Beware bad information when Metro's robots do the talking

November 8, 2009 12:36 am

MACHINES are al- ways talking to me on the train and on the bus. Sometimes, they know what they're talking about, and sometimes, it's nonsense. Sometimes, I talk back.

The Virginia Railway Express onboard talking computer advises me twice a day that a high-speed train may be approaching the station at Quantico. "Rubbish," I sometimes mutter, because I know that the speed limit for trains going through the Quantico station is 55 mph.

The computer also announces the stations, which is helpful in the dark--if the computer gets the information right. But one morning it said: "Now at Fredericksburg. Now at Fredericksburg. " Six times in all the message was repeated, and we were sitting in the Leeland Road station in Stafford.

Then the computer announced that there was a delay ahead, extent unknown, and said we should think about switching to Metro at the next station, which was Brooke, also in Stafford and a long way from the nearest Metro stop.

Metro has a similar announcement system on its buses, and it seems more reliable. I ride the Metrobus a lot, and it makes a lot of stops, but I've heard a wrong stop announced only once.

The Next Bus system, which I wrote about two months ago, is pretty accurate at informing riders when the next Metrobus will actually arrive.

But I trusted it too much. When it told me that the next bus would not arrive for an hour, I supposed that a bus had broken down. More likely, I've discovered, such an announcement means that Next Bus isn't getting a GPS signal from the bus, or else Next Bus is just wrong. I've learned to disregard any predictions that there won't be another bus for an hour, and I just go down to the bus stop, where I'm usually rewarded with a bus at about the time when one is scheduled.

Over the years, Metro has implemented two other automatic communication features that I really like. In the rail stations, a display tells you how long before the next train arrives, which line it's for (if more than one Metrorail line serves that platform), its destination (some trains don't go all the way to the end of the line) and how many cars long the train will be (which tells you how far down the platform you can go and still be near the train when it pulls in). Typically the system will display information about the next two or three trains.

The other innovation is electronic signs showing the route number on the back of buses. Countless times I have seen people running for a bus, and very often it turned out that the person was chasing the wrong bus. When more than one bus line serves a stop, that number on the back tells you whether you've just missed your bus. If the bus is at the stop and you're coming up from behind, you know whether it's worth running.

Both of these systems seem to display information reliably, but there is one incident I still wonder about. One morning, years ago, I was crossing Interstate 95 via the footbridge at Shirlington. A Metrobus came down the highway, and instead of the destination or the "Out of service" message, the electronic sign up front said there was an emergency onboard, please call the police. It went up an exit ramp and disappeared around a corner. It could have gone south, north or west, and I didn't have a cell phone, so I didn't call 911 after I got to work. By then, five minutes had gone by, and the bus was probably a mile away in an unknown direction. I still hope that the message was displayed by mistake or that someone else saw it and called the police.

On the whole, these robotic messages are helpful, but the robots aren't all that smart, and many days I wait to hear the straight facts from a human being.

Steve Dunham of Spotsylvania County commutes on Virginia Railway Express to Arlington. He chairs the board of directors of the Virginia Association of Railway Patrons. Write him c/o Commuter Crossroads, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401, or e-mail
Email: sgdunham@verizon.net.