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Comment by HumblyTossed | Hacker News Reader

> This system was designed to last 20 to 25 years. SFMTA's director Jeffrey Tumlin said upgrading the system will take another decade and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

This is the problem, not that they're using a floppy. This isn't web dev where you get to rewrite everything every 6 mos. Systems have to have decades long life cycles BUT THEY EVENTUALLY NEED TO BE REPLACED and that's not happening quickly enough here.

Edit: It was last updated in 1998, so it's due now not a decade from now.

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I'd like to see a breakdown of that "hundreds of millions of dollars" and which companies provided the quotes, plus who owns the companies and who are their husbands/wives/uncles/nephews/nieces/etc.

I looked into this last year, a significant part of the cost is in new hardware, both on the vehicles, but also sensors spread through the system. They all need commercial grade RF systems that allow for 2 way signaling communication and integration into the vehicles control systems.

also they need to be rated for the operating environment. you can't stick any random part from newegg in there.

Tesla used non-automotive grade touchscreens in some cars and so they died early: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

Automotive grade has very high requirements:

> Grade 0: High Temperature Operating Life (HTOL): +175C for 408 hours. High Temperature Storage Life (HTSL): +175C for 1,000 hours. Temperature Cycling: -65C tp +175C for 500 cycles

And generally speaking transit agencies aspire to buy higher-reliability, longer-lasting equipment than your average consumer car.

I’ve noticed that my car’s touchscreen operates at a very high temperature at all times - almost hot enough to burn skin, which seems like a weird choice for something designed to be touched by skin.

That probably means that whatever is running behind the touchscreen is the thing that’s hot, and the touchscreen is doing a poor job insulating that heat. But is also illustrative of why the automotive standards are the way they are.

Thanks! That's good to hear.

It’s probably not overt corruption. It’s probably because in this kind of large system, there is a strong demand for validation and assurance at all levels, which is usually achieved by hiring experts* to write reviews, recommendations, and reports that hold up in court.

* They must be experts, otherwise how could they get away with charging so much, right?

The cost is distribute across all the PowerPoint, Word, and Excel spreadsheets created to give the illusion that people are doing actual work. Go read a couple of the SFMTA PDF's linked to by a commenter. They are totally enlightening justifications like - reduced congestion blah - better monitoring blah. No meat whatsoever. No analysis backing anything up - just pretty pictures.

I rode Muni for 10 years almost every working day. Do you want to know what reduced congestion the most. Buying new muni cars because the old muni cars door mechanism had been repaired so much they did not open or close %50 of the time and people had to use other doors to get on and off a train on a daily basis.

Still, when you have a 20-25 year replacement cycle being 10 years behind is pretty significant. And that's assuming their estimate of needing another decade is correct. Which seems doubtful considering they don't have a contractor, they don't have the money, and the previous system probably took a decade to develop considering their choice of 5.25" floppies (3.5" floppies overtook 5.25" floppies in sales in 1988).

Right, if they think it will take 10 years, 15-20 is probably more realistic, which means you need to start the upgrade process 5-10 years after buying your system: seems very expensive.

I think it's worth pointing out that 5.25" floppies were already well out their way out in 1998, already.

Nah.

What's really happening is going to be: Emerging new use-cases and rising costs from specialized vendors for replacement parts that match the existing system are driving a desire for the agency to replace the control system. The floppy system bit can 100% be replaced with a solution that isn't a floppy, but that wouldn't help them with the rest of what they want.

"because life cycles" is a lazy description.

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