Subways Run by Computers Start on L Line This Summer

After delaying the project for months because of safety concerns, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will start operating its first computer-run subways in July on the L line, which connects Brooklyn and Manhattan, officials said yesterday.

The debut of computerized train operations, which would replace a signaling system largely unchanged since the birth of the subway network in 1904, was first scheduled for December. Officials insisted yesterday that any outstanding concerns about safety would be resolved by the start of the summer.

New details about the project, a longtime goal of engineers and transit planners, emerged at a City Council hearing that became the scene of vigorous debate over the merits and safety of the new system.

The most divisive element of the $288 million project is the elimination of the jobs of conductors, who open doors and make announcements, and the use of only one worker, the engineer, on each computer-run train.

Limited "one-person" train operation began in 1996 and is now used on seven lines, but only two of them -- the Franklin Avenue shuttle in Brooklyn and the Rockaway Park shuttle in Queens -- are operated without conductors at all times.

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union of America, said the authority was trying to eliminate conductors' jobs to conceal the high cost of the new technology.

"One factor that seems to be driving this rush is the desire to show immediate financial benefits to justify the large expenditures that have been made," he said. "Since there will be no short-term benefits in revenues, New York City Transit has married to the new technology a plan to take conductors off the trains. This plan flunks the basic test of common sense."

Members of the Council's Transportation Committee, some of whom referred to the project as robo-train, were equally critical.

"Having computers drive our trains is a huge leap forward, and we must look before we leap," said Councilman John C. Liu, a Queens Democrat who leads the panel. Councilman Lewis A. Fidler, a Brooklyn Democrat whose district includes part of the L line, said the new system would make it harder to evacuate passengers after track fires or other emergencies.

However, the project received a boost from a key rider-advocacy group. "While safety concerns must be addressed, we cannot be afraid of proven technologies that make the system operate more efficiently," said Beverly L. Dolinsky, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the transportation authority. The group first advocated signal improvements and conductorless trains in 1982, she said.

The new system, known as communication-based train control, has been long in coming. From 1992 to 1997, New York City Transit, which operates the subways, ran a demonstration project on the middle track of the F line in Brooklyn, said Frederick E. Smith, a deputy chief engineer in the agency's department of capital program management.

By late 1997, officials had chosen the 24-station L line to start the project because it is only 10 miles long, does not share tracks with other lines and was already due for equipment upgrades. In 1999, the agency awarded a five-year contract for the new signaling system to a consortium led by Siemens Transportation Systems.

Kevin T. O'Connell, the chief transportation officer for subways, said representatives from seven departments within the agency were overseeing a rigorous safety plan with help from an independent consultant, the Battelle Memorial Institute, a scientific testing and research organization in Columbus, Ohio.

The agency plans to begin running computer-operated trains on one section of the L line in so-called shadow mode, with a train operator still in full control, in April, Mr. Smith said. The rest of the line would switch to that mode in three phases, and fully computerized service would take effect by late July.

Using radio frequencies, the new system will prevent speeding, open doors automatically, allow engineers to pinpoint the location of each train and eventually allow for a public-address system that will clearly inform riders when the next train is arriving, Mr. O'Connell said.