Almost every weekday morning I wake up and take the commuter rail to work. Normally, this routine takes up about half an hour of my time, and if any expected delays occur, I can track them on my mobile device and adjust my plans accordingly. I have refined the operation to minimize my time spent waiting, and maximize the time I get to spend doing the things I want to do in the morning...namely sleep and spend time with my family.
And then today happens...-12 degrees F after a foot of snowfall over the weekend, and everything devolves.
Today's commute included two cancelled trains, slow travel through the route, and a delay entering the station. My normally reliable half-hour travel ended up taking almost two hours. The conversations at our neighborhood station and on the train chided the rail agency for not being prepared, for not getting information out better, and for generally not meeting the expectation for timeliness that commuters expect every day.
Although I do not apologize for any negligence or poor planning, in general I think we have absolved ourselves of understanding what really goes into something as simple as commuting to work - whether by train, bus or car - and in this case took that out on the commuter rail agency. The act of getting twelve to fifteen trains in and out of one station in a given morning requires not only that the engines and brakes work, but that the switches and signals along the track work. These devices include digital technology to a point, but at the end require moving parts. Some of these parts can get jammed, and require a person to thaw, unjam, or otherwise repair. No matter how smart, connected, or integrated the electronics of a system are, at some point, it comes down to a piece of equipment that has to work.
This all leads back to some fundamental concepts in our economy. First, that labor costs represent an inefficiency that we must minimize or eliminate, and second, that people need to "work hard" to earn participation in our economy. By relentlessly pursuing the former, we not only jeopardize the ability to ensure opportunities for the latter, but we also force institutional knowledge (in the form of people) out of the economy. If we automate everything, that makes sense under normal operation, but we lose the ability to quickly respond when things go wrong. No one wants to pay for resilience when times are good, and everything moves well. But when things go wrong, we need to have people who can understand, assess, and address issues, and we need to make sure that they are valued all the time and not just when our commute is a little longer than normal.
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