-car trains. No matter how many times you say “railfanlandia” or “cook the books” this does not change.
My job title has been “Senior Bookkeeper” and I know all the ways to cook the books.
The incremental costs to run three trains is less than running four or eight of them. However you cooked the books to come up with the low low incremental cost. I’m sure if you allocated costs differently it would look much worse.
It seems to me that the real issue of operating shorter, driverless trains at high frequency in off-peak hours is the staff to couple and decouple the sections (especially brake lines) and where do you put the unused sections. When the Keystone changed locomotives in Philadelphia, it seemed to take 3 people to couple and decouple, and there was a wait until brake air pressure was back to normal.
Do systems regularly connecting and unconnecting train sections have the same issues?
(Certainly, I would not care so much about platform countdown clocks if trains came every 5 minutes or less).
better couplers have been invented since 1900 to make this not a problem anymore for example on the new Caltrain sets.
They have countdown clocks on tube lines with 24tph off peak. They are still useful even if just a guide for when the next train is coming.
Countdown clocks and frequency interact negatively as you point out, but countdown clocks remain utile even at Berlin’s 5 minute U-Bahn headways.
> Countdown clocks for drivers (telling them how long they have until they leave) implies your frequency is so high you need a mechanism to keep trains properly spaced without gaps or bunching, and that you value punctuality and performing to standard.
No, it doesn’t. Bucharest has those upwards-counting countdown clocks because they’re traditional on Eastern Europe metro systems, but that doesn’t mean it’s running a particular high frequency service outside of limited peak hours (and even then it’s only every three or four minutes – don’t know if historically there ever was a period with more frequent trains running, but certainly not within the last twenty years or so). Indeed, a distinct memory I have is of the countdown clock hitting 9:55 and then stopping because it couldn’t count any higher (weekend service was only about every ten minutes or so plus/minus depending on the exact line and time and more or less still is today).
FWIW, there are BART apps which show you countdowns for both, trains departure and train arrival at select stations. One is appropriately called BART Runner. I really wish that Caltrain would install it at its one and only transfer station Millbrae where passengers transferring to BART, are greeted by an absolutely meaningless flashing destination sign. The same sign flashes at other BART stations which tells u that the train is departing in a few seconds.
When I still lived in Queens and used the DeKalb Av stop on the L, the only countdown clocks were on the DeKalb entrance, even though at least half (and probably more) passengers used the Stanhope side. After finishing all the signalling upgrades, they just installed nicer countdown clocks on the DeKalb side.
I noticed a few weeks ago that, on the Uptown 8th Av line platform at West 4th, not only is the countdown clock at least 150 ft away from the main platform entrance, it’s blocked by several other navigation signs so you can’t see it unless you’re within about 25ft. Even by MTA standards, it seems pretty pointless.