Doors opening delay: Washington DC metro: 15 seconds VS Berlin S-Bahn: -4 seconds 🤯🤯🤯

It’s quite common in some European rapid transit systems, especially in German and French ones (and those influenced by them), for doors to start opening before the trains come to a full stop.

Credit: BillyFlorian

Amazing! Makes sense too... once the vehicle is below a certain speed any risks go down dramatically.

That’s actually how these trains work. Instead of unlocking when the train is stationary, the doors unlock as the train enters the station and reaches a certain speed.

SEPTA also opens the doors on the BSL and MFL when its still slowing down at like 2-3mph, depending on the operator lol

That DC metro video is old. The door opening delay is far shorter now

I recorded door opening times for an hour in Farragut square in 2019 and the mean time is 10.22 seconds. The protocol was that the operator opened his window, looked down the train (looking for I don’t know what) and then opened the doors.

I think it has been recently been fixed, oer a @OhUrbanity video

@OhUrbanity Yeah they made some changes and lowered it to… 5 seconds 🫠

Montreal same as Berlin.

Yeah it’s a common feature of French (or French-inspired) metro systems. It’s the same in Paris, Marseille, Lyon… But quite unique in North America indeed.