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"Can high tech gizmos like lasers, motion sensors, thermal cameras and smart video software prevent people from dying on the subway tracks?\nThe New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) wants to find out. The authority is working on a pilot program to evaluate four different systems to detect when somebody falls on the tracks and stop trains from hitting the person. \nSee also: Would Automated Trains Have Prevented a Fatal Derailment?\nThe MTA will install the systems in a subway station to test if they're viable and consider whether to install them throughout the city in hopes of stopping an increasing number of injuries and deaths on the tracks, as first reported by The New York Daily News, and confirmed to Mashable by the MTA. \nIn 2013, 144 people were hit on the tracks of the New York City subway system, of which 52 people have died, according to the MTA. \nThe MTA will experiment with closed-circuit television cameras and smart video software that can detect when large objects move from the platform to the tracks; a web of lasers that triggers an alarm if somebody breaks it (think of movie-like alarm systems); radio frequencies transmitted below the platform edge; and thermal cameras pointed at the tracks that can distinguish the heat of a person.\nThe systems are designed so that when the alarms are triggered, an incoming subway train can be alerted and slow down before the conductor can see the person on the tracks. \nAn MTA spokesperson refused to provide more details on the program, only saying this will be a pilot and the MTA will put it in place in the next \"several weeks.\" \nIt's unclear if a system like this could be implemented even if the pilot program is successful, since the MTA has a debt totalling approximately $31 billion, according to the authority. The MTA spokesperson declined to offer an estimate of how much a program like this one could cost if implemented city wide.  \nThis piece has been amended. A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that 144 people, not including the 52 who have died, were hit on the subway tracks. And a previous version mistakenly indicated the MTA was in debt of $250 billion.\nHave something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.\nImage: Joe Raedle/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/12/12/mta-tech-stop-subway-deaths/>