text:
No Federal Aid to Transit Operations, Please
This is the third in a series of four posts about the poor state of political transit advocacy in the United States, following posts about the Green Line Extension in metro Boston and free public transport proposals, to be followed by an Urban Institute report by Yonah Freemark.
In the United States, political transit activists in the last few years have set their eyes on direct federal aid for operating subsidies for public transport. Traditionally, this has not been allowed: federal aid goes to capital planning (including long-term maintenance), and only a small amount of money goes to operations, all in peripheral bus systems. Urban transit agencies had to operate out of fares and local and state money. Demands for federal aid grew during corona, where emergency aid to operations led to demands for permanent subsidies, and have accelerated more recently as corona recovery has flagged (New York's subway ridership is only around 60% of pre-corona levels). But said demands remain a bad idea in the short and long terms.
In the early 20th century, when public transport was expected to support itself out of fares, operating costs grew with wages, but were tempered by improvements in efficiency. New York City Transit opened with ticket-takers at every subway entrances and a conductor for every two cars; within a generation this system was replaced with automatic turnstiles and one conductor per train. Kyle Kirschling's thesis has good data on this, finding that by the 1930s, the system grew to about 16,000 annual car-miles (=26,000 car-km) per employee.
And then it has stagnated. Further increases in labor efficiency have not happened. Most American systems have eliminated conductors, often through a multi-decade process of attrition rather than letting redundant workers go, but New York retains them. The network today actually has somewhat less service per employee than in the 1930s, 14,000 car-miles as of 2010, because fixed costs are spread across a slightly smaller system. Compare this with JICA's report for Mumbai Metro comparing Japanese cities: Tokyo Metro has 283,871,000 car-km (PDF-p. 254) on 8,474 employees (PDF-p. 9), which is 33,500/employee, and that's without any automation and with only partially conductor-less operations; Yokohama gets 40,000.
Moreover, the timeline in the US matches the onset of subsidies, to some extent: state and local subsidies relieved efficiency pressure. In Canada, TTC saw this and lobbied against subsidies for its own operations in the 1960s, on the grounds that without a breakeven mandate, the unions would capture all surplus; it took until the 1970s for it to finally receive any operating subsidies.
Federal subsidies make all of this worse. They are other people's money (OPM), so local agencies are likely to maximize them at the expense of good service; this is already what they do with capital money, lading projects with local demands for betterments figuring that if everyone else hogs the trough then they should as well.
Then there is the issue of wages. Seniority systems in American unionized labor create labor shortages even when pay is high, because of how they interact with scheduling and tiered wage structures. Bus drivers in Boston earn around $80,000 a year, a pay that German bus and train drivers can only dream of, but starting drivers are in probational status and have a lower wage (they are not even given full-time work until they put in a long period of part-time work). Moreover, because drivers pick their shifts in seniority order, drivers for about the first 10 years are stuck with the worst shifts: split shifts, graveyard shifts at inconsistent intervals, different garages to report to. New York manages to find enough bus drivers to fill its ranks but only by paying around $85,000 a year; other American cities, paying somewhat less, are seeing thousands of missed runs over the year because they can't find drivers.
And outside aid does nothing to fix that. Quite to the contrary, it helps paper over these problems and perpetuates the labor gerontocracy. New York City Transit has learned to react to every crisis by demanding a new source of income; there is not enough political appetite for transparent taxation, so the city and state find ever more opaque sources of funds, avoiding political controversy over wanton inefficiency but creating more distortion than a broad income tax would.
Instead of subsidizing current consumption, a developmental state should subsidize production. Don't pay money to hire more bus drivers; pay for automating subway systems, for better dispatching, for better planning around intermodal integration. Current American wages, not to mention the unemployment rate, scream "invest in labor-saving technology" and not "expand labor-intensive production."
Written by Alon Levy Posted in Incompetence, Labor, New York, Politics and Society, Transportation, Urban Transit
2022-03-27 - 00:14 Phake Nick
>85000 USD per bus driver
That's like triple the income of bus drivers in Tokyo
https://xn--pckua2a7gp15o89zb.com/%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E9%81%8B%E8%BB%A2%E6%89%8B%E3%81%AE%E5%B9%B4%E5%8F%8E%E3%83%BB%E6%99%82%E7%B5%A6#:~:text=%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E9%81%8B%E8%BB%A2%E6%89%8B%E3%81%AE%E4%BB%95%E4%BA%8B%E3%81%AE%E5%B9%B3%E5%9D%87%E5%B9%B4%E5%8F%8E%E3%81%AF%E7%B4%84,%E5%86%86%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A6%E3%81%84%E3%81%BE%E3%81%99%E3%80%82
You argue for a well-structured subsidy then? In that case, the question becomes what metrics should a subsidy pay for? The easiest would be to subsidize ridership, by providing say a fixed $1 per boarding, but only in systems with a free transfer policy.
2022-03-27 - 07:05 Eric2
Federal subsidies for construction have the same issue ("it's free money so let's take it whether or not it does anything useful, if not it'll just get spent elsewhere"). And you have the cross-over issue of "let's build a useless trolley rather than improving bus headways, because the feds only pay for the former".
So maybe all federal transit subsidies should be ended. But then you still have federal subsidies for cars and roads, and incentivizing those over transit is bad. So maybe the solution is for the feds to stop paying for any form of transportation – instead, individual states or coalitions of states could tax themselves to build whatever projects they think are needed. But good luck achieving this politically.
2022-03-27 - 10:15 Arlington Traveler (@ArlingtonTravel)
@Eric 2, the problem is not with federal subsidies for capital. For the most part they go to good projects as the competition for available $ is stiff. The issue are twofold.
First, American's aversion to taxation means there simply haven't been enough $$ to operate the better bus headways. Our transit spending per capita in many middle sized American cities are insanely low. Couple that with high labor costs, much of which is driven by employee and retiree healthcare costs which agencies have little control over (and union's won't give up their health benefits and rightly so)
Second, is that our average residential population densities are insanely low so even if you half the headways on bus routes, you'd be lucky to get a 25% increase in ridership. I'm a big advocate for operating good transit where there is demand, and laving vast swaths of suburbia unserved until they densities increase and the pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is built.
"For the most part they go to good projects" – lol.
"American's aversion to taxation" – Americans do want to get places. The problem is that roads are paid for with their federal taxes, so then the question is, why tax yourself a second time for transit when you already have roads. Understandable, but it would be great to change those incentives.
"our average residential population densities are insanely low so even if you half the headways on bus routes, you'd be lucky to get a 25% increase in ridership" – It depends on the place, but I think Alon (who has done the research) probably disagrees in general.
American's aversion to taxation
Is because they have been told the myth that giving rich people more money will make us all rich. It makes rich people richer.
roads are paid for with their federal taxes
No they aren't. And they only get spent on Federal roads. Which have a contribution from the state. When your exit from the Federal highway leads to a state road the state pays for that. It leads to a county road it doesn't. The county roads and the municipal roads are paid for out of local taxes, usually sales and property taxes.
If it's restricted to passenger vehicles only, which is quite common in certain parts of the county it's not eligible for Federal funding. If it's a toll road, which is quite common in the Midwest and Northeast, it doesn't either.
Fuel taxes paying for road, either federal or state, is a myth almost everybody tells each other.
2022-03-27 - 16:40 df1982
Increasing off-peak headways to be closer to peak headways is low-hanging fruit. The marginal costs are small, as has often been pointed out here. If you already have all the buses, bus stops, depots and the like, then the only added cost is fuel and drivers' salaries. The latter is also defrayed by less need for deadheading, split-shifts and the like. So your added costs might be such that even a 25% increase in ridership is still worth it.
That's the good thing about fbfree's proposal to have a flat federal subsidy per ride (or passenger mile so as not to perversely incentivise short trips). Local agencies would try to find ways to economically boost ridership, and increasing off-peak frequencies is a great way of doing this.
The problem with Alon's "no operational subsidies" line is that it creates situations where cities build lavish infrastructure with federal dollars but then run self-destructively low frequencies on them to try to contain opex. Going to 100% local funding would also exacerbate the problem with city administrations surrounded by transit hostile suburban counties, which makes it hard to provide service in a coherent manner.
The flip side is that the presence of OPM leads these transit-hostile county and state administrations to extract funding from transit agencies that want more service, in effect using federal money for road widening and maintenance greenwashed as BRT. The origin of bus lanes in FHWA engineers who hated public transit unless it was peak-hour buses doesn't help.
If the OPM is tied to ridership, though, then the agencies have to "earn" it (by getting more riders) rather than simply extract it through political machinations.
Actually the bigger downside is that it exacerbates cost-cutting spirals when ridership dips due to external events (economic crises, pandemics and the like). But perhaps some kind of rainy day fund can be set aside for these moments.
True. But at least the demands being made by agencies and activists are specifically not about ridership. They're about random demands; in Phoenix apparently the demand is to add a second crew member on every light rail vehicle to watch over passengers and handle conflicts.
2022-03-28 - 15:00 Richard Mlynarik
I don't see how the BRT bogeyman plays any role here. (Show me on the doll where the bad bus touched you inappropriately!)
US "public" agencies running rail do exactly the same thing, I could give you hundreds of examples from Caltrain and San Francisco Muni, but who needs to hear that again? (I mean like in 2022 seeking to spend $350 million for bridging one pair of railway tracks over over one single road, in a way that is actively incompatible with placing four tracks, actively incompatible with grade separating adjacent rail/road crossings, and then … planning to run one train per direction per hour heads except at weekday commute hours? Death is far far far too kind a fate.)
It's all greenwashed earmarked funding. Nobody cares what's built, nobody cares if it's used, nobody cares about capital costs (except maximization), nobody cares about operating efficiency.
Incinerating dumpters full of cash is the sole aim, no matter what superficial vehicle mode is the supposed justification.
2022-03-27 - 12:17 plaws0
I don't want people being fired in the name of efficiency. But here's the thing – everyone has a buyout price. If you dangle enough dollars per displaced employee, even if it's several years' salary, they will take the cash and find other gainful employment. *And* will probably *still* be cheaper than letting them attrit away.
Yes, more labor-saving tech, please. I've heard that in the face of paying burger flippers $15/hr that they are mechanizing a lot of the actual burger flipping. Works for me as a customer: I'd rather have 3 employees making $15/hr than 6 making $7.50. Not that $15/hr is a great wage, but you get they idea.
If they ever get the CBTC working on the L and the 7 trains, it will be interesting to see if the MTA actually learns anything from the endless projects. Will they speed up the trains and increase productivity? Or will there just be endless delays because of "CBTC failure" because they don't maintain the equipment?
The L and 7 are already CBTC-equipped. NYCT chose not to use this to speed up the trains, but rather to slow them down to reduce brake wear (P.S. rolling stock maintenance costs are not unusually low on NYCT due to this). They also don't run a lot of trains on weekends because of constant service changes.
I wondered. So those systems are in service but they don't really make use of them. Sounds like PTC on "steam" roads. All the testing of primitive PTC in the 70s and 80s said that PTC would boost efficiency. The steam roads made sure that wasn't the case.
Does whoever told you they did it to reduce brake wear know that the R-10s, first delivered in 1948, had "dynamic" brakes in addition to pneumatic brakes? And that modern trains are regenerative?
…. the braking system is "combined dynamic-electro-pneumatic".
2022-03-28 - 11:16 Stephen Bauman
"And that modern trains are regenerative?"
Regenerative brakes require a device to receive the power generated from braking. Electric vehicles use regenerative baking to charge their batteries. The idea for the NTT trains was that they would power another NTT train on an adjacent track. It never worked. They also tried to install stationary electrical mechanical batteries (flywheels) at a station and have them supply starting power to provide a boost to trains leaving the station. That also did not work.
Unfortunately, the dynamic and pneumatic brakes on the NTT trains were sized assuming that regenerative brakes would work. This meant that brakes were wearing out much faster than on the old equipment.
The MTA's typical solution was to slow down the trains to compensate/hide the braking deficiency.
Passenger trains have a "hotel power" load. Whatever it is, that's better than dumping it into a resistor grid. According to nycsubway.org the New Technology Trains, the R-110s, were delivered in 1992 and have since been retired. They were prototypes. They didn't fix this in in the R-142? Or the R-143? Or R-160, R-179 or R-188?
1. Most of what I've read refers to all the purchases based on the R110's as NTT. This includes the R142, R143, R160, etc.
2. There's also battery power on subway trains. It's around 37 volts and powers the control signals on all equipment from the introduction of the LV's. This might be equivalent to "hotel power". However, NYCT was hoping to reduce their power requirements by 20% or more. Powering the on-train batteries from regenerative brakes would not have come close to this achieving this goal.
They thought they could drop the regenerative power directly into the third rail and have it picked up by an adjacent train. I thought this was a risky scenario from an electrical engineering standpoint. They would not know whether it worked until they had a fleet operating on an entire line. There were not two R110's on adjacent tracks for concept testing. Their first test would be when the R142's and R143's were delivered and operating in quantity.
They were trying to get the concept working for quite a while after delivery of the R142's and R143's. Resizing the friction brakes would require a redesign of the trucks. All I know is what I read from public sources. I believe they are using the same truck design on later NTT cars. They did not retrofit the R142A, trucks when the trains were retrofitted for CBTC operation. The only change I'm aware of was removing motors and brakes from 1 truck per 5 or 6 car unit to prevent slippage for distance traveled calculations.
2022-03-28 - 16:37 anonymouse observer
Are these NYC subway specific situations or in general in DC-electrified railways? I'm curious and hope this is only in NYC Subway because the regenerated electricity from the braking has been feeding power to other trains, and wayside solutions to store/repurpose/consume/burn off the excess regenerated electricity from the braking in other DC-electrified rail systems in other parts of the world. I heard that regenerative braking sometimes fails when the voltage on catenary/third rail becomes too high (i.e. low density lines with long continuous grades, no other trains accelerating nearby, etc.) but never heard that high-density system like NYC subway having constant issues with regenerative braking.
By the way, why has these solutions which has been working in other properties been failing in NYC subway?
Here are links to two articles that might shed some light on this subject.
https://www.ctc-n.org/technologies/regenerative-braking-trains#:~:text=Train%20Regenerative%20Braking%20Introduction,reversed%2C%20slowing%20down%20the%20train.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/regenerative-braking-helps-railways-to-save-energy-money/articleshow/10131180.cms
The issue isn't power consumption, it's that faster braking wears the brakes more and increases brake maintenance costs by a little bit. And in addition to what Stephen mentions, electric brakes are never perfectly regenerative, they save you some energy but there's still frictional braking.
If it's working well the friction brakes don't start to work until it's going so slow the dynamic brakes are losing their effectiveness. It doesn't matter, at that point, how fast the train was going a minute ago.
I'm finding this all hard to believe. The electrical engineers at ConEd would have been deeply interested in this. And the electrical engineers at the MTA. And the electrical engineers at Kawasaki/Bombardier. And the pneumatic brake engineers at the brake companies who would have asked questions like "What happens during a blackout?" And that they didn't put resistor grids under the R-142s or later trains.
Accelerating trains realllly really fasts eats a lot of power in short amounts of time. Do that with too many trains the substation that was in installed in 1952 trips it's circuit breakers and none the trains are accelerating. Volts times amp equals watts and even though third rail is chunky there are a limited number of amps you can shove through it at 600 volts. There might be that kind of stuff going on too.
I'm finding it all hard to believe and suspect "public sources" is subchat.
2022-03-30 - 08:57 xh
"…electric brakes are never perfectly regenerative, they save you some energy but there's still frictional braking"
This is not true, however. Japan has been testing pure electric/regenerative brakes since 1997, and put them into revenue service on the Tsukuba Express trains in 2005. In China, metro trains with Siemens traction systems also have this feature since 2018. In these systems, frictional brakes are retained, but only as a fail-safe for emergency brake / parking brake application, so that there's virtually no wear of brakes.
The basics of regenerative braking is that the rotor in an induction motor is driven by the rotating magnetic field created by electric currents in the stator. The torque applied by the M-field to the rotor is propotional to the difference in their angular frequencies (velocities). So, the rotor will decelerate if the M-field is controlled to rotate slower than the rotor itself. As the rotor decelerates, at some point the angular frequency (velocity) of the M-field will reach zero. And if the frequency of the M-field remains at zero, the rotor still decelerates, but at a decaying deceleration. This has lead to a myth that regenerative brakes aren't good at low speeds.
But actually, at low speeds the M-field can also be controlled to rotate inversely (i.e. against the direction of the rotor) such that the deceleration doesn't decay anymore. Under this scheme, the inveresely rotating M-field must be cut out immediately once the rotor itself stops, otherwise it would accelerate reversely, which requires very precise speed measurement and motor control at low speeds – something not technically feasible until ~2000s.
You may refer to this paper for some details:
Click to access CR02060FU.pdf
……Even it's if 1960 and you are doing the dynamic braking by switching relays around, it doesn't matter how fast the train WAS going before it becomes less effective.
2022-03-27 - 13:56 IAN! Mitchell
"I don't want people being fired in the name of efficiency."
Well, I do.
So you're a jerk. OK. I didn't say don't get rid of dead weight, I said don't just fire them. Buy them out. Much less drama that way and you *still* save money.
2022-03-27 - 20:37 Luke
Isn't the ultimate idea with efficiency in transportation to offer more? Reduce operating expenses? Great; increase service. Increase ridership? Wonderful; invest in infrastructure upgrades. Otherwise, it's just cost-cutting.
2022-03-27 - 16:23 Charlie
How far away are we from automated buses?
On segregated busways it could likely be done right now on a technical level. In mixed traffic areas where you have to deal with pedestrians, cyclists and the like, probably never.
212 years.
when fusion power is cheaper than alternatives. though I have more hope for autonomous vehicles
I don't believe they run in regular (non-experimental) service in mixed traffic anywhere.
2022-03-28 - 09:23 Henry Miller
About as far away as driverless cars – there are only trivial differences between the two. If your driverless car is safe in normal traffic then you put it on a bus and you are good to go. I know that the companies working on this have lots of partnerships so I expect that in a few years of it on cars it will be one buses.
10 years ago I said about 10 years. Obviously I was wrong, I refuse to make more predictions. Those working on it have made great progress, but only in very limited situations, I'm not sure if they can expand to buses or not.
I'm going to backtrack on that a bit. Driverless cars are in some ways limited because you just might drive on some weird road. The Bus companies in partnership with the big auto manufactures (who are funding development for all cars) have a big advantage over cars: random cars. The only thing they need that a car doesn't is the ability to tell if someone near the road wants to get on, not a difficult problem to solve.
From there you order a bus, it still has a steering wheel (used to get from the factory to your depot), and some time before engineers come to map the route(s) you want it to drive one. They will gather whatever data they need, tell you about traffic lights to upgrade, and other corrections needed to your city to make it possible.
Taxi service in the likes of San Fransisco is already starting, so things are close. Though from close to here can still be a while
2022-04-05 - 17:48 Sascha Claus
If your driverless car is safe in normal traffic then you put it on a bus and you are good to go.
You can put it on a bus even earlier if you use it only in low-traffic areas, like suburban feeder routes. The transit company has more control over where it sends its bus than Google has over where somebody drives their driverless car; so a bus can easier be restricted to 'driverless operation only on such and such roads' and still find a buyer.
If you have self driving cars you give the few people using the low frequency short bus a smartphone and free cabs rides from home and one or two can loiter at their destinations.
CBTC does nothing to increase service level capacity (maximum tph or minimum headway). This is determined by rolling stock and track geometry characteristics, as well as station dwell time. The accepted figure is somewhere around 44 tph for existing equipment with a 30 second dwell time at each station. The existing block signal system can handle 40 tph, provided trains are operated in a manner that is consistent with such operation. Such operation requires a level of train supervision (keeping trains on schedule) that is beyond NYCT's managerial and operational capabilities. NYCT overcomes these deficiencies by reducing maximum service levels to 30 tph or less. Systems like Moscow and Paris that exceed the 30 tph threshold use positive train supervision methods (keeping operating trains on schedule) that provide frequent periodic feedback to every train operator whether they are ahead or behind schedule.
There is an optimum speed to achieve service level capacity. Deviating above or below that speed will result in decreased service level capacity for given rolling stock characteristics and dwell time. That speed is between 12 and 37 mph for 40 tph operation. This means that operating trains at 80 mph on 90 second headways is not possible, even with CBTC. Similarly, if a line has a speed restriction below 12 mph, due to a downhill or curve, it will result in a capacity reduction.
To a shockingly large degree, "CBTC" serves as massively (massively!) expensive cover for "shorter track blocks" (and/or "finer speed control" and/or "more accurate braking curve models" — but mostly "shorter blocks".)
In practice these things can be separated, and often are by technically competent operators with sound engineering-economic priorities.
But most it's "why analyze where to install a few extra loops or balises when instead we can spend several hundred million on a tailored special-needs one-off CBTC system with a special-needs all-new one-off radio system that theoetically localizes trains to the metre (but in reality is operated by chimps and results in lower availability, equal-or-worse train throughput, and exploding maintenance cost)?"
CBTC's small block length advantage is a myth in practice. That's because the only place/time that accurate train position needs to be known is when trains are close together. That occurs only at stations. Block lengths in NYC are quite short approaching station stop points (100 ft and sometimes less). 600 ft trains traveling at 30 mph with 90 second headways are 3450 feet apart. Knowing their relative positions to the nearest 100 feet is unnecessary.
CBTC's position uncertainty is a lot greater than a meter in practice. The train has to communicate its position to the central computer. It is polled by the central computer. The system is tolerant of missed communications for up to 2 seconds. This means a train's position approaching a station at 30 mph (45 ft/sec) could be up to 90 ft off before alarms go off and trains go into emergency. That's pretty close to a conventional short block length.
CBTC is a car builder's dream. All the equipment must be replaced because a single non-CBTC train will force the entire line to operate at the auxilliary wayside system's (AWS) service level. That's 3 tph for the 14th St and Flushing Lines. All the old signal equipment makers have been purchased by rail car builders. Nobody is offering existing block system upgrades, using modern and inexpensive components.
There is a fundamental bias against using inexpensive solutions. People's pay is based on how many people they supervise or the dollar value of the project they manage. Project management fees average about 1 to 1.5% of the project value. An inexpensive better mouse trap does not stand a chance.
They don't need new trains because they had R-142s? rebuilt to be R 188s with CBTC.
Sorry for the confusion. I should have been more specific.
I was hinting at retrofitting the SMEE fleet that had more body life in them. Specifically the R32's. The LAHT car bodies rusted out. Budd stainless bodies did not. The cars could have had a gut rehab with new trucks and propulsion system. The R160's were not cheap. A gut rehab on the R32's might have been cheaper. PATCO is saving money by going this route.
There will be a similar situation for the R62's, when it's the Lex's turn to get CBTC. The car bodies are in good shape.
Stainless steel doesn't rust. It does crack. After you've been bouncing it around on subway tracks for 60 years.
According to Wikipedia PATCO rebuilt their fleet in 2009. With scrap motors they had rebuilt. DC ones that have brushes that wear. Controlled by new fangled electronic power controller. That could be supplying variable frequency variable voltage polyphase AC to motors without brushes. That are sealed. Isn't the usual progression is have a major overhaul around 20 years and evaluate if it's worth it around 40? They had a major rebuild in 2009. They are going to re-re-build them 13 years later?
The 142s were due for their 20 year rebuild, why not convert them to R-188s while it's being done. The R32s were at "when do they start cracking?" So will the R62s when the new cars start to being delivered. I see that they will have open gangways. That would be hard to retrofit. It gives them a tiny bit more capacity. And since I'm old enough to remember passing between cars while they are in motion, has some other advantages.
"CBTC's position uncertainty is a lot greater than a meter in practice. The train has to communicate its position to the central computer. It is polled by the central computer. The system is tolerant of missed communications for up to 2 seconds."
Most CBTC systems correct position of trains by fixed transponders mounted on the tracks. Typically these transponders are at most several hundreds of meters apart. In between these transponders, trains locate themselves by axle-mounted speedometers, accelerometers or radars, which gives a roughly 1% of error. 1% of several hundred meters is several meters, which is definitely not "a lot greater than a meter". And within the station, transponders may be ~30 meters apart, leading to a less-than-half-meter positioning accuracy – accurate enough for the operation of platform screen doors.
As for "missed communications for up to 2 seconds", one should notice that this lag also exists in conventional signalling. Take track-circuit based cab signalling / automatic train control (ATC) as a instance: On WMATA, ATC codes take the form of low-frequency (1-10Hz), on-off modulated audio-frequency (1-10kHz) signals. For redundancy, the on-board computer must receive and decode 5-10 cycles of such signals before it could "pick up" a favorable ATC code. That also leads to a lag up to several seconds, which is never considered to be a big problem.
Most CBTC systems correct position of trains…As for "missed communications for up to 2 seconds",
I wasn't referring to how a train determines its position through the process of dead reckoning plus periodic correction that you described. I was referring to missed communications and comparing that to the current, archaic NYCT block system.
NYCT does not use cab signalling. It uses wayside signals with relay logic. It's not subject to the delays you described. Also, blocks are sufficiently short so that the operator can always see the signal for the next block. This removes the wayside signal delay vis-a-vis cab signalling that I've seen in several texts. As we used to say, when I worked in aerospace, "if it works, it's not sophisticated."
"NYCT does not use cab signalling. It uses wayside signals with relay logic. It's not subject to the delays you described. "
Well, it is, actually. First of all, NYCT has train stops, which take few seconds to move before signal clears. Then, without ATC there're still motorpersons, who take seconds to react upon wayside signal upgrades or downgrades. This introduces an unpredictable amount of reaction time. Under ATC or CBTC, they are taken out of the loop at the cost of introducing a comparable but consistent lag, which still looks like an improvement.
That said, "if it works, it's not sophisticated" is the exact philosophy of the railway signalling/automation industry. There've long been successful "automatic" trains operating under simple yet highly reliable physical rules, electrics and electronics (up to SIL4 certification). No one would even try the approach the automotive industry is currently trying (and creating tons of new problems) – i.e. to make trains "autonomous". No one would ever install cameras onboard a train to determine whether a wayside signal is green or red, by using some artificial-idiot based algorithms. Instead, they just simply replace wayside signalling with in-cab train control systems, under which the position of all trains are known (to various uncertainties) on which braking distances calculations are based.
"There is an optimum speed to achieve service level capacity. Deviating above or below that speed will result in decreased service level capacity for given rolling stock characteristics and dwell time."
This is not the case for CBTC (or ETCS level 3 or any moving-block signalling), but for convetional fixed-block signalling, including those under a distance-to-go principle (also known as quasi-moving block).
Under fixed-block signalling, the exact position of a train is not taken into braking distance calculation by the following train. The following train only "sees" (with the help of wayside component of the signalling system) whether a block is occupied or clear, and it must stop before any occupied block. Under the worst case senario, the following train must be a braking distance plus the length of a fixed signal block apart from the previous train. The headway, on the other hand, is
t_{headway} = ( L_{block} + L_{braking distance} (v) ) / v
By law of motion, braking distance = v^2/(2*a), in which a is the deceleration. This lead to a function:
t_{headway} = L_{block} / v + v / (2*a)
that has a minimum at v = \sqrt{2*L_{block}*a}. For a 100-meter-long signal block (typical for mainline rail) and a train decelerates at 0.8m/s/s, this is roughly 40 km/h.
Under moving block signalling like CBTC, L_{block} can be reduced to the length of a single train, which, on the other hand, rarely exceeds 200 meters on most transit systems. Using the same formulae and by assuming a transit train can decelerate up to 1m/s/s, the speed maximizing the capacity is found to be at most 20km/h. No trains would be operated at such a low speed. Thus within the feasible speed range, moving block signalling gives a capacity that always decreases with speed.
Of course modern moving block signalling doesn't deliver full "moving block" capacitcy everywhere in the system. I'll explain later in a separate post.
My derivation for the dependence of headway on train speed is independent of any signal system. Here's a reference to it, that I posted below to Mr. Eric2.
Click to access SafeMinimumHeadwayOnASingleTrack.pdf
Assume the leader of length L passes x=0, while traveling at velocity v. Assume further the leader travels to x=L and stops suddenly due to "circumstances beyond his control." So far, t1 = L/v seconds have elapsed.
Assume the follower is also traveling at velocity v and knows of the leader's predicament with no delay. The follower applies the emergency brakes and will stop in t2 = v/a, where a is the emergency braking acceleration.
If the headway is greater than t1 + t2, then a collision will be avoided.
t = t1 + t2 = L/v + v/a (eq 1)
Set dt/dv to 0 and you get a minimum value of t when v = sqrt(aL) (eq 2).
This shows a dependence between minimum headway and speed.
This simplistic model can be extended to complications that include: stations; dwell time; location uncertainty; signal system delays, etc. Lang and Soderberg present a much more detailed derivation in Appendix I.
Great effort! But there're oopsies in your derivation:
In your "simple case", you did a great job in finding the minimum distance the following train should be from the leading train, by assumpting that the leading train may suddenly stop anywhere. In the context of moving block signalling, such a model is known as "bumping into the hardwall"; another model taking the best-case braking distance of the leading train into consideration is known as "bumping into the softwall", which permits greater capacity but has safety concerns – there're literally no best-case braking distance – and sees no revenue service. The minimum distance is calculated to be:
L + \delta * v + T_{s} * v + v^{2} / (2 * a_{EB})
The problem is that, the senario that enables to minimum distance calculation does not necessarily describle the headway. The leading train is assumed to suddenly stop anywhere, so the following train can never be too close to it, regardless of its status. But under routine operation, the leading train won't stop. Instead, it just rolls at velocity v along the line, as well as the following train. The headway is defined as the time elasped when the following train travels to where the leading train used to be, in the same pattern without any disruption. And clearly it's:
(L + \delta * v + T_{s} * v + v^{2} / (2 * a_{EB})) / v = L / v + \delta + T_{s} + v / (2 * a_{EB})
That's why you're missing a factor of 1/2 in the last term.
If you have a train coming through every 97 seconds, if you speed them up they crash into each other. Passengers aren't very good at leaping on or off moving trains and they have to… this might be a shock to you… stop the train at stations. Pesky pesky passengers. Think of all the trains they could be moving through if they didn't have to stop, open the doors, let people off and on, close the doors and start moving again.
What did more for what is difficult to define. They went and built Hudson Yards, on the 7 train, which gave them more turnback capacity. It's unclear if the system with 1950s RFID tags would have coped just as well with it. Supposedly the constraint on the L train is how fast they can turn around trains at 14th and 8th. No amount of electronics is going to fix slow switches and creeping into the terminal.
You're really outdoing yourself with the moronic arrogance here. There are plenty of systems in the world that run frequencies of ca. 90-100 seconds, at decent speeds, without them crashing into each other. Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, London, just to name a few. There is literally no reason why the New York subway can't do the same with the right technology (and a minor amount of infrastructure improvements and de-interlining).
"It Can't Be Done" – soon to replace E Pluribus Unum as the US national motto.
The Flushing a.k.a the 7 train is isolated from the rest of the system. There's nothing to "deinterline".
Wikipedia and nycsubway.org don't say what the length of the line Flushing line/7 train is. You have an employee timetable that has the chaining for the Flushing line? So you can tell us what the average speed is? What's the average speed of the line or lines you claim are faster?
Do these other lines have local and express service? The expresses on the Flushing line are faster. I come up with a 32 minutes for an express and 36 for a local.
Looking at the schedule which has almost three hours of "it's coming soon, we don't publish exact schedules" the 6:37 express leaves Flushing and makes it to the other end of the line three minutes before the local that left Flushing at 6:33. Get lucky and the bus gets there a bit early I could take the 6:31 express that gets there even earlier.
If 1) frequent headways are needed and 2) expresses actually interfere with this [which may or may not be accurate] and 3) the express only saves 4 minutes versus the local, then the solution is to eliminate the expresses.
Why not figure out, what's required for delay-free merges before eliminating them?
Let's assume a switch is 300 ft long, has a 10 mph speed limit . This means a merging train would need to travel 300 + 600(train length) to clear the switch @ 10 mph/15 ft/sec. That's a total of 60 seconds that the switch is occupied. Let's assume trains operate at 30 tph or every 120 seconds. The switch is occupied for 60 seconds and idle for 60 seconds. If both the leader and follower are within 30 seconds of their scheduled arrivals, there will never be a merging delay. The switch is still occupied for 60 seconds but idle for only 30 seconds for 90 second or 40 tph operation. This means the leader and follower must be within 15 seconds of their scheduled arrivals.
NYCT schedules are rounded to the nearest 30 seconds. This means 40 tph operation is impossible and 30 tph operation is problematic. The problem isn't physical; it's operational. Moscow and Paris have their schedules down to the second and provide clocks at every station to alert the train operator how he is doing vis-a-vis the schedule.
A Flushing line local takes four minutes longer. In the time it takes to run 8 locals they could run 9 expresses.
8 x 36 = 288
Rush hours don't last 288 minutes but there is more than one local and one express running during peak hours too.
The constraint on the Lexington Ave. lines is how long it take people to get off and on the trains. They've added platform agents to remind people that they can't get on the crowded train until people off the crowded train. Reminding entitled people/idiots that they can't get on the train until people get off the train doesn't have anything to with the signal system, acceleration or braking or how the fast the doors open and close. I suspect that the major constraint on the Flushing Line is how long the doors are open at Queensboro Plaza and stations west of there. Pesky passengers. If it wasn't for them the trains could run non stop between Flushing and Hudson Yards a lot faster!
"The constraint on the Lexington Ave. lines is how long it take people to get off and on the trains. They've added platform agents to remind people that they can't get on the crowded train until people off the crowded train. Reminding entitled people/idiots that they can't get on the train until people get off the train doesn't have anything to with the signal system, acceleration or braking or how the fast the doors open and close."
I got involved with checking out the Lex, when the Second Ave Stubway was being considered. Somebody sent me the actual 1954 am rush hour service levels. They were about 33% higher than those reported in the SAS DEIS. I had to board a rush hour Lex express at Grand Central for a summer job in the late 1950's. Those 1954 schedules were still in effect. They ran more trains per hour. They had platform conductors in the late 1950's. However, those platform conductors controlled the closing of the vestibule doors on the LV's. This meant that doors closed when all passengers crossed the door threshold. These doors remained closed until the train left, regardless of any new passengers running down the stairs onto the platform.
I checked out the arrival/departure times for all the trains at the various stops to determine the reason for the reduced service level. The dwell time was generally within the 30 seconds permitted. There were many instances when doors remained open for long time periods (15 or more seconds) after all passengers had crossed the door threshold. One problem is NYCT instituted a clock for the conductors to keep doors open. That clock is set to 45 seconds regardless of whether the train is ahead or behind schedule. This excess dwell time problem is due to managerial shortcomings – not pesky passengers.
Management is also to blame for disabling a feature on the NTT trains. This feature will reverse a closing door, if the edge is touched. It will repeat the reversal 3 times, without any conductor intervention. This is similar to the safety device that's present in just about every self service elevator.
Do the following thought experiment. There are 30 doors to close on a 10 car train on the Lex. Assume in any given second the probability for a passenger waiting to cross the threshold is p. Calculate the expected number of seconds to wait for all 30 doors to close if: 1 – each door operates independently – i.e. closes when there are not more passengers waiting to cross the threshold; or 2 – the conductor waits until there are no more passengers waiting to cross the door threshold at all 30 doors simultaneously and closing all doors at once. The answer is 1, for all values of p greater than 0 and less than 1. That's the option that management disabled.
So it's a waste of money for them to have platform agents even though they claim it helps? Having multiple conductors stand between cars on foot steps that would make OSHA break out in hives yelling things at people that would get them fired today isn't an option. I hear they were unpleasant when the train came out the tunnel and climbed up onto the El.
It's not 45 seconds.
I had to watch the reflection of the doors in the window at one stop and stopped looking when it got to Union Square. I thought perhaps it was a very old video. It's not. There are other ones. One of them. I guesstimated where it would be, was almost 30 at Grand Central and it's even newer. It's not 45 seconds.
If I counted right the Flushing/7 express has 11 stations ( including the terminals ) and the local has 19. The local has 8 more stops and takes an extra four minutes. An average of 30 seconds for everything included in a "stop".
"Let's assume a switch is 300 ft long, has a 10 mph speed limit . This means a merging train would need to travel 300 + 600(train length) to clear the switch @ 10 mph/15 ft/sec. That's a total of 60 seconds that the switch is occupied…NYCT schedules are rounded to the nearest 30 seconds. This means 40 tph operation is impossible and 30 tph operation is problematic. The problem isn't physical; it's operational."
First, there's something called automatic train control (ATC), which includes the functionality of automatic train operation (ATO) and automatic train supervision (ATS). The ATS automatically dispatches trains while the ATO automatically executes the orders made by the ATS (under the protection of a third subsytem, automatic train protection or ATP). To reliably run trains at >30tph, at least part of the above mentioned systems should be present. This is especially the case if there're scheduled merges.
Then, the switch that has a 10 mph speed limit cannot be "300 ft long". What might be "300 ft long" is not the physical switch, but the "interlocking". As I've mentioned in an earlier post, even in today's moving-block systems there're a hand of places where trains don't run under the moving-block priciple. Interlocking are one of the few exceptions. Since most of these systems are overlaid on conventional interlocking mechanisms, they observe long-standing interlocking rules.
Under train-following scenario, since both trains follow the same route within the interlocking, the following train still operates under the moving-block principle. But in the case of merging or diverging- as you've noticed: Interlocking rules requires the leading train to be clear of the interlocking – usually of the "opposite" signals. Then the switches are unlocked and moved to correct positions, after which the next train can go beyond the governing interlocking home signal.
But who says antiquated interlocking rules must be observed? In the last decade or so, the industry has been seeking ways to lift the constraints imposed by these rules. In urban transit, Alstom's latest generation of CBTC (Urbalis-Fluence) works without conventional interlocking, while in mainline rail, SBB conceived what would be known as a "resource-centric", "geometric" interlocking under the smartrail40 project.
The approach is to divide a physical switch into three sections: the "movable" section that can be actually moved by the switch machine, the "fouling" section that is not movable but is still within the fouling point, and elsewhere where the moving block principles still works. Now, once the leading train clears the "movable" section instead of the entire interlocking, the switch just unlocks and moves, while the following train can go all the way up to the "fouling" section rather than have to wait before the home signal. Once the switch is ready, the following train is authorized to use both the "movable" section and the "fouling" section. So, under latest generation of signalling, the time to clear a 10 mph low-speed switch would be 100 ft (length of typical fouling sections) + 600 ft divided by 15 ft/sec, or ~47s, which will no longer impose a constraint on the overall capacity.
Then, the switch that has a 10 mph speed limit cannot be "300 ft long". What might be "300 ft long" is not the physical switch, but the "interlocking".
Thank you for the correction; that's what I meant.
First, there's something called automatic train control (ATC), which includes the functionality of automatic train operation (ATO) and automatic train supervision (ATS).
NYCT does not have any of them.
Moreover, they have schedules that guarantee merging conflicts. It wasn't always thus.
Our grandfathers operated 42 tph on the Third Ave El. There was a balanced merge on the downtown side between the City Hall and South Ferry terminals. The uptown terminals were 129th St for locals, Bronx Park for expresses and E 241st St for thru expresses. There were no storage tracks or yards on the downtown side. The Third Ave El was 3 tracks. The track in the off-peak direction operated at twice the service level as the peak direction.
Whether one uses ATO, ATC, ATS or our grandfathers' unsophisticated methods, the procedures require a certain level of precision, accuracy, [ and competence :=) ]. What I tried to show was a sufficient condition, in the mathematical sense. Namely, if on is within 30 or 15 seconds of schedule then there will be no merging delays nor reduced service levels. ATO, ATC, and ATS might be able to operate at more loose necessary conditions, in the mathematical sense. Namely, if the conditions are not met – merging delays and reduced service levels are guaranteed.
I stopped with the sufficient conditions because I'm a lazy engineer and it was clear that NYCT had no chance operationally of achieving the sufficient conditions for avoiding merging delays.
What kind of labor efficiencies can bus-based agencies create? I assume they're already having only one operator per bus.
It depends on the agency. But, for the bigger ones that I'm familiar with (=NY, Boston):
1. Better dispatching to reduce bunching.
2. Bus lanes.
3. Stop consolidation.
4. All-door boarding.
5. Regular annual procurement of buses to avoid spikes in maintenance needs.
6. Integration of planning with commuter rail (both cities have bus-subway integration already).
7. In-motion charging where appropriate (Boston has good trunks for it; New York doesn't).
8. Better crew timetabling to eliminate the labor gerontocracy.
There are capacity limits to at grade surface transportation. Anything over 100 intersection crossings per hour is problematic. NYC has exceeded them in several instances.
There are 45 instances where they have scheduled more than 200 buses crossing an intersection within a single hour (data for 6 Apr 2022 – latest GTFS static bus schedule). All but 2 are in Queens. There are 150 instances of scheduling 150 or more intersection crossings per hour and 1582 instances of scheduling 100 or more intersection crossings per hour.
None of the listed 8 points will address this problem.
I'm impressed by the knowledge you have displayed in this thread. Is there a book or reference or site, by you or others, where I can go to get more of the same kind of info summarized in one place?
Thank you for those kind words.
I earned undergrad and grad degrees in electrical engineering more than 50 years ago. Any references I cite may not be useful to all people. I had an interest in rail transportation, like many EE's of my generation who specialized in digital design/programming. I never pursued those transportation interests professionally. That may have saved me from following the transportation crowd.
I first read about the service line capacity in "Urban Rail Transit Its Economics And Technology," by Lang and Soberman, when it came out around 1965. I remembered that the signal system had little or no effect on service level capacity. I was therefore surprised by the CBTC hype, when it was proposed for the 14th St Line in NYC. I presented some of my views at NYC Transportation Camp in 2017. Here's a url link to my PowerPoint presentation:
Click to access CBTC+Presentation.pdf
I also provided a simplified derivation of service level capacity at NYC Transporation Camp in 2019. Here's a link to the derivation:
My interest in bus transportation is more recent and parochial. A year ago, NYCDOT implemented a busway (no private vehicles except local deliveries) that started 2 blocks from my house. NYCDOT said they would not make the raw data for their evaluation public. I decided to capture and save the publicly available GTFS-RT data to evaluate their expected favorable evaluation.
One thing I found was that neither NYCDOT nor the MTA could tell me was how many buses are scheduled to cross any given intersection during any time interval. The NYCDOT representative at a Zoom meeting assured me there were no more than 100 such crossings per hour along the entire busway, in a followup email.
That's a fairly easy question to answer, given the data that's available in the MTA's GTFS static bus route files, the centerline shapes of NYC streets and geographic information system (GIS) program library. All are available and open sourced (free to download and use with attribution) off the internet. Essentially every intersection that a scheduled bus passes lies between two bus stops. There's information regarding the arrival and departure times at each bus stop in the MTA's GTFS data. It's simply a question of doing a linear interpolation based on the distance between the stops to find the bus crossing time at the intersection. I had a lot more difficult assignments during my professional career. As you might gather from my remarks, NYCDOT's representative was mistaken between 6am and 10pm for those intersections.
That's true, and relevant, sometimes.
But in so few other locations in so few other conurbations in North American is nearly any combination of routes coming close to hitting such (soft, mitigable to various extents) limits. There's so much headroom for tighter headways and for several-times-higher bus ridership pretty much everywhere.
That's something that galls when the train fans (our gracious and mostly-correct host Alon not excepted) go on about lim →∞ of bus throughput/cost. It's true, in theory, but of little practical relevance on most bus routes in most locations until most of us are dead and most of those intersections are under the rising seas.
Amyway hey we finally got private cars off Market Street here in San Francisco … after 50 years.
> Better crew timetabling to eliminate the labor gerontocracy
I agree and think this is the biggest factor of inefficiency in the U.S. transit operations. the gerontocracy or hierarchy based on years of service allows agencies to do things which doesn't make sense from efficiency standpoint like leaving a lot of full-time shift which are significantly shorter than 8 hour long (e.g.: driving for 3 hours and get paid as 8 hour day) and all weekend shifts being paid as all overtime (1.5x pay; discourage agencies to increase weekend service). Also, the gerontocracy does not help agencies when they need to lay people off as works with shorter years of service are the first one who get let go in layoffs regardless of one's performance (wouldn't save a lot by keeping higher-paying workers).
One of the ways to eliminate this gerontocracy all shifts are put into rotation and everyone works in different shifts rather than allowing workers to pick the shifts based on the hierarchy, but potential solutions could be too radical and nobody's favorite like nation-wide right-to-work or banning union shop system and/or craft/industrial unions.
What would be the best solutions to eliminate labor gerontocracy?
In my opinion, once you have a route you are first in line to keep it so long as you want to keep it. Once you drive the 24 from 5:30am to 2:30pm (allowing for one hour of breaks in the middle) you always drive that, you know the people who always get on and ask what happened when they missed a day. If your route is canceled you are first in line for a different route on the same schedule – before someone with a lot more years who wants a different schedule. (but if you both want to switch schedules the other guy is first).
Each shift gets a set pay no matter how many years you have in. There is nothing about 20 years of experience that makes you better than someone with 1 (less than 1 year and there is some training that you need to get yet so you are worth less), loyalty is worth about $.25/hr). People who work the "graveyard" shift are always worth more than people who work "9-5" (this is the least useful/paid shift as it misses both peaks when you need the most drivers). Those who do sick/vacation replacements probably are worth the most, though even then some shifts are worth more than others.
Unions put too much emphasis on seniority. Mostly because it is all they have and everyone wants to feel better than others. There is really few ways to be better than another bus driver though – other than not doing the types of things that you should be fired for. This is one reason unions work well for bus drivers: you can't get paid better than someone else based on merit. However that doesn't mean we should let the unions force bad transit on us just because it isn't possible to hire new drivers.
Transit companies need to pay drivers a wage that will attract enough drivers. That might will be $80,000 in NYC to get someone willing to work otherwise bad shifts. IF you decide to switch from a bad shift to a good one your wages go down as there is more competition for that good shift.
What I don't know is how to make the union agree to this. Most of the existing members are benefiting from the harm they are doing to transit.
What kind of labor efficiencies can bus-based agencies create?
* More passenger-km per hour (= per vehicle-hour = per operator-hour)!
= More vehicle-km per hour
= bus priority, route rationalization, stop rationalization, POP, all-door boarding, etc … all the usual 50+-year-old solutions to blindingly obvious stupid obstructions.
* More passengers per hour
= higher average speed (above), more attractive network, more predictable service, takt scheduling, reliable transfers, lower headways, buses that aren't out of some historical re-enactment of the 1970s and aren't an active insult to riders, etc, etc, etc.
* And then there are all the various rostering inefficiencies, union capture of local agencies, seniority sinecures, employees-before-riders priorities, etc
Basic basic basic stuff. If you care, that is.
I really need to add a fifth post to this series going over the alternative…
2022-03-28 - 16:10 Tom M
Taking the OPM argument to its fullest extent, why aren't there private mass urban transit systems in the US? At least for busses where private companies can react to demand/market changes to dynamically change routes, offer multiple price points and product offerings?
Good question! There was a lot of historic surplus extraction; John Hylan made it a point to drive streetcar and subway companies into bankruptcy. Recently, I raised the example of a Geary subway, which I believe is the strongest American subway line to be built that neither is an extension of an existing line nor heavily relies on connections to existing lines. It can be built, but government at various levels can extract and destroy the surplus.
Buses are less vulnerable to this but are also a lot harder to make money on paying 21st-century first-world wages.
Mayor Hyland had it in for the BRT because even when he worked for the BRT sending every El train in Brooklyn to the two tracks over the Brooklyn Bridge wasn't working out. The five cent fare was driving them into bankruptcy without his help.
They do in some places. It's unregulated so more people decide it would be a good idea to compete. They go out and buy a used van, don't insure it and don't maintain it. Occasional fights break out over who was going to pull into the stop. It doesn't work out well.
2022-03-28 - 23:58 Pingback: How to Waste Money on Public Transportation | Pedestrian Observations
2022-03-29 - 23:58 Pingback: How to Spend Money on Public Transport Better | Pedestrian Observations
Free Public Transport: Why Now of All Times?
How to Waste Money on Public Transportation


text:
Tag: handball
Sport 11.04.19	| 00:04
Thriller in Iceland, Macedonia wins in the last second
Dejan Manaskov scored in the last second of the European handball qualified in Iceland, to secure the win for Macedonia. It was a thriller debut game for new coach Danilo Brestovac who will learn early that it's good to take something for the nerves when Macedonia plays. Manaskov led the team and...
Andrijana Budimir named coach of the male U-17 handball team
Handball great Andrijana Budimir was named coach of the Macedonian U-17 handball team, making her the first female coach of a male national team. Budimir has already worked extensively with the team through her handball school and knows the players well. In her new official role she will be paired with...
Vardar beats Zagreb 27 – 18 in Champions League game
Macedonian handball team Vardar easily defeated the Croatian team Zagreb in the first game of their Champions League match. Despite the home team advantage, Zagreb was powerless to stop Vardar, eventually losing 18 – 27. This all but ensures that Vardar will qualify for the quarter-finals, with...
Vardar beats Kristianstad in handball Champions League group game
The Vardar handball team defeated Swedish Kristianstad 32:30 in an away game which ensures that Vardar will be at least 3rd in the Group A of the EHF Champions League. The hosts held the lead for most of the first half, and the halftime score had them up by 1 goal – 17:16. But Vardar did significantly...
Balkans 22.02.19	| 19:51
Head of the Red Star handball club killed in a workplace argument in Belgrade
Mirko Butulija, director of the Serbian Red Star handball club, was killed today after he tried to intervene in an argument between two employees. Butulija was also head of the associations of motorists of Serbia. After he witnessed an argument in the office, he tried to separate the two employees, when...
Raul Gonzalez leaves as coach of the Macedonian national handball team
El Comandante Raul Gonzalez is leaving the coaching position in the Macedonian national handball team. The Handball Association announced it has come to a mutually agreeable decision and that Gonzalez will leave the position and focus on his other job – as coach of Paris Sent Germain. Our A team...
Macedonia loses to Iceland 24:22
Macedonia lost against Iceland in the World handball championship in Munich, costing it a chance to play in the final rounds. Instead, Macedonia will fight for a place between the 13th and 16th seed. Coach Raul Gonzales' team had a narrow lead for most of the game and was very solid in the first...
Handball 17.01.19	| 10:21
Spain beats Macedonia at handball worlds
The Macedonian men's national handball team lost to Spain 32:21 in the group stage of the World Handball Championship in Munich late on Wednesday. Macedonia greatly opened the match and for most of the first half were in the lead of one-two goals, but they did not manage to maintain the advantage...
Macedonian handball team beats Japan 38:29
Macedonia beat Japan in its first game of the World handball championship in Munich. Coach Raul Gonzales' team was confident throughout the game against fast Japanese players and Borko Ristoski was excellent on goal, helping the team to a 38:29 win. Captain Kiril Lazarov, pivot Stojance Stoilov...
Macedonia's national handball team to play in new jerseys at 2019 Handball World Cup in Denmark and Germany
The Macedonian national handball team will play in new jerseys at the 2019 Handball World Cup in Denmark and Germany, it was announced following Thursday's promotion of the new jerseys by Hummel, which remains a partner of the Handball Federation of Macedonia. Hundreds of fans were present at the...
Kire Lazarov among top 5 scorers in the first round of Euro 2020
Lazarov named among the top five scorers of the European Championship
Macedonia ends competition in EURO 2020 with defeat from Austria
Kire Lazarov's last-second shot chosen as best at Euro handball championship
Kire Lazarov scores winning goal at the last second in match against Ukraine
Macedonia's handball players open EHF Euro 2020 with match against Ukraine
Borko Ristovski: Never North, Always Macedonia
Dejan Kulusevski is the first Macedonian to play for Juventus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


"Our focus tends to be on the outside, and we want to look impressive like we've got it all together. But in reality we're broken - all of us- broken jars of clay."
"There is a difference between being full and being fulfilled"
2. I am too busy.
3. I have a relational commitment.


text:
Q: Process SSIS Package when DateModified Changes I have built an SSIS Package for our HR Department.
The Data is manually downloaded from a web portal in .xls format.
The current process is not automated due to the inconsistent frequency of the data drop.
What I would like to do is alter the SSIS package so that it looks at the Source data (they just save over the existing file every month) and have the Job run as soon as the "Date Modified" has changed.
I am not familiar with C# so I would like to avoid this option if possible, I am still a little new to all of this. I am hoping that there is a Loop Container option or something.
*Additional data: The Table that is loaded is truncated before the load. I don't know if this will factor in or not but I wanted to put it out there.

A: There are few approaches to accomplish this. Basically you need to implement some sort of trigger mechanism to run package when data modified has changed in source data.

*

*Create a Windows service that uses WMI to detect change in date modified and launch packages.

*You can use create package with infinite loop and schedule it through Agent Job. But please note SSIS is resource intensive so you have to plan interval for loop accordingly.

*Set up a Table and create a trigger on the table for insert, that should execute the agent job with the sp_start_job system stored procedure. You could use Service Broker to add a new item to a queue. Then the execution of the SSIS  would not be anywhere near as problematic as calling it directly from a trigger.

Some useful articles -
Execute SSIS package when a file is arrived at folder
Trigger SSIS package when files available in a Folder
Trigger SSIS package when files available in a Folder part#2
How to Check IF File Exists In Folder [Script Task]
Trigger SSIS package

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
360° Drawer
from Magis
Material In glossy ABS, aluminium
Size 10 Drawers
360° Containers offer endless storage possibilities with a highly functional design and sleek, modern exterior.
This Drawer version features 5 storage compartments made of glossy ABS stacked atop a set of 4 wheels. A joining aluminum cylinder runs vertically through the unit, serving as a pivot point that enables each drawer to independently rotate 360° around the cylinder. The clever design of 360° Containers eliminates back-of-the-drawer clutter and allows you to effectively make use of the entire storage compartment. Expand 360° Container in a spiral to reveal or display its contents, or collapse its drawers and wheel it into a corner for small space storage solutions that are easily accessed at a moments notice. Select from several color options.
Konstantin Grcic was born in 1965, and trained as a cabinet maker at The John Makepeace School (Dorset, England) before studying Design at the Royal College of Art in London. Since setting up his own practice, Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design (KGID), in Munich in 1991, he has developed furniture, products and lighting for some of the leading companies in the design field. His more renowned clients include Authentics, BD Ediciones, ClassiCon, Flos, Magis, Mattiazzi, Muji, Nespresso, Plank, Serafino Zani, Thomas-Rosenthal and Vitra. He has created a number of limited-edition pieces for Galerie Kreo in Paris since 2004. Konstantin Grcic defines function in human terms, combining strict forms with considerable mental acuity and humour. Each of his products expresses a careful research into the history of design and architecture, and his passion for technology and materials. Known for his pared-down pieces, Grcic is often called a minimalist, but the designer himself prefers to speak of simplicity. Many of his products have received international design awards, such as the prestigious Compasso d`Oro for his MAYDAY lamp (Flos) in 2001 and his MYTO chair (Plank) in 2011. Works by Konstantin Grcic are part of the permanent collections of the world´s most important design museums (including MoMA/New York and Centre Georges Pompidou/Paris).
Established in 1976, Magis combines design, technological innovation and a 100% Made in Italy ethos to create high quality products.


Family-owned for three generations, we have a proud tradition of quality, craftsmanship and service with a personal touch.
With literally decades of experience, our expert crew of craftsmen and mechanics has worked on important historic boats such as the USS SEQUOIA, working commercial and fleet vessels, and classic wooden sailboats as well as modern trawlers and pleasure yachts.
Starting off with just one shed and a few employees (see 1940 picture above), Atlantic Yacht Basin is now the largest covered freshwater basin storage and repair facility on the East Coast, with over 158,000 square feet of covered storage space and 1,700 feet of outdoor dockage space.
Atlantic Yacht Basin respects our history as well as that of the many older vessels we repair and restore, but we are also up-to-date on the latest in marine technology, techniques and hardware.
Many of our customers pass on a tradition of boating to their families and friends. We are also proud of the fact that they pass on the tradition of working with AYB for all of their repair and storage needs.
So come find out why the best parts of the past and future meet in one great place at Atlantic Yacht Basin.


Hi all! If you're new to this series, I laid down some ground rules in day zero, and explain the idea for my first project on day one. I document, a little every day, what I'm working on.
Our cold email strategy from yesterday's post is yielding some positive results already, in that we're moving into some calls scheduled for next week.
Today has been more of the same for yesterday. My ultimate goal is you get about 30 calls scheduled, and getting this done in a short amount of time means I'm spending ton of time in my email.
The first wave of follow ups are written and scheduled to go out tomorrow morning. They're meant to target a different time of day than the original email, just in case the time of day was simply bad for them on the first email.
A bit of app development since it has been a few days, I need to scratch that developer itch.
Thanks for reading! And please email me with any questions or feedback! Since I'll be hitting the prospecting hard for a few days yet, I'm curious if you all have a particular topic you'd like to see a post on? Tomorrow's post might take a closer look at our follow up strategy. My email is on the sidebar. See you tomorrow!


VI.1.1 Pompeii. Casa del Triclinio or House of the Triclinium.
Caupona and Hospitium. Excavated 1770 and 1787.
(translation - VI.1.1 – The first building that one meets on the left side of the roadway, leaning against the city wall, was thought by many to have been the dwelling of the custodian of the Herculaneum Gate: but it was none other than an inn or lodging-house, consisting of a large triclinium shaded by a pergola, with its three masonry couches and the walls partly decorated with paintings: and a small room, containing the niche for the worship of the household gods, in which was painted Abbondanza laying on a couch, with cornucopia in one hand and a kantharos in the other, with a table in front, on which was a box and a cup/vase/pot. Another winter, or covered, triclinium was also part of the inn, and in addition had a staircase for going up to the dining room, and the latrine was not far away.
Herculaneum Gate, VI.1.1 and VI.1.2. Looking north-east.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. March 2009. Entrance doorway.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. July 2011. Entrance. Photo courtesy of Rick Bauer.
According to Garcia y Garcia, this inn, sheltered by the city walls and with a beautiful well-preserved sacellum, was hit by a bomb during the night of 14th to 15th September 1943. It was nearly completely destroyed, even its perimeter wall.
The dividing wall to the peristyle of the House of the Vestals also fell.
By September 1982, the entrance steps and its internal walls were reduced to a ruined pile.
To the west of this house, the same bomb destroyed also part of the beautiful Samnite steps, that permitted access to the public wall.
At the foot of it, in the public area, was a well-known well.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. September 2004. Entrance doorway, with steps to the wall.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. September 2005. Public steps to the walls.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. 1890-1900. Public steps to the walls.
Photo courtesy of British School at Rome Digital Collections.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. March 2009. Looking east towards entrance to inn or dwelling.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. September 2005. Looking east to entrance doorway to inn or dwelling.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. March 2009. Looking east.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. March 2009. Looking east to east wall.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. December 2007. Looking north-west towards triclinium (under blue sheeting) from VI.1.4.
According to Jashemski, the small inn (excavated in 1787) just inside the Porta Ercolano had a garden with a masonry triclinium shaded by a vine-covered pergola.
The holes in the rear wall, in which the ends of the beams of the pergola were set, were visible at the time of excavation.
A gutter along the south edge of the garden collected rain water which was deposited in the cistern opening in the south-west corner of the garden.
According to Fiorelli, the triclinium had three couches of brick, and the walls were in part adorned by pictures.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. December 2007. Looking north towards triclinium (under blue sheeting) and niches on north and east wall, from VI.1.4.
VI.1.1 Pompeii. December 2007. Looking north towards niches on north and east wall, from VI.1.4.


I totally agree with the opinion of the previous consumer on the over charging.the cost of moving the furniture into the warehouse was double that of the loading onto to the truck. We were not allowed to be present at the warehouse, so could not verify any of the time.
Items were missing and it took almost two months for them to find some of these and deliver (after many phone calls and emails). We gave up on the rest.
At least four pieces were damaged , one we refused to accept it and this was finally repaired as a "courtesy" the other damaged items Antiques, was left up to us to repair. The worst move that I have ever had.


"Anna at Habitus Design is absolutely awesome. Our project was to completely refit our bathroom, kitchen and utility room and also to change the decoration scheme in the lounge and upstairs and downstairs hallway. We are absolutely delighted with the result. Anna came up with great ideas for (in particular) the kitchen and the bathroom that we would never in a million years have thought of ourselves. She is a total design genius! She is also very easy to work with - enthusiastic, professional, always mindful of our likes and dislikes, never imposing ideas on us that we were not comfortable with and good at keeping costs down where possible. Highly recommended."
"Anna was helpful throughout the project, delivered on time and good fun to work with. She seems to have built up some great contacts in the industry, I was really impressed with her vision as the final product was better than I could've dreamed!"
"Anna was a total pleasure to work with from start to finish. We had a fairly tight budget for this project which involved knocking through a wall between our existing kitchen and lounge, designing and building a new kitchen, dining area, bathroom and dressing room and generally refreshing the colour palette and decor throughout. Anna's brilliant design solutions, meticulous planning and attention to detail made the very best use of limited cash and the end result looked a million dollars.
Her brief was to bring light and a feeling of space into a rather dark north facing period flat. Her ideas were bold but the results completely transformed our living space. We rarely used our previously dreary lounge but knocking down the wall meant light from the south facing large kitchen windows was able to flood through breathing new life and energy into the space. It felt like a new home.
Anna's not only got great style but also, she's genuinely interested in getting to know who she's working with, taking time to find out about how the space she's transforming is going to be used and really thinking about how to make everything flow. She was also great fun and made the whole experience feel collaborative, never imposing her taste or superior ' esigner' knowledge on everything but simply guiding me through the process and being genuinely excited to share the extremely enjoyable and rewarding journey."
"Anna at Habitus did an incredible job - everything was incredibly beautiful, cool and she knew exactly where to dare us to be a little more adventurous. Everything she suggested was absolutely right, and she was a huge help when we encountered issues with heritage rules and logistical problems. The project was completed on time, with lovely tradesmen, without blowing the budget. Unreservedly recommend…"


Team Sunday, August 30th: "Kilmister"
Here's Andrew staying tight and collected during his handstand walks. Great job, Andrew!
If the weather allows, take the rowers outside and enjoy the sun (and remember to bring sunblock)! Have fun!


Voodoo Chile, on charter from Lang Walker by Andrew Hunn and Lloyd Clark, has won 6 of 8 races over the weekend in the strict one-design class. As always Transfusion was in the mix on the courses sailed on Moreton Bay. The Fleet will head south for the next leg of the Championship when they race for the One Design Cup at Middle Harbour YC.
The Historic Balmain Regatta attracts 130 boats.
Team Australia wins the Coastal Classic in NZ.
It might not be the Bledisloe Cup but any win in NZ is a good one. Especially when you beat a Boat that has won the last three editions of the race. The 119nm Race took Team Australia 18:15.44. Team Vodafone finished in 18:52:34. The two boats will next line up in an Exhibition race for the Sydney to Hobart on Dec 26th.
So far, Australian entries have been received from NSW, Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia.
Finally – A note from Skiffie - A sad loss to the sailing community – Vale Ian Souter.
I first remember meeting Super when he brought his kids up to Brisbane for a Manly Junior regatta, and have immense respect for his contributions to our great sport. The Historical Skiff road trips to Brisbane 18 Footers Sailing Club just won't be the same without Super being one of the lead instigators of that rather derogatory song about the Brisbane River mud :-P.
Fair winds and following seas Super!


For most people, having a feline or canine companion is one of the best parts of life. But how do you keep your home smelling fresh and looking tidy when your cleaning team isn't present? Here are four tips for cleaning up pet messes between professional cleaning appointments.
It is extremely important to clean up pet accidents when they happen. Urine and feces easily soak into carpet and padding, making it vital to catch an incident before it has a chance to dry. To make things easy, mix 1 cup water and 1/8 teaspoon of dish soap together, and pour it gently onto the spot. Blot with a damp cloth and rinse the soap out with a concoction of 1 tablespoon white vinegar mixed with 1 cup of water. This will remove the stain while freshening the odor.
If your furniture is starting to smell a little bit like a doghouse, it might be time to freshen things up. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of baking soda on your furniture or short pile rugs. Let it sit for about 30 minutes before vacuuming it up. You can also opt for one of the many products on the market to help freshen fabrics and remove pet odors.
Muddy paw prints can cause a huge mess in your home. Gently wipe stains on hard flooring with a damp cloth. Also be sure to wipe down other areas of the home, such as doors or walls where your cat or dog pawed or scratched after coming inside.
It's also important to pay attention to your cat's litter box between visits from your professional cleaning team. Make sure the outside of the box is free from any debris including clumps of excess litter as well as the inside.
However, the best method to really make sure your home smells fresh and clean at all times is to schedule regular professional cleaning appointments. Hiring an expert helps keep pet hair and dander at bay and ensures you're always ready for guests.
previous post: Why Hire a Cleaning Company Before You Move In?


text:
CHRIS DOBROWOLSKI: ANTARCTICA
If you are looking for some entertainment that's a little bit different this coming week, then I would recommend heading over to Shoreditch Town Hall to see Chris Dobrowolski. His latest piece, 'Antarctica', in which he talks to audiences about his work as an artist in residence down at the southern pole (I know!), promises to be a funny, informative experience.
After coming across his impressive stuff up at the Edinburgh Festival a few years ago, I wanted to find out more about this new show, how Dobrowolski ended up at the bottom of the world, and what sort of things happened when he got there. Read the interview here.
See just how good Chris Dobrowolski is at pointing at pictures with a stick when he performs Antarctica at Shoreditch Town Hall from 4-6 May. See the venue website here to book your tickets.
GABRIEL BISSET-SMITH: THE MOST ORIGINAL AND FUNNY JOKE IN THE UNIVERSE
As often happens with TW favourites, we first discovered Gabriel Bisset-Smith via the Edinburgh Festival, only it was initially through his double act, Guilt & Shame. And of course, we won't stop loving him just because he's in a solo show, not least because of the critical acclaim that's been heaped on it.
To find out more about 'Gabriel Bisset-Smith Tells The Most Original And Funny Joke In The Universe', and about his career in general, I put some questions to him, ahead of his imminent dates at Soho Theatre. Read the interview here.
Gabriel Bisset-Smith performs at Soho Theatre from 29-30 Apr. See this page here for all the details.
MICHAEL TOUMEY: THE LOCAL STIGMATIC
You can be forgiven for not having heard of Heathcote Williams' mid-sixties play 'The Local Stigmatic', because over the years it hasn't been produced anywhere near as much as it should have been; those of you who think the name sounds familiar might remember the 1990 film starring Al Pacino.
Luckily for London theatre-goers, you'll soon get the chance to see it on stage, when a new production of the play goes up next week at the Old Red Lion Theatre. I spoke to director Michael Toumey, to find out more about the play, and why he wanted to revive it. Read the interview here.
'The Local Stigmatic' is on at the Old Red Lion Theatre from 3-28 May. See the venue website here for info and tickets.
FRIDAY 29 APRIL 2016 >>
The 9th Annual London Improvathon | Lost Theatre | 29 Apr-1May
Hurrah, I love people pushing themselves to extremes for my entertainment, so of course I am going to recommend a fifty hour improv event, especially given all the very excellent performers involved in this: Mark Meer, Dan Starkey, Ruth Bratt, Cariad Lloyd, Sarah Louise Young, The Showstoppers, Austentatious, and many more. You can buy a ticket for the whole thing, or a ticket for a two hour time block. See this page here for all the info.
Underhill Rose | Green Note | 29 Apr
If rootsy Americana's your thing, then this trio, Underhill Rose – Eleanor Underhill, Molly Rose Reed and Salley Williamson – might be one to look out for, with their music that promises three part harmonies, salty vocals, hammer claw banjo, harmonica, guitar and double bass. Have a look at this page here to have a listen to their material and to book tickets if you like the sound of them.
Gabriel Bisset-Smith Tells The Most Original And Funny Joke In The Universe | Soho Theatre | 29-30 Apr (pictured)
If you haven't come across Gabriel Bisset-Smith as a solo performer, there's still a chance you might have experienced his work as part of the rather highly acclaimed double act Guilt & Shame, which we've seen and loved up at that old edfringe in summers gone. Be prepared for "intergalactic travel, strange sexual positions, bizarre dance routines, Kanye West and unhinged murder". Go to the venue website here for more info.
SATURDAY 30 APRIL 2016 >>
Saucy Jack And The Space Vixens | King's Head Theatre | 26 Apr-21 May
It's now something of an old chestnut, but by gum, it's a tasty roasted sweet chestnut that will warm your insides. Yes, I'm not too sure about that metaphor, either, so let's forget about that and focus on the fact that this piece has been staged by many different companies in a number of different countries over the past twenty years or so, and nobody is sick of it yet. If you haven't seen a production of this "inter-galactic disco extravaganza" yet, maybe it's about time. Follow this link here to book your tickets for this one.
The Buskers Opera | Park Theatre | 28 Apr-4 Jun
So, to contrast with that venerable piece, take this, a new musical, set in recent times, from the critically acclaimed Dougal Irvine. As you might expect from the name, this is inspired by 'The Beggar's Opera', but this takes place in London in 2012, as the city prepares itself to host the Olympics. Have a look at this page here to find out more about the show, and to book your tickets.
Portia | Theatre503 | 26 Apr-7 May (pictured)
Talking about recent times (gosh, I'm slick, aren't I?), here's a piece that very probably echoes the experience of a good many contemporary women. The central character in Lindsay Dukes' one-person performance meets an 'assertive' stranger (via the internet) who wants to tie her up and choose her underwear; can she square her desire to be dominated with her feminist beliefs? It's a very modern quandary. See the venue website here for all the details.
SUNDAY 1 MAY 2016 >>
Garrett Millerick – The Dreams Stuff Is Made From | Back Yard Bar | 1 May (pictured)
We love Garret Millerick and his angry, ranty style, so I have no qualms about recommending this particular show, even though in the show blurb, someone has added a wrong and unnecessary apostrophe to a quotation from our publication ThreeWeeks. Anyway, the content of the set sounds typical of Millerick, and very promising: "stories from the grand canyon that sits between our dreams and our achievements. Things you didn't realise were annoying, analysed in detail that you never thought was necessary". Yet again, I am sold. If you are, go here.
Might Never Happen | King's Head Theatre | 1-16 May
A new play from all-female outfit Doll's Eye Theatre, inspired by the research of Dr. Fiona Vera-Gray and Dr. Maria Garner, which explores aspects of street harassment. I'm of the opinion that we really need to talk more about this issue and the effect it has on people's lives, so I'll be interested to see what this piece has to say. Complemented by two post-show events. See the venue website here for info.
You Must Be The One To Bury Me | New Diorama | 1-2 May
"As Richard's grasp on reality crumbles, the fantasies, memories and monsters of his recent relationship materialise in his flat around him, subjecting him to an onslaught of romantic terrorism". This is on as part of the much previously mentioned A Nation's Theatre Festival, and it's only on for two days, so be careful you don't miss it. It focuses on a fact that I have long been fascinated by – how memory is so inconsistent; that we are capable of remembering events entirely differently to how they actually happened. See this page here for info.
MONDAY 2 MAY 2016 >>
Chaser + Mr Kolpert | Lion and Unicorn Theatre | 2-14 May
You don't have to go and see both these plays, but they are both on each night for the duration of the run and there's a double bill ticket offer, so you might as well. Blink Theatre present David Tushingham's translation of David Gieselmann's critically acclaimed anarchic black comedy 'Mr Kolpert', plus a new piece, 'Chaser', which focuses on voyeurism, and what isolation can do to a person. See this page here for info and to book.
Shlomo's Beatbox Adventure For Kids | Udderbelly | 2 May (pictured)
Here you go, one for the kids, as it's Bank Holiday Weekend. Although, to be fair, this is the sort of shizzle even the grown-ups can very much get down with – the brilliant and record breaking beatboxer will cause wonder and laughter with his sound effects and mouth-made-music no matter how old you are. This is tailored to a young audience, though, so don't exclude the children. Oh, and if you miss it today, he's doing the show later in the month too. Go to this page here for booking info.
Carl Donelly et al | The Good Ship | 2 May
A fab line up over at The Good ship tonight, including some serious TW favourites. As well as the headliner Carl Donelly, you get Andrew Watts, Mat Ewins,Twayna Mayne, Loyiso Gola, and Ben Van Der Velde. Very much a bargain. Get clicking on this link here for all the details.
TUESDAY 3 MAY 2016 >>
I Have Been Here Before | Jermyn Street | 3-21 May (pictured)
You may be familiar with the works of JB Priestley – at the very least, I'd expect that most of you have heard of 'An Inspector Calls' – but this is one of his less frequently produced works, despite the fact that it's one of the esteemed playwright's 'time plays', alongside with the arguably more-famous 'Time And The Conways', and 'Dangerous Corner'. I reckon this will be good, and it's a, ahem, timely revival. See this page here for details.
Cooked | Bread and Roses Theatre | 3-14 May
This sounds fun, a dark comedy about a celebrity 'chef' who can't actually cook, from the creative team at ScotchBonnet Theatre. Expect a grimy and funny exploration of celebrity culture, and how to "get even in the kitchen". See the venue website here to book your tickets.
Wilton's Strike! Dance Festival | Wilton's Music Hall | 3-5 May
This short festival of the physical premieres six new works by emerging artists, and thus represents a great chance to see the next big things (well, creatives) at the start of their careers. All the pieces explore the theme of memory, in a variety of ways. This page here offers a synopsis of each of the six creations (there are two per show), so take a look and see which take your fancy. And get a move on, tickets appear to be selling fast.
WEDNESDAY 4 MAY 2016 >>
Nude | Hope Theatre | 3-25 May
This seems as though it should offer a healthy dose of lyrical loveliness, given its description as a "poem-turned-play". Taking inspiration from 'The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam', the piece explores love and destiny, asking how and why relationships happen, and speculating on whether or not fate has a hand in it. If you are as intrigued as I am, follow this link here for more info and to book.
The Diary Of A Hounslow Girl | Ovalhouse | 4-6 May (pictured)
This one woman show from Ambreen Razia offers an insight into what it's like growing up in London – with all its allurements and influences – as a member of a Muslim family with traditional values. The play was commissioned by Ovalhouse, and first performed there about a year ago, and I expect it's only grown stronger since then. Expect something sharp, funny and revealing, which will also tear down a few of those cultural stereotypes. See the venue website here for all the details.
Antarctica | Shoreditch Town Hall | 4-6 May
We came across Chris Dobrowolski a few years ago at edfringe and were very much taken by his entertaining work. Not sure exactly how to describe what he does, though our reviewer called the show he saw 'live art' and Dobrowolski says 'Antarctica' is a 'performance lecture'. Anyway, I have no doubt that this will be entirely fascinating: stories about and images from three and a half months as artist in residence with the British Antarctic Survey, delivered by a brilliant raconteur. Go here to find out more and to book.
THURSDAY 5 MAY 2016 >>
The Raunch | London Wonderground | 5 May-12 Jun
The name of the show alone suggests that there might be some fairly grown up content, so make sure you don't have anyone too young or on the sensitive side with you. But make sure you go, so that you don't miss legendary cabaret star Empress Stah's latest show, a "whip-cracking, high-flying, all-twerking, rodeo-rocking night out". Follow this link here for all the info and to book. I want a booth for nine with two bottles of bubbly. Even if I go on my own.
Devilish! | Landor Theatre | 4-29 May (pictured)
"It's 'Pinocchio' meets 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' – with jazz hands!". Frankly, they had me at "jazz hands" but the Dorian Gray reference is pretty alluring too. I find 'Pinocchio' a bit scary, but I'm willing to put that out of my mind and give this a go. It's about an angel who crash lands in Clapham and is forced to deal with life in modern day London – will he be corrupted by it? It's an upbeat comedy musical, and I am so sure we are all going to enjoy it. See the venue website here for details.
The Local Stigmatic | Old Red Lion Theatre | 3-28 May
Given that Heathcote Williams' play is a study of psychosis, fame, and our collective fascination with and resentment of celebrity, it seems as though it might be even more relevant now than when it was first staged back in the sixties. It's a provocative and shocking piece – one might even say horrifying – about a pair of sociopaths in a chance encounter with a vaguely famous actor. Don't miss your chance to see this rare revival, head this way to book your tickets.
Caro heads up the ThisWeek London operation, putting together our daily tips and the regular Caro Meets interviews. She also co-edits of our sister publication ThreeWeeks Edinburgh.
ANDY MALT | Associate Editor
Andy looks after the social media side of ThisWeek London. He is also Editor of our sister media Complete Music Update.
Chris oversees the commercial side and business development of ThisWeek, and hosts the podcast. Chris also co-edits ThreeWeeks and is Business Editor of Complete Music Update.
Tom works on the ThisWeek London podcast, helping book and interview guests and inputting on production. He also helps produce and present the ThreeWeeks Edinburgh Podcast.