New Jersey's innovators: New Jersey Transit's billion-dollar capital budget is focused on creating a unified, statewide network of commuter and light rail lines. New technologies are a key part of that strategy

Railway Age, April, 2004 by William C. Vantuono

TMAC encompasses six districts that have been cut in, one-by-one, since June 2003: Morris & Essex, Main Line, Raritan Valley/Atlantic City lines, North Jersey Coast Line, Hoboken Terminal, and a dispatcher training simulator. Hoboken, the final phase, will be cut in by this summer. Future plans call for server data to be shared with Penn Station Central Control (PSCC), the joint Amtrak/Long Island Rail Road facility that controls all train movements through New York Penn Station.

At New York Penn Station, an extraordinary amount of cooperation among Amtrak, NJT, and LIRR is required, not only to move some 1,225 trains through seven tunnels and 22 station platforms on a typical weekday, but also to supervise movement of nearly 500,000 passengers. NJT alone, for example, operates 186 peak-hour trains through Penn Station, a 111% increase over 1994, owing to new services like Mid-TOWN DIRECT--all without any new infrastructure.

NJT and Amtrak share tracks 5-12 (LIRR has exclusive use of 17-22 and shares 13-16 when needed). To improve operations, the two railroads last year put people and facilities into place that share responsibility for such station functions as train announcements and platform operations. Working closely alongside Amtrak General Superintendent-New York Division Walter Ernst are people like NJT General Superintendent-New York Penn Station Kevin O'Conner and Assistant Superintendent-Stations and Revenue Bill Morrison, and Amtrak Superintendent-Passenger Services Joe DeVito. Amtrak and NJT jointly fund a Terminal Operations Planner position, currently occupied by Clark Hampe. "All of us recognize the criticality of solving problems together," says O'Conner.

The ongoing Joint Benefits Program and the New Initiatives Agreement struck in the early 1990s have funded such capital improvements as HDIS (High Density Interlocking System), which increased Hudson River tunnel throughput to 25 trains per hour per direction; the Kearny Connection; Secaucus Junction; NJT's East End Concourse; and the Terminal Operations Center (TOC), a joint facility within the station that opened only a few months ago. The TOC consolidates platform-level staff (trainmasters, public address, mechanical) in one facility. It has adapted TIMACS, a train information system used by LIRR, and is implementing NICEVision, a platform-camera system that helps manage passenger flows.

NJT customers in Penn Station typically have no idea of what goes on behind the scenes. What they do know, however, is that their trains are typically ready for boarding 10 minutes prior to departure, so the rush to find a seat is a little easier.