San Francisco Will Pay $212 Million for Its Train System to Ditch Floppy Disks Leave a comment

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Company (SFMTA) board has agreed to spend $212 million to get its Muni Metro mild rail off floppy disks.

The Muni Metro’s Automated Practice Management System (ATCS) has required 5¼-inch floppy disks since 1998, when it was put in at San Francisco’s Market Avenue subway station. The system makes use of three floppy disks for loading DOS software program that controls the system’s central servers. Michael Roccaforte, an SFMTA spokesperson, gave additional particulars on how the sunshine rail operates to Ars Technica in April, saying: “When a prepare enters the subway, its onboard pc connects to the prepare management system to run the prepare in computerized mode, the place the trains drive themselves whereas the operators supervise. After they exit the subway, they disconnect from the ATCS and return to guide operation on the road.”

After beginning preliminary planning in 2018, the SFMTA initially anticipated to maneuver to a floppy-disk-free prepare management system by 2028. However with Covid-19 stopping work for 18 months, the estimated completion date was delayed.

On October 15, the SFMTA moved nearer to ditching floppies when its board accredited a contract with Hitachi Rail for implementing a brand new prepare management system that does not use floppy disks, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Hitachi Rail tech is claimed to energy prepare methods, together with Japan’s bullet prepare, in additional than 50 international locations. The $212 million contract consists of help providers from Hitachi for “20 to 25 years,” the Chronicle stated.

The brand new management system is meant to be 5 generations forward of what Muni is utilizing now, Muni director Julie Kirschbaum stated, per the Chronicle. Additional illustrating the sunshine rail’s dated tech, the present ATCS was designed to final 20 to 25 years, that means its anticipated expiration date was in 2023. The system nonetheless works positive, however the threat of floppy disk knowledge degradation and challenges in sustaining experience in Nineties programming languages have additional inspired the SFMTA to hunt upgrades.

Plenty of Work to Do

Past the floppies, although, the Muni Metro wants many extra upgrades. The SFMTA plans to spend $700 million (together with the $212 million Hitachi contract) to overtake the sunshine rail’s management system. This consists of changing the loop cable system for sending knowledge throughout the servers and trains. The cables are stated to be a extra urgent concern than using floppy disks. The getting older cables are fragile, with “much less bandwidth than an outdated AOL dialup modem,” Roccaforte beforehand instructed Ars. The SFMTA is reportedly planning for Hitachi to start out changing the loop cables with a brand new communication system that makes use of Wi-Fi and mobile alerts for monitoring trains by 2028. Nevertheless, the SFMTA’s board of supervisors nonetheless must approve this, the Chronicle stated.

Along with outdated storage codecs and the communication infrastructure, the Muni’s present ATCS consists of onboard computer systems tied to propulsion and brake methods, in addition to native and central servers, and extra. The SFMTA’s web site says that the present estimated completion date for the whole overhaul is “2033/2034.” In keeping with the supplied timeline, it seems to be just like the subway know-how substitute section is anticipated to happen in “2027/2028,” after which there’s an on-street know-how set up section.

Like with different entities, the SFMTA’s gradual transfer off floppy disks may be attributed to complacency, finances restrictions, and issues in overhauling crucial know-how methods. Varied different organizations have additionally been gradual to ditch the dated storage format, together with in Japan, which solely stopped utilizing floppy disks in governmental methods in June, and the German navy, which continues to be attempting to determine a substitute for 8-inch floppies.

This story initially appeared on Ars Technica.