(The following article by Erik N. Nelson was posted on the Inside Bay Area website on February 14.)
OAKLAND, Calif. — Wi-Fi Internet access has entertained millions of laptop users in cafes, provided a mobile office for business travelers in airports and even given people a cheap way to phone home from hotel rooms the world over.
Now, thanks to a system being contemplated for the San Jose-Oakland-Sacramento Capitol Corridor rail line, Wi-Fi also may have a chance to save people from being killed by 79 mph trains.
In the search for a convenient wireless Internet system for laptop-toting commuters, officials for the rail line have been impressed by a British firm’s ability to beam video from wireless cameras to a speeding train. Onboard, the engineer can watch video images on a Wi-Fi linked laptop and see what’s on a crossing soon enough to avoid hitting something or someone.
Representatives of the tech firm, Nomad Digital Ltd., and the Capitol Corridor staged a successful test of the system Feb. 3 on a train borrowed from Caltrain in San Carlos.
That was 10 days before a man trespassing on the line’s tracks was killed Tuesday in Mountain View — Caltrain’s second fatality of the year. Last year, 17 people were killed on Caltrain tracks, nine of them believed to be suicides.
“Certainly what’s being looked at by the Capitol Corridor is exciting to all of us in the business, plus all of us who ride trains,” Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari said. Amtrak, the government-run company that runs most American passenger rail service, operates trains under contract with the Capitol Corridor and Caltrain.
“Being able to see a vehicle stalled on the tracks, especially a heavy vehicle, would be very valuable operationally,” Magliari said.
“It looks rather favorable,” said Jim Allison, principal planner for the Capitol Corridor. “When we go out for (a contract) for wireless Internet, we have faith that this technology would meet our needs.”
And that could come from Newcastle-on-Tyne-based Nomad or other wireless contractors versed in similar technology, Allison said. While Nomad uses a wireless network similar to long-range, high-speed wi-max systems being tested for municipal Wi-Fi networks, Capitol Corridor also might opt for a satellite-based system.
It could take as many as two years to get the system up and running, said Nigel Wallbridge, Nomad’s executive chairman and co-founder.
“Once we give a train a broadband wireless system, you can do all sorts of things with it,” Wallbridge said, such as onboard television service for passengers similar to that enjoyed by JetBlue airline passengers or even boosted mobile phone reception.
Capitol Corridor passengers often are frustrated by dropped mobile phone calls as the train rounds the hilly Bay coastline between Crockett and Hercules.
Earlier systems tested on Capitol Corridor trains “provided people with (Internet) connectivity, but they didn’t provide enough bandwidth,” Allison explained. “The customers were getting speeds between dial-up and a slow DSL. If you get enough users, it’s like water pipes” trying to move more water than will fit through them.
Systems like Nomad’s open that pipe considerably, allowing not only better access and more entertainment media choices, but also safety features like the video crossing monitors, Wallbridge said.
The video system has limitations, however, as a way of saving people from rail crossing accidents.
“They’re not going to see someone who’s crossing where you have no crossings, where you wouldn’t have a camera,” Caltrain spokesman Jonah Weinberg said. That means such a system would not have prevented Tuesday’s tragedy, which occurred on an isolated section of track with no crossing or station nearby.
The main cause of death among those crossing train tracks is crossers’ lack of caution, said Marmie Edwards, spokeswoman for Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit aimed at reducing rail crossing deaths.
While technology will someday help, “unfortunately, one of our problems is the trespassers, and they could be crossing at any point,” she said. “It has a lot to do with people and the decisions they make.”