page_title: History of Bay Area Rapid Transit
section_title: Automation
hierarchical_section_title: History of Bay Area Rapid Transit / The initial system (1964–76) / Automation
caption_attribution_description: English: Back of early magnetic striped encoded paper card. Note the narrow magnetic stripe in the center of the card.
context_page_description: Bay Area Rapid Transit, widely known by the acronym BART, is the main rail transportation system for the San Francisco Bay Area. It was envisioned as early as 1946 but the construction of the original system began in the 1960s.
context_section_description: BART was one of the first U.S. systems of any size to have substantial automated operations. As a first-generation installation, the automation system was plagued with numerous operational problems during its first years of service. Shortly after revenue service began, an on-board electronics failure caused one two-car test train (with car 143 as the lead car) to run off the end of the elevated track at the Fremont station and into a parking lot. This incident was dubbed the Fremont Flyer, and there were no serious injuries.
  The original signaling technology and subsequent enhancements used to control the trains was developed by Westinghouse. When revenue service began, "ghost trains" (or false occupancies), trains that show up on the computer system as being in a specific place but don't physically exist, were common, and real trains could at times disappear from the system. This was the result of dew on the tracks and too low of a voltage (at 0.6 volts rather than the industry standard 15 volts) being passed through the rails for train detection. Under such circumstances, trains had to be operated manually and were restricted to a speed of 25 mph (40 km/h). Enhancements were made to the train control system to address these "ghost trains" (or false occupancies). However, manual blocking — operators in a booth on the platform at alternate stations, with a telephone and red/green lights — that kept trains in stations until the train ahead had left its station were mandated for several years. This caused a great outcry in the press and led to a flurry of litigation between Westinghouse, the original controls contractor, and BART, as well as public battles between the state government (advised by University of California professor Dr. Bill Wattenburg), the federal government, and the district, but in time these problems were resolved and BART became a reliable service. Ghost trains persisted on the system as late as 2007, and while usually cleared quickly enough to avoid significant delay, they can occasionally cause an extended backup of manually operated trains in the system.  In addition, the fare card system was easily hackable with equipment commonly found in universities, although most of these flaws have been fixed.
  Running logistics were originally handled from a central control room, but that was replaced by the more modern Operations Control Center (OCC) and headquarters at the Kaiser Center in Downtown Oakland.
caption: Back of an early magnetic striped encoded paper ticket
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