Time zones 2

[Rothman]

Reopening - Keep the DST stuff civil, We know it's a debate that has no clear winner.

Somebody played an Uno reverse card.

[J N Winkler]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending experience.

My great-aunt and great-uncle lived on a farm in Kearny County, Kansas when it was among the few US counties split between different time zones.  I don't recall where they were exactly in relation to the boundary, but they were midway between Deerfield (Central) and Lakin (Mountain), so they had to keep track of two sets of business hours.  They were happy when the time zone boundary was moved to the Hamilton County line, putting all of Kearny in Central.

[CNGL-Leudimin]

This thread must now fall back.

I knew it would happen :

In before lock.

Except that this time...

Reopening - Keep the DST stuff civil, We know it's a debate that has no clear winner.

Anyway, I prefer to stay away from that whole DST nonsense and instead bring up something that bothers me: The time zone I'm in. When I went to Italy last August I noticed it was already pitch dark by 9:15 pm, and I asked my relatives back in Spain if it was the case. It turned out it wasn't yet, so when I came back home I decided to turn my clocks back one hour to better reflect the time of the day. This would have had the side effect once DST ended at the end of October (in Europe DST ends one week earlier than in the USA) I would have been perfectly aligned with UTC. I didn't make it to the end of the month before putting them back to the official hour.

[Rothman]

Not sure if I've lived anywhere where it wasn't pitch dark by 9:15 p.m.

[kalvado]

Ok.. some strong ideas...
Abolish time zones!

Historically "time zones" started as city-wide zones with 12 = solar noon in the city. There was no way of synchronizing clock long haul, nor personal clock was accurate enough. Butter was no need to sync. So Baltimore and Richmond could have their specific times
Telegraph and railroad required better synch, so local clocks were aligned to 1 hour increment.
Fast forward, we have large areas functioning as single economy. Maybe even larger time zones are needed?
China is a single time zone, so can be EU, or US (or even entire north America)
Yes, local hours may look funny from today perspective. If bank is open 9-6pm in NY and CA, eastern and Pacific respectively -it will have to run 8-5 in NY and 11-8 in CA if central time is universally adopted. It may be unusual for locals at first, but a smaller change than highway exit renumbering.
Hours are already non-universal, as wider spread of workday start is adopted to reduce traffic peaks, and CA starts early to get more overlap with NY.
So, central time for everyone in US, Brussels time for EU!

[jeffandnicole]

Ok.. some strong ideas...
Abolish time zones!

Historically "time zones" started as city-wide zones with 12 = solar noon in the city. There was no way of synchronizing clock long haul, nor personal clock was accurate enough. Butter was no need to sync. So Baltimore and Richmond could have their specific times
Telegraph and railroad required better synch, so local clocks were aligned to 1 hour increment.
Fast forward, we have large areas functioning as single economy. Maybe even larger time zones are needed?
China is a single time zone, so can be EU, or US (or even entire north America)
Yes, local hours may look funny from today perspective. If bank is open 9-6pm in NY and CA, eastern and Pacific respectively -it will have to run 8-5 in NY and 11-8 in CA if central time is universally adopted. It may be unusual for locals at first, but a smaller change than highway exit renumbering.
Hours are already non-universal, as wider spread of workday start is adopted to reduce traffic peaks, and CA starts early to get more overlap with NY.
So, central time for everyone in US, Brussels time for EU!

Make sure your argument provides for the correct time if you think it's actually feasible.

And just to point out, remembering exits on highways effects only those that use or provides exit numbers for that particular highway. It's a very small portion of the population that has an actual issue. Most people worry more about the changes than having directional issues after the changes.

[hotdogPi]

It's correct as is.
When Eastern moves to Central, the clock moves back one hour, so keeping at the same solar time would be 9-6 → 8-5.
When Pacific moves to Central, the clock moves forward two hours, so keeping at the same solar time would be 9-6 → 11-8.

Similarly, the eastern edge of a time zone has earlier solar noon, while the western edge of a time zone has later solar noon.

[wxfree]

I have the solution to this problem.  We have one time zone, based on solar noon where the most population is, probably somewhere in Asia.  Everyone in the world lives in accordance with the time there.  They wake up, go to work and school, and go to sleep according to that time, regardless of what the sun is doing at their location.  I can also fix DST.  We move the clocks ahead by 24 hours in the spring and back in the fall.  By moving forward and back a whole day, we don't have to worry about changes in sunrise and sunset times.  We just won't have a March 7 and will have November 4 twice.

[kalvado]

And just to point out, remembering exits on highways effects only those that use or provides exit numbers for that particular highway. It's a very small portion of the population that has an actual issue. Most people worry more about the changes than having directional issues after the changes.

Since time thing is already answered..
Yes, exit numbers affect only those who commute on that highway. WHat is percentage of population using highway to get to work? Over here they say that the principal city of MSA gets 20% of MSA population commuting into the city limits. Most of them are using highways.

[kalvado]

I have the solution to this problem.  We have one time zone, based on solar noon where the most population is, probably somewhere in Asia.  Everyone in the world lives in accordance with the time there.  They wake up, go to work and school, and go to sleep according to that time, regardless of what the sun is doing at their location.  I can also fix DST.  We move the clocks ahead by 24 hours in the spring and back in the fall.  By moving forward and back a whole day, we don't have to worry about changes in sunrise and sunset times.  We just won't have a March 7 and will have November 4 twice.

That is a more extreme approach, but definitely along the same lines.  GMT is already universal and used in the areas where global synch is required.
Somewhat of a showstopper for such approach would be that date may flip during the business hours. With GMT as universal time, Hawaians would have to start first workday of the week at 20.00 Sunday, and Monday starts during the lunch break. A good source of mess.
So keeping things limited to +/-3 hours (similar to switching to 4 time zones worldwide) is easier as date change would occur between 9 PM and 3 AM of the current time.
North America, South America and Australia are well geographically isolated to be separate zones.

By the way, if you look at land hemisphere/ocean hemisphere division, center of the world is somewhere is Spain - so GMT isn't a bad approach as universal time.

[webny99]

Not sure if I've lived anywhere where it wasn't pitch dark by 9:15 p.m.

I know you are a bit further east, but I wouldn't say that here in Rochester. The sunset is right around 9PM on the longest day of the year, so if it's a clear evening there's some light until at least 10PM.

[kalvado]

Not sure if I've lived anywhere where it wasn't pitch dark by 9:15 p.m.

I know you are a bit further east, but I wouldn't say that here in Rochester. The sunset is right around 9PM on the longest day of the year, so if it's a clear evening there's some light until at least 10PM.

You need to go north for late sunsets. Winnipeg gets latest sunset at 9.40, Edmonton  at 10.07, Anchoradge at 11.40

[wxfree]

I have the solution to this problem.  We have one time zone, based on solar noon where the most population is, probably somewhere in Asia.  Everyone in the world lives in accordance with the time there.  They wake up, go to work and school, and go to sleep according to that time, regardless of what the sun is doing at their location.  I can also fix DST.  We move the clocks ahead by 24 hours in the spring and back in the fall.  By moving forward and back a whole day, we don't have to worry about changes in sunrise and sunset times.  We just won't have a March 7 and will have November 4 twice.

That is a more extreme approach, but definitely along the same lines.  GMT is already universal and used in the areas where global synch is required.
Somewhat of a showstopper for such approach would be that date may flip during the business hours. With GMT as universal time, Hawaians would have to start first workday of the week at 20.00 Sunday, and Monday starts during the lunch break. A good source of mess.
So keeping things limited to +/-3 hours (similar to switching to 4 time zones worldwide) is easier as date change would occur between 9 PM and 3 AM of the current time.
North America, South America and Australia are well geographically isolated to be separate zones.

By the way, if you look at land hemisphere/ocean hemisphere division, center of the world is somewhere is Spain - so GMT isn't a bad approach as universal time.

In my plan, the universal time isn't based on the center of land or the center of population, but on the highest population numbers.  Basically, this means whatever time zone width strip of land has the highest population.  This way, the correct time would benefit the greatest number of people.  Everyone else would adjust to accommodate.  The date wouldn't change during business hours.  Business hours would be at the same time everywhere, as would the date change.  In my area the beginning of the business day would probably be within the annual range of sunset hours and the end of the business day would be within or near the range of sunrise hours.  Most of the business day would be in darkness and the date would change during daylight.  One benefit is that third shift work, late PM to early AM, would probably become a lot more popular, since it would be during daylight, which would ease traffic in the traditional rush hours at the beginning and end of the business day (mostly darkness).

[kalvado]

I have the solution to this problem.  We have one time zone, based on solar noon where the most population is, probably somewhere in Asia.  Everyone in the world lives in accordance with the time there.  They wake up, go to work and school, and go to sleep according to that time, regardless of what the sun is doing at their location.  I can also fix DST.  We move the clocks ahead by 24 hours in the spring and back in the fall.  By moving forward and back a whole day, we don't have to worry about changes in sunrise and sunset times.  We just won't have a March 7 and will have November 4 twice.

That is a more extreme approach, but definitely along the same lines.  GMT is already universal and used in the areas where global synch is required.
Somewhat of a showstopper for such approach would be that date may flip during the business hours. With GMT as universal time, Hawaians would have to start first workday of the week at 20.00 Sunday, and Monday starts during the lunch break. A good source of mess.
So keeping things limited to +/-3 hours (similar to switching to 4 time zones worldwide) is easier as date change would occur between 9 PM and 3 AM of the current time.
North America, South America and Australia are well geographically isolated to be separate zones.

By the way, if you look at land hemisphere/ocean hemisphere division, center of the world is somewhere is Spain - so GMT isn't a bad approach as universal time.

In my plan, the universal time isn't based on the center of land or the center of population, but on the highest population numbers.  Basically, this means whatever time zone width strip of land has the highest population.  This way, the correct time would benefit the greatest number of people.  Everyone else would adjust to accommodate.  The date wouldn't change during business hours.  Business hours would be at the same time everywhere, as would the date change.  In my area the beginning of the business day would probably be within the annual range of sunset hours and the end of the business day would be within or near the range of sunrise hours.  Most of the business day would be in darkness and the date would change during daylight.  One benefit is that third shift work, late PM to early AM, would probably become a lot more popular, since it would be during daylight, which would ease traffic in the traditional rush hours at the beginning and end of the business day (mostly darkness).

You cannot trick human nature. You would still need to have most of the business during the solar day.
Having different local business hour - basically unchanged from today - and universally set clock isn't unrealistic. Not much more unrealistic that forcing Boston and Miami to use the same clock setting.

[jeffandnicole]

And just to point out, remembering exits on highways effects only those that use or provides exit numbers for that particular highway. It's a very small portion of the population that has an actual issue. Most people worry more about the changes than having directional issues after the changes.

Since time thing is already answered..
Yes, exit numbers affect only those who commute on that highway. WHat is percentage of population using highway to get to work? Over here they say that the principal city of MSA gets 20% of MSA population commuting into the city limits. Most of them are using highways.

You missed what I said.  I didn't say those that use highways.  I said those that use exit numbers.  Many commuters don't need to look at an Exit number to figure out the exit they are getting off at, especially if they've been commuting for years.  They're just looking at the route number, or 'muscle memory' takes over and they're only using landmarks or road configurations that they're used to seeing every day.  They probably wouldn't even notice the exit number changed.

This is the same psychology as when a lane configuration changes.  Even though motorists are still going the same way, there's congestion especially when the lane configuration changes because it catches motorists off guard.  No number of signs before the construction area will help, because motorists aren't looking at every sign along a route they take every day.

[kalvado]

And just to point out, remembering exits on highways effects only those that use or provides exit numbers for that particular highway. It's a very small portion of the population that has an actual issue. Most people worry more about the changes than having directional issues after the changes.

Since time thing is already answered..
Yes, exit numbers affect only those who commute on that highway. WHat is percentage of population using highway to get to work? Over here they say that the principal city of MSA gets 20% of MSA population commuting into the city limits. Most of them are using highways.

You missed what I said.  I didn't say those that use highways.  I said those that use exit numbers.  Many commuters don't need to look at an Exit number to figure out the exit they are getting off at, especially if they've been commuting for years.  They're just looking at the route number, or 'muscle memory' takes over and they're only using landmarks or road configurations that they're used to seeing every day.  They probably wouldn't even notice the exit number changed.

This is the same psychology as when a lane configuration changes.  Even though motorists are still going the same way, there's congestion especially when the lane configuration changes because it catches motorists off guard.  No number of signs before the construction area will help, because motorists aren't looking at every sign along a route they take every day.

Well, maybe closer to city center - but further out things are more uniform. I definitely know very well that my exit is #11 at milepost 18.3 and that is my main navigation aid. I would easily confuse my exit with  adjacent exits when looking from the road. Previous one is surrounded by trees as well, and the road is pretty straight...   I may definitely say that I need to go 2 exits past that big shopping area, but that is as much guidance as I get from the road itself. Oh, and there are 3 exits serving the town making signage a bit more confusing.

[jeffandnicole]

Well, maybe closer to city center - but further out things are more uniform. I definitely know very well that my exit is #11 at milepost 18.3 and that is my main navigation aid. I would easily confuse my exit with  adjacent exits when looking from the road. Previous one is surrounded by trees as well, and the road is pretty straight...   I may definitely say that I need to go 2 exits past that big shopping area, but that is as much guidance as I get from the road itself. Oh, and there are 3 exits serving the town making signage a bit more confusing.

If they changed it to Exit 18, how long will you be driving looking for Exit 11 until you figure out your exit number changed?

[Rothman]

Not sure if I've lived anywhere where it wasn't pitch dark by 9:15 p.m.

I know you are a bit further east, but I wouldn't say that here in Rochester. The sunset is right around 9PM on the longest day of the year, so if it's a clear evening there's some light until at least 10PM.

Meh, fine, not pitch black, but pretty dark by 9:15.

[kalvado]

Well, maybe closer to city center - but further out things are more uniform. I definitely know very well that my exit is #11 at milepost 18.3 and that is my main navigation aid. I would easily confuse my exit with  adjacent exits when looking from the road. Previous one is surrounded by trees as well, and the road is pretty straight...   I may definitely say that I need to go 2 exits past that big shopping area, but that is as much guidance as I get from the road itself. Oh, and there are 3 exits serving the town making signage a bit more confusing.

If they changed it to Exit 18, how long will you be driving looking for Exit 11 until you figure out your exit number changed?

It wouldn't be exit 18, it will be exit 190 or so. That's a different story.
How long would I be looking for "Exit 9 liquor store" will depend on how badly I used their goods, though.

[NWI_Irish96]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending expierence.

I'm only 80 miles from my parents and visiting them involves a time change.

There's a school district in between that has one elementary school in Eastern, with the other elementaries, the middle and high schools in Central.

[Poiponen13]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending expierence.

I'm only 80 miles from my parents and visiting them involves a time change.

There's a school district in between that has one elementary school in Eastern, with the other elementaries, the middle and high schools in Central.

Time zones should always follow county boundaries.

[MultiMillionMiler]

This is all why time zones should be continuous, or at least accurate to 10 minutes. So Los Angeles and Las Vegas would be about 20 minutes apart, and the same with Columbus and Pittsburgh, or Austin and Houston. Rounding all locations to the nearest hour isn't precise enough to accurately reflect night and day and the true difference in time with distance.

[NWI_Irish96]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending expierence.

I'm only 80 miles from my parents and visiting them involves a time change.

There's a school district in between that has one elementary school in Eastern, with the other elementaries, the middle and high schools in Central.

Time zones should always follow county boundaries.

The time zone does follow the county boundaries. The school district has parts of multiple counties (this is common in Indiana).

[hbelkins]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending expierence.

My aunt and uncle lived near a county line that was the dividing point between Eastern and Central time. They had moved from an Eastern time county, and most of their business was done in an Eastern time county. They kept their clocks set to Central time but whenever they made reference to Eastern time, they referred to it as "Louisville time."

My colleague in the Somerset office (Eastern) lives in Russell County (Central). She changes time zones on every commute to work. I've never asked her how she deals with that situation.

Less than one month from now as I type this, that which must not be named on this forum happens.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!

No such thing.

The Senate passed a bill getting rid of it but the House didn't pass it.

Actually, I think the vote was to go to year-round DST, not abolish it.

[Poiponen13]

I've always wondered what it's like to live near the border of two time zones. Must be a mind-bending expierence.

I'm only 80 miles from my parents and visiting them involves a time change.

There's a school district in between that has one elementary school in Eastern, with the other elementaries, the middle and high schools in Central.

Time zones should always follow county boundaries.

The time zone does follow the county boundaries. The school district has parts of multiple counties (this is common in Indiana).

School districts should intracounty.