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Despite good connectivity, some drivers can’t afford
to stay online all the time, said Jaime. According to
Jimena, about 98% of the train operators on her line
use WhatsApp on the job, but some will often run out
of data, which they must pay for out-of-pocket.
If Whatsapp is replacing radio equipment in the trains and does a satisfactory job, then it should 100% become the official way to do it.
The 'proper' solution of new radios on the train and all the associated ground infrastructure installation cost could be really expensive (think millions of dollars). Yet just giving each driver a data plan would only cost thousands of dollars.
The whatsapp solution is so much cheaper because the infrastructure (4G towers) is already installed for passengers of the train, the network is already run for citizens of the country, and the software work is already done by Whatsapp for their other 1.1 Billion users.
Whatsapp isn't a 'cheap' solution. It's the very expensive solution where the cost has already been paid for by a billion other people, so, as long as it meets the needs of the subway, it is the cheap solution.
Until whatsapp dies. Subway systems run for decades. Can anyone really trust that any particular app will still be around in twenty years? Or two? For critical infrastructure you need something stable, something like a part of the RF spectrum dedicated to critical infrastructure. This is why cops/pilots/ships still have dedicated radios even though some combination of cell/satellite phones would certainly be much cheaper in the short term.
> If Whatsapp is replacing radio equipment in the trains and does a satisfactory job, then it should 100% become the official way to do it.
WhatsApp is consumer-grade software. Using it to manage a transport system is like using a $50 home-oriented manual espresso machine in a busy cafe instead of a proper commercial unit with automatic grinding, multiple nozzles, and a support agreement in place.
People might say "it clearly doesn't meet the needs of the railway. it isn't reliable enough".
Those people might be right. But I'd like to point to the old solution, the radios in the trains, which are in the middle of a decade long outage right now. It's more reliable than that.
And this stuff isn't safety critical - in-cab radios are mostly used for logistics. Everything from scheduling shifts to getting trains to wait a few extra minutes to even out gaps in the service. Without it, the service wouldn't run so smoothly. But it could still run.
You're ignoring the hidden costs of relying on a free, third-party, web-based service for your critical communication network.
Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but it seems moreso that proper comms infrastructure design and preventative maitnance plans is the problem
Whatsapp is a readily available and an accessible solution... one that is better than current comms infrastructure. A local maximum
I used to know a marketing specialist in Mexico who lived there her whole life. Apparently 90% of advertising for cheap consumer goods is done on TV and radio. <10% on websites or streaming services, since many choose not to use them or can't afford subscriptions
Not to say that there aren't beautiful, well developed global cities with wonderful people and opportunities there. Guadalajara and Mexico City are great and growing. I see the country in a state very similar to late 1800s indusdrial America; high inequality, poor low-skill workers rights and pay with backlash occuring, large government backed infrastructure projects, fairly patriarchal buisness elite (and corruption within the "boys club"), fairly absent middle class relative to other countries. Moreso two classes. "Well off, global citizen" or "making ends meet, live in my town for my whole life or move where the work goes"
Relying on a phone app seems like an unstable solution, as when the next budget cut comes, it could include scrapping the company phones in the case they were provided. Or downgrading data plans that are so slow that latency is too high. Wouldn't be a problem until the next accident
Or, if workers are underpaid (low-skill, non corporate in Mexico), selling provided company phones on the 2nd hand market for cash could be fairly common... lying and saying they still have them
Unless if Mexico further lowers it's gini coefficient... something I'm very optimistic with (but over decades) OR provides rudimentary smart phones (or even dated tech like pagers) for work, to me this whatsapp method seems as an easy means for middle managers just to save on their spending budgets. Unless there is middle management buy-in to further develop its usage in a stable way, it seems like a piecemeal (yet effective and creative) solution by the workers due to infrastructure neglect
> Seems like WhatsApp isn't the problem here, but rather the solution.
It's a quick patch that potentially creates many more problems however, since the product isn't rated for that work and cannot guarantee any uptime. Also the touchscreen can be quite distracting and therefore dangerous. If the problem is that the communication infrastructure doesn't work reliably, but cellphone coverage does, the answer, aside restructuring the existing infrastructure, should be small 4G capable SBC boards with audio and text features, one per train, not a cellphone with WhatsApp.
This thing about them needing to pay for data out-of-pocket makes little sense if you actually live in Mexico City or know its subway. The vast majority of the line is covered by a free wifi service paid for by the government, which runs throughout the train lines and stations with only occasional interruptions. Just as passengers can use it, so too can the drivers. It even works pretty well most of the time, certainly enough of it for only modest interruptions.
Also data packages in Mexico are pretty cheap. For the equivalent of 10 dollars, you can buy enough to use whatsapp, web browsing and other social media as well as make phone calls to all of North America almost without limits for 30 days. If you're really short on cash, a package costing just 1 dollar buys you two days of the same services.
Obviously. But in a corrupt country like Mexico, there's never enough funding for anything. And now the current federal govt is burning gobs of cash on mega projects which only makes things worse.
And at the very least, until then at least pay their cell phone bill, come on man
A similar practice is common in South Africa in order to find out when the train is arriving (if at all). You'd have to ask the person at the ticket office to check the Whatsapp group for you (or if you're friendly enough with them, to add you to the group) where the ticket officers at other stations along the line update when the train has passed them.
You can guarantee that much critical infrastructure in the 3rd world runs on WhatsApp
I've traveled to a few places where it's impossible to buy a data plan that doesn't include free unlimited WhatsApp messages. I don't really know why this was true, but it made using any other messaging app a non-starter.
My assumption was that Meta was lobbying companies to bundle free WhatsApp data to increase their user base, but I'm not finding any proof. Does anyone else have an explanation?
It is the other way around. Clients use it so much that they began offering those plans. I'm from Brazil and I saw the change from SMS to WhatsApp happen. Today, several small business rely on WhatsApp for orders and general communication. When the service went off last year, it was quite chaotic.
Even as far back as late 00s, facebook was paying local cell phone companies in my country to allow customers to access mobile facebook for free without any data package at all.
Nothing too surprising or nefarious about it. Unlimited WhatsApp is the equivalent to unlimited SMS in similar bundles in the past. Carriers offer it to attract customers.
I think it's actually just something their customers like.
Not just the 3rd world (assuming you mean developing world, not the non-aligned movement). Ireland's national health service allowed the (already prevalent) use of WhatsApp during the pandemic (and which helped save it when internal email was taken down for months alongside almost all other IT services due to a ransomware attack). Now non-clinical comms is dominated by WhatsApp and the service would literally halt without it.
Source: https://healthservice.hse.ie/staff/procedures-guidelines/dig...
In some places, it's WeChat. In others, it's Telegram.
China runs on Wechat. Including the govn't
Wechat is the government
Yeah, in Central America, many groups coordinate using WhatsApp group chat.
Most companies have customer facing WhatsApp numbers too.
Yup it's the same situation in East Africa. You can't do business without it.
> Most companies have customer facing WhatsApp numbers too.
That's intended use of Whatsapp. Article is about usage for critical infra.
There is a far, far bigger problem than WhatsApp here, starting with the fact that the article reports a recent collision with fatailities.
This is not a system the size of the US so there's no need for "dark territory" [1] - this is a metro system! Best practice would be to have some kind of block-based system where only one train can occupy a block at a time, and signals control this (if you've ever played factorio, you know what I mean).
It seems that what happened is they tried to implement an automatic "moving block" system where trains would keep each other safe, but when that fails, they're back to no block at all, and relying on WhatsApp for SAFETY-CRITICAL communication. There is only one way this can possibly end.
Europe has been trying to design moving block as part of ETCS "level 3" and it turns out that's really hard to do to the usual safety standards. The only place I know of that does this in production is the Wuppertal overhead monorail (which is worth a visit, by the way).
> There is a far, far bigger problem than WhatsApp here, starting with the fact that the article reports a recent collision with fatailities.
Oooh Mexico Májico. The Mexico City Metro system is falling into pieces. There have been several terrible accidents in very recent times:
- Line 12 Overpass Collapse (3 May 2021 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_Metro_overpass_col... )
- Line 3 Collision (couple of days ago) https://www.npr.org/2023/01/07/1147728625/mexico-city-subway... )
- Line 5 Fire (couple of days ago https://www.infobae.com/america/mexico/2023/01/11/metro-cdmx...).
This is the result of years and years of corruption and lack of maintenance. Officers of EVERY level stealing money that is supposed to go for maintenance. Or "contracting" their cousins, friends and other co-conspirators to perform the maintenance, but in reality they keep the money and let the infrastructure to rot.
I wish Central and South America had Spain as a reference model on modern metro systems (have a look on Metro Bilbao in Biscay, the Basque Autonomous) Country instead of bitching against it. And, yes, OFC Spaniards have picaresca, too; but what happens across the pond it's crazy.
There's already loads of trains using moving block signalling - the Thales SelTrac system has had it for at least 20 years. It tends to be used on single-purpose metro lines.
It sounds like their moving block system was working, but it has been slow-motion failing for a decade due to maintenance budget. So the emergency WhatsApp backup has been normalized as operations. But normalizing drivers handling their phones introduces new risks. So, yeah - there is only one way this ends.
The alternative is follow Toronto and New York, and slow the trains down and require full exclusion. But that has its own problems reducing system capacity, which Mexico City can scarce afford.
It sounds like malicious (but not really) compliance would quickly get this solved.
This would go something like an open letter to management and the public.
"Dear metro users and management,
On X date we will compile with the rules. We'll all stop using our phones. If our radios aren't working we're required to run the trains even slower to maintain safety. (Hopefully that's actually a rule.)
We understand this will effectively shutdown the metro, but it needs funding to operate safely. We cannot in good conscious continue endangering the lives of our passengers and ourselves."
The public will demand funding.
The first world truly is a different planet.
This is Mexico, the public can't demand funding.
After the outage from yesterday, maybe FAA should do the same :)
that sir, is pathological combustion!
(sick burn ;) )
> If there is ever a WhatsApp outage, Metro workers have parallel Facebook chats to maintain communication.
I hope the different chat services run by Meta don't share any critical infrastructure.
October 4th, 2021 proved that they at least used to. If the SREs did their jobs, that may no longer be true.
Yeah. Maybe they should choose a different more reliable company like Twitter?
https://localtoday.news/wa/twitter-bans-the-metrobusinfo-acc...
Not sure about now, but a BGP error affected all Meta services one or two years ago.
While I get their reasons, I think it's disgusting that someone is running critical infrastructure out of what amounts to a centralised (single point of failure) consumer communications app being run by a social media. Something like this should only ever be a stopgap measure until proper, dedicated, supported infrastructure is put in place.
What makes you think WhatsApp is centralized or has any single points of failure?
What makes you think that dedicated infrastructure run by the train people would be less centralized or more reliable than that run by Facebook?
Seems like the issue is CDMX’s government (which I’d note tends to be on the left of Mexican politics) is keeping fares down. I get why, it’s an appealing policy and raising fares would actually hurt people (in a way that a 25 cent hike in the US really doesn’t) but the long term cost is high.
The maintenance funding being gutted by 40% seems like the bigger contributing factor here
I know this will never happen in Toronto because our subway system has virtually no cellular service.
Unless you use Freedom Mobile, the one operator that uses the cellular service in the tunnel, in which case you'll get pretty good coverage close to downtown.
Hey, but isn't part of the fun going on the young-university line and having the exciting supprise that you have to take buses to the next station due to maitnance?
:)
> If there is ever a WhatsApp outage, Metro workers have parallel Facebook chats to maintain communication.
That's smart to have a parallel system, but not great that both systems are the same company! A major Facebook outage would take down both systems at the same time.
ChatGPT tl;dr
Mexico City subway riders are expressing concerns that distracted train operators might be putting commuters’ lives at risk, following a collision of two trains that left one dead and dozens injured. However, due to the system being poorly maintained, drivers depend on their phones to communicate with each other and keep the trains running. The use of cellphones during working hours is not condoned by Mexico City’s mass transit workers’ union as per the organization’s general guidelines but it is essential for the trains to run smoothly. The Mexico City subway is one of the cheapest in the world: 5 pesos (about 25 cents) per ride, but the budget only covers operative costs. It would require double its current budget to cover maintenance costs.