What I find more unusual is that even a lot of newly-built or refurbished intercity rail stations have PSDs, which is something I haven't noticed about such railways in other countries. The implementation of them can seem a bit less than elegant, leaving an odd gap between the top of the PSD and the station's roof/ceiling; it seems like the next logical step is to have fully-enclosed platforms as part of the station building, but that seems to me a bit of a loss, both in terms of some potential energy efficiency via natural ventilation (in above-ground stations) and, a bit more subjectively, atmosphere and ambience. However, the safety benefits are undeniable in this case, too, as is energy efficiency at least during Korea's sweltering summers and freezing winters.
Absolutely. I noticed this too in SK. I think the driver is that it is national law to install PSDs when a station is to open (or reopened) so I think Korail or whichever train agency just selects the pre-approved PSD design off the shelf to check the requirement off. Would be interesting to see how PSDs in SK change over time, as PSD technologies grow.
It seems like a huge barrier (pardon the pun) to the NYC subway building PSDs has been that the platform edges cannot support the weight of the doors. Do you know if Seoul faced a similar obstacle and how they solved it?
I wasn't aware that was a hindrance on the feasibility for NYC PSDs but I can see it -- a lot of the MTA stations are 100+ years old and who knows when the platform was last reinforced.
I certainly did not find anything about platform edge weights when looking into Seoul. I'm sure this was considered; I just do not have the findings. I think its relative youth probably helped: Seoul's oldest Metro station, at time of first PSD installation around 2005-2006, was 34 years old.
In a roundabout way, I believed I answered your question via the thesis of the post, which is that PSDs and its feasibility was a political issue, and it won, politically. All doubts and concerns of whether PSDs can work in Seoul were first won politically then the engineering to make it happen followed.
These tragedies sound awful. Sad to see so many preventable deaths due to slow bureaucracy.
PSDs are being installed on the subway in my city of Glasgow too but it isn't driven by safety standards, we don't have regular occurrences of deaths or injuries on the subway, though similarly to Seoul, the PSDs are being installed to correct an decades-old problem.
The Glasgow subway is the 3rd oldest in the world and as a result requires weekly maintenance and manual interventions so the subway finishes running at 6pm on a Sunday evening to allow for this, much to the distate of the city's travelling population. The subway is undergoing a modernisation at the minute with new trains which can be driverless but these can only be operated as such with PSDs.
This is awesome to hear. I will have to follow along this journey on how Glasgow Subway is building PSDs. Feel free to share any resources to help educate myself.
This is kicking off a huge public transport infrastructure overhaul in the region which is predicted to cost billions of pounds (uncommon infrastructure spending levels in the UK outside of London) and take around 30 years to complete. They're calling it the Clyde metro:
Nice history, it reminds me a bit of Chicago or NYC political wheeling and dealing with various pressure groups.
Seperately, is that Sanskrit or similar language on the glass next to the door in the picture "Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon standing by a Platform Screen Door at Oksu Station"?
Yes, that's Sanskrit. Seoul Metro not only promotes submitted Korean poetry, but also international poetry on its PSDs. When I was in Seoul, I saw poetry in Lithuanian, Greek, and Russian.
It's interesting. Singapore's underground stations from the 90s onwards had PSDs from the start but the above-ground and early stations only got them in the 2010s. But I suppose the concern was more suicide prevention and safety rather than major scandals of murder and deadly fires like what happened in South Korea so it moved slower
What I find more unusual is that even a lot of newly-built or refurbished intercity rail stations have PSDs, which is something I haven't noticed about such railways in other countries. The implementation of them can seem a bit less than elegant, leaving an odd gap between the top of the PSD and the station's roof/ceiling; it seems like the next logical step is to have fully-enclosed platforms as part of the station building, but that seems to me a bit of a loss, both in terms of some potential energy efficiency via natural ventilation (in above-ground stations) and, a bit more subjectively, atmosphere and ambience. However, the safety benefits are undeniable in this case, too, as is energy efficiency at least during Korea's sweltering summers and freezing winters.
Absolutely. I noticed this too in SK. I think the driver is that it is national law to install PSDs when a station is to open (or reopened) so I think Korail or whichever train agency just selects the pre-approved PSD design off the shelf to check the requirement off. Would be interesting to see how PSDs in SK change over time, as PSD technologies grow.
Great post as always.
It seems like a huge barrier (pardon the pun) to the NYC subway building PSDs has been that the platform edges cannot support the weight of the doors. Do you know if Seoul faced a similar obstacle and how they solved it?
I wasn't aware that was a hindrance on the feasibility for NYC PSDs but I can see it -- a lot of the MTA stations are 100+ years old and who knows when the platform was last reinforced.
I certainly did not find anything about platform edge weights when looking into Seoul. I'm sure this was considered; I just do not have the findings. I think its relative youth probably helped: Seoul's oldest Metro station, at time of first PSD installation around 2005-2006, was 34 years old.
In a roundabout way, I believed I answered your question via the thesis of the post, which is that PSDs and its feasibility was a political issue, and it won, politically. All doubts and concerns of whether PSDs can work in Seoul were first won politically then the engineering to make it happen followed.
These tragedies sound awful. Sad to see so many preventable deaths due to slow bureaucracy.
PSDs are being installed on the subway in my city of Glasgow too but it isn't driven by safety standards, we don't have regular occurrences of deaths or injuries on the subway, though similarly to Seoul, the PSDs are being installed to correct an decades-old problem.
The Glasgow subway is the 3rd oldest in the world and as a result requires weekly maintenance and manual interventions so the subway finishes running at 6pm on a Sunday evening to allow for this, much to the distate of the city's travelling population. The subway is undergoing a modernisation at the minute with new trains which can be driverless but these can only be operated as such with PSDs.
This is awesome to hear. I will have to follow along this journey on how Glasgow Subway is building PSDs. Feel free to share any resources to help educate myself.
The best resource is SPT who are the regional transport authority:
https://www.spt.co.uk/about-us/what-we-are-doing/modernisation/
This is kicking off a huge public transport infrastructure overhaul in the region which is predicted to cost billions of pounds (uncommon infrastructure spending levels in the UK outside of London) and take around 30 years to complete. They're calling it the Clyde metro:
https://www.spt.co.uk/about-us/what-we-are-doing/clyde-metro/
It's exciting, I just hope they are able to be as ambitious as they ought to be.
Nice history, it reminds me a bit of Chicago or NYC political wheeling and dealing with various pressure groups.
Seperately, is that Sanskrit or similar language on the glass next to the door in the picture "Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon standing by a Platform Screen Door at Oksu Station"?
Yes, that's Sanskrit. Seoul Metro not only promotes submitted Korean poetry, but also international poetry on its PSDs. When I was in Seoul, I saw poetry in Lithuanian, Greek, and Russian.
I hope they didn't include any poetry from the State of Georgia's Joel Chandler Harris.
https://pnqk.me/xzuy50
It's interesting. Singapore's underground stations from the 90s onwards had PSDs from the start but the above-ground and early stations only got them in the 2010s. But I suppose the concern was more suicide prevention and safety rather than major scandals of murder and deadly fires like what happened in South Korea so it moved slower
Something that didn't make the cut was the politicians in support of PSDs did refer to Singapore as a success case for PSDs.