New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has started testing four different systems which would detect people who have accidentally fallen on subway tracks and trigger alarms to warn subway train drivers as well as authorities at the station. The first system uses the subway authorities’ massive CCTV network to capture footage of tracks which shall be analysed by a custom software to detect any large objects which move from the platform on to the tracks. The second system fires laser beams across the tracks and whenever a human-like figure blocks the line-of-sight between two sensors it triggers the alarm. The third system works just like the one above but uses radio waves instead of lasers. Finally, a fourth system that uses thermal detection cameras to identify heat signatures coming from a human fallen on the tracks. All of these systems are being currently tested in an undisclosed station.


In the beginning of 2013, the MTA had said that they will start looking into this matter after two people were deliberately pushed on to the tracks in 2012 by a criminal. Every year on an average of around fifty people meet an untimely death when they fall on to the subway tracks and these technologies would save precious lives if they are implemented in the Big Apple. We have used the word ‘if’ in the previous sentence because #-Link-Snipped-# thinks that the MTA would not be able to afford the costs associated with a city wide implantation since it is 250 billion US dollars in debt.

CE is a forum of many learned minds and we would like to know which system would be most effective in preventing these accidents. Head over to the comment section to post your views.