Automated train travels in wrong direction, injuring 20 in Yokohama

[bill937ca]

First off it's gadgetbahn not a railway train.  The train apparently stopped then went backwards. Human error at a control center?

 

Japan Today

 

https://japantoday.com/category/national/Automated-train-travels-in-wrong-direction-injuring-20-in-Yokohama?

 

The Mainichi

 

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190601/p2g/00m/0na/099000c

 

Japan Times

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/20-passengers-injured-automated-train-yokohama-travels-wrong-direction/#.XPMBfohKjcc

 

[ben_issacs]

Whee!

Technology strikes again!

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

[Sascha]

I never liked the idea of automated Trains, or Cars. They cant replace Humans.

[EdF]

So you don't fly?

[trainsforever8]

For a second I started thinking the train was hacked or something

[marknewton]

4 hours ago, EdF said:

So you don't fly?

 

You haven’t heard of Boeing’s 737 MAX?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[EdF]

2 incidents in 40 years, and very obviously Boeing cutting corners on extending an old airframe.  Even with the max, autopilot has saved thousands of live in avoided or corrected pilot error.

[EdF]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/407956/

 

I am hugely pro automation for cars, and even I think 90% by 2050 is hopeful, but even if it save 75% of fatalities, it will also have a huge impact on injuries, since non-accidents not only avoid fatalities they avoid injury.  Unlike airbags and seatbelts.

Edited June 2, 2019 by EdF

[chadbag]

20 hours ago, EdF said:

So you don't fly?

 

Tell me of one full automated airplane flying passengers today.   Even with autopilot, there are two fully qualified pilots sitting in the seat ready to take control as needed, and often flying the plane manually.

 

[marknewton]

16 hours ago, EdF said:

2 incidents in 40 years...

 

No, two fatal crashes in five months. Nothing to do with the autopilot, either. You think you’d be so dismissive if someone you cared about had been killed in either crash?

 

Mark.

[EdF]

37 minutes ago, marknewton said:

 

No, two fatal crashes in five months. Nothing to do with the autopilot, either. You think you’d be so dismissive if someone you cared about had been killed in either crash?

 

Mark.

They both very much had to do with Autopilot, lots of autopilot features are to prevent or correct pilot error.  In these 2 it looks very likely the autopilot was correcting what it thought was a stall event.  Now the reason looks to be a faulty probe, that there were reports before the Max that had a above average failure rate, and Boeing putting a system in place with no redundant system.  The airline could option an $80k USD light on the dash that said this probe didn't agree with another probe on the other side of the aircraft.  But Boeing was selling it all in inconsequential, to get out of FAA recertification, as the importance of this whole system was because the new engines did change the flight characteristics of the airframe.  

 

As to the 2 in 5 months, that is cherry picking data.  And yes it is terrible, and Boeing is in my mind at absolute fault in both accidents, the FAA shares it's own fault in being so trusting of Boeing's self assessment.  But regulation does not relieve Boeing of responsibility of building a doomed system.

 

Tesla cars already have far lower fatality, injury and accident rate per mile driven that manual drive, but the newness of the system gets outsized media attention.

[EdF]

3 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

Tell me of one full automated airplane flying passengers today.   Even with autopilot, there are two fully qualified pilots sitting in the seat ready to take control as needed, and often flying the plane manually.

 

Most new aircraft can takeover after pushback, they can taxi, take off, fly,land,taxi.  And younger pilots do tend to allow the autopilot to do almost all of it.  And yes there are people there to watch it.  There are drivers in teslas too.  No system is perfect, but people are terribly flawed at this.  Control systems for trains are like autopilot brakes, and some terrible accidents have happened in gaps in those systems, Amtrak outside Philadelphia, Amtrak Cascades, and the Spanish HSR that had a very slow turn outside the high speed ATC even though the trains used it.  Much like the Cascades accident. 

Edited June 3, 2019 by EdF
clarity, I hope

[bill937ca]

A follow up:

 

Automated train in Yokohama crash continued moving 1 meter after slamming into buffer

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/03/national/automated-train-yokohama-crash-continued-moving-1-meter-slamming-buffer/?utm_source=Daily+News+Updates&utm_campaign=afde8cf899-Tuesday_email_updates04_06_2019&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c5a6080d40-afde8cf899-333474241#.XPVYQ4hKjcc

[Socimi]

"The computer is incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid.

Man is incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant.

The marriage of the two is a force beyond calculation."

Leo Cherne

 

 

Automatic systems and Humans MUST work togheter, assisting and controlling each other to achieve the best of both: saftey, reliability, precision and regularity.

 

Fully replacing one with the other is unthinkable.

 

Going back to a railway perspective, the central dilemma of AGTs is this: they are systems so small and with such low ridership, that to contain costs (building+operational+interests+accidents...) automation seems the only possible way to go, altough some  manual-driven AGTs exist:  some might run well,  some might not.

 

(and then there's the 4km long, rack-shaped system with three trains).

 

The reason behind the accident on the Kanazawa Seaside Line might be that the information was misread by the onboard system or misfed by the ground equipment, as it seems there was no fault on the train's "conventional" (traction/braking...) systems.

Edited June 3, 2019 by Socimi

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

This guideway stack in Yokohama, it's said that the train continued moving after hitting the buffer stop.

Does this mean that the train pushed the buffer stop along a metre?

Tried to get the newspaper report, but timed out.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

[bill937ca]

Automated Yokohama train that ran in wrong direction had broken wire: operator

 

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190606/p2a/00m/0na/014000c?fbclid=IwAR08vmUBirJgJJAC9JqoqWmIRf2Xh5gfroG1QUBjcmWGU4a9ojzn5nb9ylA

 

YOKOHAMA -- The operator of the automated train service that ran in the wrong direction here on June 1 and left 14 passengers injured announced on June 6 that there was a break in the circuit detecting the train's direction of travel...