Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

First Robo-Train Starts Running in NYC Subway

by Tim Stevens on February 24, 2009 at 02:19 PM


If you ride New York City's L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan at odd hours of the day, get ready for a little more automation in your lifestyle. As of today, the L will become the first NY subway line to be fully controlled by Communications Based Train Control, or CBTC, initially used overnights and during non-peak hours. It allows the trains to effectively run themselves, closer and faster than their meatbag conductors could otherwise, which should mean more trains more often. However, those fleshy conductors have something their robotic replacements don't: contracts. Because of that there will still be human conductors watching the controls and, we'd imagine, napping occasionally. At least they're not striking. [Thanks, Zoli]

Tags: cbtc, communications based train control, CommunicationsBasedTrainControl, l-line, mta, new york city, NewYorkCity, nyc, robotrains, subway

Comments

1

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular