Delay Forward publishes weekly forecasts so commutes can fall apart with notice and grief can be scheduled
MTA Announces Trains Will Now Be Delayed in Advance to Save Riders the Suspense
NEW YORK – The Metropolitan Transportation Authority unveiled a sweeping customer experience initiative Monday under which all subway delays will now be announced before they occur, in some cases days ahead, eliminating what officials called “the cruelest part of the system, which is hope.”
The program, branded Delay Forward, replaces the traditional model, in which riders learn of a delay only after standing on a platform long enough to hear three unintelligible announcements and one saxophone, with a proactive system that notifies riders of Thursday’s signal problem on Tuesday, allowing them, in the words of the press release, “to grieve on their own schedule.”
How It Works
Under Delay Forward, the authority’s operations center will publish a weekly Delay Forecast, formatted like weather, with each line receiving an outlook: the F is “partly delayed with a chance of standing at Bergen,” the A is “delayed, clearing overnight, redeveloping by morning,” and the G is simply listed as “the G,” a designation officials say riders understand completely.
“For a century, we have delayed trains reactively,” said MTA Chief Experience Officer Brenda Kowalczyk at a press conference held aboard a stationary 6 train, which she noted was “on schedule, per the new schedule, which says it is not moving.” “That era is over. We know our infrastructure. We know our signals were installed when Coolidge was president. We can see Thursday’s meltdown coming the way a meteorologist sees a front. Withholding that information was, frankly, malpractice. Starting today, when your commute falls apart, it will fall apart with notice.”
The first forecast, issued at the launch, predicted 214 delays for the coming week and proved, by Friday, to have undercounted by 9, a margin of error the authority celebrated as “the most accurate projection in agency history, of anything.”
Rider Reaction
Straphangers greeted the program with the exhausted literacy of a ridership that has seen every genre of announcement. “I checked the forecast this morning,” said Denise Okafor, 41, a nurse commuting from Jamaica. “It said my E train would experience residual delays from an earlier incident that has not happened yet. An earlier incident. In the future. I have read Augustine on time and I have read the MTA on time, and the MTA is bolder.”
Some riders reported unexpected emotional benefits. Marcus Liebowitz, 34, of Crown Heights, said learning on Sunday that Wednesday’s 4 train would strand him at Nevins “gave me time to inform my boss, my therapist, and my group chat in the correct order.” Others have begun planning life events around the forecast, with one Bushwick couple reportedly moving their wedding after the L’s outlook was downgraded to “aspirational.”
Advocacy groups offered measured praise. The Straphangers Alliance called advance notice “progress, in the way that a doctor calling you the day before your flu is progress,” while transit analysts quoted across local coverage, including at Gothamist and THE CITY, noted the deeper innovation: the authority has finally produced a schedule it can keep, “by scheduling the failure instead of the train.”
The Technical Foundation
Internally, the forecast is generated by a model trained on 40 years of incident data, current signal conditions, and, per one engineer speaking anonymously, “vibes from the yard.” The model’s confidence is highest for recurring events, including the Monday morning signal problem at DeKalb, which it now predicts with 99 percent accuracy and which staff have begun referring to as “the sunrise.”
The authority has also standardized its explanation taxonomy. The forecast’s glossary defines “train traffic ahead of us” as “there is another train, somewhere, in the system,” “signal problems” as “the 1930s,” and “an earlier incident” as “an event which may precede, follow, or constitute this delay.” A fourth category, “we deeply apologize,” is defined as “we deeply apologize,” which the glossary notes is “sincere, cumulative, and non-refundable.”
A study released alongside the launch by the Urban Commute Psychology Lab found that riders given 48 hours’ notice of a delay experienced 60 percent less platform rage, though the effect reversed entirely when the delay then failed to occur, with subjects reporting feelings of “distrust, vertigo, and in one case, grief,” leading researchers to recommend the authority “never be accidentally on time again, for public health reasons.”
Expansion Plans
Phase two, scheduled for spring, extends the forecast to buses, which will be listed under a single permanent outlook reading “approaching,” and to the Long Island Rail Road, whose delays will be announced, in deference to its riders’ seniority, “a fiscal year in advance.” A premium tier will offer personalized delay notifications with the rider’s name, which focus groups rated “devastating, but polite.”
The city’s tabloids covered the launch with characteristic restraint, the New York Post front page rendering the news in 200-point type as a single word that cannot be reprinted here but which the authority conceded was “directionally fair.” Satirical observers abroad also took note, with The London Prat saluting New York for “industrializing disappointment” and the transit desk at Bohiney Magazine praising Delay Forward as “the first honest timetable in American history.”
As of press time, next week’s forecast had been published, showing heavy delays systemwide Tuesday through Thursday, scattered weekend outages, and, for one shining hour Wednesday at 2 p.m., a window of full service that the authority urged riders to treat “like an eclipse: plan ahead, gather your loved ones, and do not look directly at it, because it will not come again.”
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/