DST (2018)

[tradephoric]

Set all the signals to UTC and give the software the ability to recognize DST so that the switch can be flipped once centrally, not per-signal. 

In a world where everyone farts pixie dust maybe traffic signals never get out of sync.  In the real world where signal controllers are programmed incorrectly they have a funny way of getting out of sync after a time change.  It's logical to think that the more variables there are that need to be programmed into the controller (ie. twice per year time changes) the more probability that something will go wrong (and without fail it does).

[kkt]

I don't think Seattle even realizes synchronizing traffic signals could be a thing.

[jakeroot]

I don't think Seattle even realizes synchronizing traffic signals could be a thing.

They're not that bad? 2nd needs some serious work through Belltown with the new cycle path, but it's not too bad overall. SDOT loves to improve things for cyclists and buses, but they still try to keep traffic moving. As I stated in another thread, Mercer is garbage because of the long crossing cycles required for pedestrians. They could split the crossing phase in the median, but that would get SDOT officials run out of town.

AFAIK, Seattle used to have signals timed together pretty well, but things fell apart when they started introducing protected phasing at a bunch of intersections due to cycle lanes, bus lanes, etc. Even dual permissive turns used to be allowed at 5th and Mercer back in the day, but now it's a single-lane protected left. ARGH!

I would say the worst stretch in the city, right now, is Broadway from Yesler to Howell. Absolutely terrible timing. I don't expect it to be fast during rush hour, but at 7 AM on a Sunday? Come on. Oddly enough, Broadway north of Howell is one of my favorite stretches of road in the city. Two-phase permissive signals, and all timed with each other. Even Aloha, with its FYA, still moves pretty quick.

[formulanone]

Yeah, and getting off the school bus at quarter to 5 will also be terrible for morale. One of the best perks of being a kid was getting home before the adults!

Don’t worry kids can adapt.  Besides if schools have later start times businesses may adjust their times to start their workday later to be better aligned with the school schedules (so that employees can still drop/pick up their kids from school).  You can’t see that happening?  I’m sure plenty of CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies are parents themselves and there would be a natural progression to have later start times in businesses throughout the country.   If school districts are seriously considering later start times for their students (like California) now would be the perfect time to do it.  We are in an economy where there are more jobs than available workers to fill them, and workers have the bargaining power to demand for better benefits like flex hours and the like (so they can still pick up/drop off their kids on time).  After that, even if the economy tanks, the later working hours will suddenly become the norm.

All I see in this thread are over-complicated solutions to a minor annoyance.

Keeping the same time year-round is an over-complicated solution to changing the clocks twice a year?  Now you may think to yourself “ooh well how hard is it to change a clock” but do you ever drive anywhere?  Without fail an agency fails to properly change the clocks at a traffic control device during the time change and a signal will get out of sync with the surrounding signals.  This can take weeks to address until enough people call in to complain that the signals are out of step.  It’s well documented that there is an increase in crashes after time changes and mistimed and inefficient signal timings could factor into the increase in crashes.  The confusion arises when people have to change their clocks twice a year.

Mis-timed traffic lights are an annoyance, not a danger. Besides, all it takes is an emergency vehicle to disrupt a signal pattern to aid an injury (or save a life), and that's assigning a priority. There's no substitute for paying attention.

Microsoft and Apple have offered automatic time changes twice a year for decades. Android offers it too. Don't know enough about other operating systems, but I figure some versions of Linux/Unix have it figured out by now.

If folks aren't going to stay aware of their surroundings, I think they should stay in bed until they feel better, to put it mildly. Personally, I'm not sure how folks can't get used to an hour's time difference but nobody cares if someone's distracted by an evening of binge-watching or binge-drinking.

[kalvado]

If folks aren't going to stay aware of their surroundings, I think they should stay in bed until they feel better, to put it mildly. Personally, I'm not sure how folks can't get used to an hour's time difference but nobody cares if someone's distracted by an evening of binge-watching or binge-drinking.

The root cause of each and every accident in the world is that this world is being run by human beings - who do make mistakes and are not perfect in general.
Of course, problems need to be created so that we can bravely overcome them and improve our self-esteem.. But I, for one, have enough of other problems, so creating extra ones just for the sake of it is not something I enjoy.

[tradephoric]

Mis-timed traffic lights are an annoyance, not a danger. Besides, all it takes is an emergency vehicle to disrupt a signal pattern to aid an injury (or save a life), and that's assigning a priority. There's no substitute for paying attention.

The mistiming can be serious.  Some traffic signals that should be operational after a time change may now be running flash mode.  In addition, variable speed limit signs that warn drivers to slow down in a school zone before/after the school bell may be programmed incorrectly, so instead of 25 mph speed limit in the school zone drivers may be displayed 45 mph after the time change.  Emergency vehicle preemptions causing a signal to temporarily get out of sync doesn't seem relevant to any DST discussions.  Emergency vehicle are going to be activating preemptions regardless if the nation is on year-round DST or running the status quo.  Actually, I take that back.  After a time-change there is a statistically significant increase in both heart attacks and car crashes so there are probably more emergency preemptions as all those casualties from the time-change are driven to the hospital (meaning more signals that are temporarily out of sync).

All I see in this thread are over-complicated solutions to a minor annoyance.

Again, keeping time the same year-round doesn't sound like an over-complicated solution.  If anything by going to the same time year-round you get rid of a lot of the complications (clocks being off at traffic control devices being just one small example). 

[kkt]

Microsoft and Apple have offered automatic time changes twice a year for decades. Android offers it too. Don't know enough about other operating systems, but I figure some versions of Linux/Unix have it figured out by now.

Unix had automatic switching to/from DST working from its earliest days before it even escaped from Bell Labs in the early 1970s, even if the host happened to be down at the switchover hour.  They keep UTC internally and convert to local time for display.  Apple copied that solution along with the Unix layer for much of the underlying works with MacOS X in the late 1990s.  Microsoft made the switchover automatic right with their own independent code, but I'm not sure if they handle the case where the computer is down at the switchover hour.

[GaryV]

The mistiming can be serious. 

There are far more mis-timings that result from power outages (some caused when an accident knocks down a power pole) than by changing time twice a year.

[tradephoric]

The mistiming can be serious. 

There are far more mis-timings that result from power outages (some caused when an accident knocks down a power pole) than by changing time twice a year.

Maybe true but with the clock changes you basically guarantee that there will be at least two "storms" every year (the definition of a "storm" in this case being an event which causes the signals to run out of sync).   There are plenty of storms to deal with throughout the year, why guarantee two more?  Simple solution... keep the clocks the same year-round.

[kkt]

The mistiming can be serious. 

There are far more mis-timings that result from power outages (some caused when an accident knocks down a power pole) than by changing time twice a year.

Maybe true but with the clock changes you basically guarantee that there will be at least two "storms" every year (the definition of a "storm" in this case being an event which causes the signals to run out of sync).   There are plenty of storms to deal with throughout the year, why guarantee two more?  Simple solution... keep the clocks the same year-round.

They'll go out of synch anyway.  Simple solution: have the clocks resynchronize automatically.  Wifi should be pretty cheap compared to the total cost of a traffic light.

[Scott5114]

Microsoft and Apple have offered automatic time changes twice a year for decades. Android offers it too. Don't know enough about other operating systems, but I figure some versions of Linux/Unix have it figured out by now.

The traditional approach on Linux is to set the OS clock to UTC and treat DST as an implication of being in a particular time zone. (That is, rather than "Use DST? yes/no" like on Windows, on Linux it is "US/Central", the definition of which includes "uses DST from X date to Y date".)  File modification dates, etc are stored as UTC times and then the correct offset is computed and displayed dynamically. This means that different users on the same system but in different time zones (like on a server accessed remotely) will both see the correct times.

[20160805]

Come on now.  High school schedules are not "absurd" - mine ran from 07:25 to 14:56 and made in dent to my sleep schedule whatsoever.  I liked going in and getting out at those times because, well, it wasn't nighttime when I got home and I could still do anything else I wanted to; even now my preferred working hours would be 07:00-15:00.

Protip: never assume your experience is typical. Those studies showing we force teenagers to wake up earlier than their bodies naturally want to are real science. You may have been just fine and enjoyed waking up at the time required, but you are the exception, not the rule.

I think that's shady science...teenagers like to resist anything outside the norm because they like to bend limits. They want to sleep in because institutions are inherently boring, they don't foresee/feel repercussions by staying up late, and enjoying their time doing anything that doesn't involve being told what to do, usually at the expense of a good night's rest. They'd go to bed early and wake up early if it pissed off enough parents, their friends all did it, and was deemed cool by Madison Avenue.

Of course I would have enjoyed four-hour school days, two-hour work days, no homework/studying, and 3-5 hours a day with friends, two quality meals with family and associated chit-chat, and some free time to do whatever to make room for 7-8 hours of sleepytime. Not going to happen unless a lot of puzzle pieces are re-shaped for that kind of schedule.

On December 21st the sun rises in Ann Arbor, Michigan at 8:00AM, a full 5 minutes later than what the sun would rise in LA if the city was observing permanent DST.  Ann Arbor was listed as the best place to live in 2018 according to livability.com and has appeared on the top 100 best places to live list for 5 years in a row.  How could a city with such "uncivilized" sunrise times be considered the most livable city in America?

Not sure if serious or...wait, this thread has gone on for several months and 35 pages. You are serious...

Time distribution in second paragraph fixed.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, though.  I've been going to bed at 21:00 since I was 13, and I've never had a problem with getting up at times most would consider "early" - even now the latest I'll sleep in on the weekends is still before 6:00.  And as a former teenager myself (teen years 2005-12, HS class of 2010), you are entirely right that teens enjoy rebelling and challenging their authority figures, and I too have no doubt that teens would be getting up at 2:00 if that was the rebellious, tick-off-your-parents schedule.

As a teenager I figured I needed 7 hours of sleep per night for optimal function the next day, a number to which I still stick to this day; I also allowed for 90% sleep efficiency, or in other words, actually being asleep for 90% of the time I'm in bed (so excluding sitting there waiting to fall asleep, waking up before the alarm, bathroom breaks, or whatever may abbreviate my sleeping hours).  My body does not like sleeping in late either; if I go to bed at 21:00, I'll wake up at 5:00, and if I go to bed at 0:00, I'll still wake up at 5:00 just because there must be some type of primitive sort of code in my body that says "if time >= 5:00 / wakeUp;" or something.  And I'm certain I've been called lame or a square behind my back for asking my parents to pick me up at 20:xx from church youth group functions on Friday nights at ages 12-14 (they usually went until 22:00 or some other time well past my bedtime) so that I didn't end up losing too much sleep.

Let's also remember that not everybody has blackout blinds (I personally don't myself), and that if mass numbers of people are going to bed when it's still light out, they may not be able to sleep as easily as if it was, well, actually nighttime.  Sunset on 22 June in Ann Arbor is 21:15 (EDT), which means the sun would still be several degrees above the horizon when I go to bed during that time of year.  And before you call me some psycho early bird, everyone who works early mornings has to get up and go to bed early out of necessity.  Most children also have early bedtimes; I personally was going to bed at 20:00 until age 11, and I know I wasn't the only person my age who went to bed at a comparable time.  I even remember my parents going to bed at a similar time to myself: they'd watch the first part of the evening news, then go to bed when the weather ended around 21:15.  (My mom was always even more of an early bird than myself, also out of necessity and then habit; my dad got up for his 8:00-17:00 full time job at 6:30, but he didn't have the greatest sleep efficiency.)

As such, even as it stands the sunrise and sunset times at Ann Arbor would not be conducive to the sleep schedules of me and likely many thousand other people in that city, whose population in 2010 was 113,000.  The sunset time crosses the 18:00 line on 10 February, which is also not good for me emotionally because the later sunsets give me the illusion that it's warmer out, so to see the daylight late in the evening, want to go outside, and find myself walking through a large amount of snow at god-knows-what-temperature would be just plain depressing, especially considering that by February winter has been going on for quite a while already and I'm sick of it.

As such, what seems to be the herd consensus around this board, namely shifting everyone's time zone forward an hour and getting rid of DST (i.e. putting my location on EST and Ann Arbor on AST (!) year round) would be terrible!  Sunrise of 9:00 on 22 December (which for me was, give or take a couple of days, the last day before Christmas break) would mean that the sun wouldn't even be poking its head above the horizon until the latter half of second period, and the 18:06 sunset would completely kill the mood of winter.  The entirety of Michigan should be in the Central Time Zone, which is its rightful place if we divide the globe into even chunks based on solar time.

Edit: Oh my God, this post is long!

[NWI_Irish96]

Edison Research conducted a poll in January 2015 that looks at when people wake up on weekdays.  If we went from standard-time in the winter to DST, dawn would shift from around 7AM for most Americans to around 8AM.

And just FYI, here is the map. Would you please show where "most Americans" live?

Looking at that map, maybe the solution is to make time zones more diagonal.  move the lines farther west in the south and farther east in the north.  Then you can get more uniform sunrise times.

[hotdogPi]

Edison Research conducted a poll in January 2015 that looks at when people wake up on weekdays.  If we went from standard-time in the winter to DST, dawn would shift from around 7AM for most Americans to around 8AM.

And just FYI, here is the map. Would you please show where "most Americans" live?

Looking at that map, maybe the solution is to make time zones more diagonal.  move the lines farther west in the south and farther east in the north.  Then you can get more uniform sunrise times.

Sunset is on the other diagonal, and sunrise on the summer solstice is also on the other diagonal.

[kalvado]

Edison Research conducted a poll in January 2015 that looks at when people wake up on weekdays.  If we went from standard-time in the winter to DST, dawn would shift from around 7AM for most Americans to around 8AM.

And just FYI, here is the map. Would you please show where "most Americans" live?

Looking at that map, maybe the solution is to make time zones more diagonal.  move the lines farther west in the south and farther east in the north.  Then you can get more uniform sunrise times.

Sunset is on the other diagonal, and sunrise on the summer solstice is also on the other diagonal.

Looks like winter morning is the most limiting factor here anyway

[J N Winkler]

I've done a little reading into "year-round DST" and it appears to be having a moment, with both Russia and Turkey having tried it and legislation either pending or passed in California, Florida, and Massachusetts.  What I am seeing is a lot of regret.  Russia locked into permanent DST in 2011 (fixing MSK at UTC+4:00) but in 2014 went to permanent standard time (moving MSK back to UTC+3:00 without DST).  Turkey went to permanent DST in 2016 (fixing Turkey Time at UTC+3:00) but re-thought it almost immediately, with the government issuing a decree--rescinded within a month--to go to permanent standard time (Turkey Time at UTC+2:00, same as Eastern European Time).

The common theme here appears to be that eliminating the DST-related time changes sticks better than translating time one timezone east.

[kalvado]

I've done a little reading into "year-round DST" and it appears to be having a moment, with both Russia and Turkey having tried it and legislation either pending or passed in California, Florida, and Massachusetts.  What I am seeing is a lot of regret.  Russia locked into permanent DST in 2011 (fixing MSK at UTC+4:00) but in 2014 went to permanent standard time (moving MSK back to UTC+3:00 without DST).  Turkey went to permanent DST in 2016 (fixing Turkey Time at UTC+3:00) but re-thought it almost immediately, with the government issuing a decree--rescinded within a month--to go to permanent standard time (Turkey Time at UTC+2:00, same as Eastern European Time).

The common theme here appears to be that eliminating the DST-related time changes sticks better than translating time one timezone east.

What would be even worse than biannual changes of time is an annual change of time zone legislation. Think about it CAREFULLY, choose, and stick to it.

As for Russia, fact that Moscow sits literally on normal time zone line (37.5 E) doesn't help in making up government's mind.   

[tradephoric]

I've done a little reading into "year-round DST" and it appears to be having a moment, with both Russia and Turkey having tried it and legislation either pending or passed in California, Florida, and Massachusetts.  What I am seeing is a lot of regret.  Russia locked into permanent DST in 2011 (fixing MSK at UTC+4:00) but in 2014 went to permanent standard time (moving MSK back to UTC+3:00 without DST).  Turkey went to permanent DST in 2016 (fixing Turkey Time at UTC+3:00) but re-thought it almost immediately, with the government issuing a decree--rescinded within a month--to go to permanent standard time (Turkey Time at UTC+2:00, same as Eastern European Time).

The common theme here appears to be that eliminating the DST-related time changes sticks better than translating time one timezone east.

I don't see regret.  When Russia changed from permanent DST to permanent standard time in 2014, they also made significant tweaks to the time-zone map.  It's semantics if you want to call it permanent DST or permanent standard time with time-zone shifting.  If the sun comes up somewhere at 7AM it comes up at 7AM... no matter what you want to call it.  But the fact is the people of Russia don't have to change their clocks twice a year.  That's what's important.  Now even Europe is questioning if DST is still worth it.  Earlier this year the European Parliament voted 384 to 153 to review whether Daylight Saving Time is actually worth it and are currently polling citizens from their member states to see if they want to get rid of it.

Daylight Saving Time isn't worth it, European Parliament members say
EU says holdover from post-WWI efficiency efforts isn't relevant in today's world.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/daylight-saving-time-isnt-worth-it-european-parliament-ministers-say/

I kind of hate headlines that rip on DST, because without DST in America we would have pitch darkness in LA by 7:36PM on the longest day of the year (not to mention dawn beginning at 4:24AM).  It's fine getting rid of DST, but only if it's accompanied with time-zone shifts like Russia did back in 2014.  The most elegant solution for America, in my mind, is going to permanent DST for the time-being and letting individual states decide if they want to be on permanent DST or standard time year-round.  Once the states sort that out, then Congress can debate whether to get rid of DST entirely and shift all the time-zones over accordingly... then at least we don't have the semantics of saying America is on permanent DST and we never have to hear about this silly outdated practice again! 

[J N Winkler]

I don't see regret.  When Russia changed from permanent DST to permanent standard time in 2014, they also made significant tweaks to the time-zone map.  It's semantics if you want to call it permanent DST or permanent standard time with time-zone shifting.

What I think you are failing to acknowledge here is that the Russians went on "permanent DST" in 2011, and then permanent standard time in 2014, so that the time in the country's largest city, Moscow, went from UTC+3:00 to UTC+4:00 in 2011, and then back to UTC+3:00 in 2014.  The Russians are indeed keeping the benefit of avoiding twice-yearly clock changes, but the return to standard time in 2014 suggests that there were consequences to moving to the next time zone east that were not fully taken into account in whatever public debate occurred prior to the 2011 change.  And it looks like similar considerations drove Turkey's aborted decision to go back to Eastern European Time after they got rid of the twice-yearly DST change.

The trick, as Kalvado suggests, is to ensure that the time that is chosen for an area is the optimum before locking onto it permanently.  I am happy to eliminate the twice-yearly DST changes but I am agnostic as to whether the time that is used should be standard time for the zone or standard time for the next zone east.

[webny99]

I am happy to eliminate the twice-yearly DST changes but I am agnostic as to whether the time that is used should be standard time for the zone or standard time for the next zone east.

Perhaps the existing time zones could be split. The eastern half can shift east (or "permanent DST"), and the western half (and, by way of extension, the eastern half of the next time zone over) could maintain standard time year-round.

[kalvado]

I don't see regret.  When Russia changed from permanent DST to permanent standard time in 2014, they also made significant tweaks to the time-zone map.  It's semantics if you want to call it permanent DST or permanent standard time with time-zone shifting.

What I think you are failing to acknowledge here is that the Russians went on "permanent DST" in 2011, and then permanent standard time in 2014, so that the time in the country's largest city, Moscow, went from UTC+3:00 to UTC+4:00 in 2011, and then back to UTC+3:00 in 2014.  The Russians are indeed keeping the benefit of avoiding twice-yearly clock changes, but the return to standard time in 2014 suggests that there were consequences to moving to the next time zone east that were not fully taken into account in whatever public debate occurred prior to the 2011 change.  And it looks like similar considerations drove Turkey's aborted decision to go back to Eastern European Time after they got rid of the twice-yearly DST change.

The trick, as Kalvado suggests, is to ensure that the time that is chosen for an area is the optimum before locking onto it permanently.  I am happy to eliminate the twice-yearly DST changes but I am agnostic as to whether the time that is used should be standard time for the zone or standard time for the next zone east.

To begin with, Russia was on "permanent DST" aka "Decree time" from 1930 till 1990: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_time  With significant catches like areas moving to next zone west - aka moving back to standard time... Clocks are set to Moscow time in a disproportionately large areas...

[tradephoric]

And it looks like similar considerations drove Turkey's aborted decision to go back to Eastern European Time after they got rid of the twice-yearly DST change.

The 2016 decision by Turkey to stay on summer time year-round was a mistake.  If you look at a world time-zone map western Turkey is smack dab in the middle of UTC+2 even though the country observes UTC+3.  When Turkey ran year-round DST (or year-round summer time as they called it) the sun would rise in Istanbul, Turkey at 9:25AM during the shortest day of the year.  This would be equivalent to Davenport, Iowa running permanent DST AND being on the Eastern Time Zone.  If the people of Indiana don't like being on the Eastern Time Zone, just imagine how bad it would be if the people of Iowa were in the Eastern Time Zone.  Turkey was already too far west in their time-zone where going to year-round DST never made much sense.   Not surprised the idea failed.

The trick, as Kalvado suggests, is to ensure that the time that is chosen for an area is the optimum before locking onto it permanently.  I am happy to eliminate the twice-yearly DST changes but I am agnostic as to whether the time that is used should be standard time for the zone or standard time for the next zone east.

The beauty of America going to permanent DST now is that no state would be locked down to a specific time.  States have always had the option to opt out of DST so each state can figure out for themselves what is best for them.  Undoubtedly more states would join Arizona and Hawaii in observing year-round standard time if permanent DST was approved, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  After a few years, once the states figure out what time they want to be on (standard time vs. permanent DST), then Congress can decide to eliminate DST altogether and shift the time-zones to reflect the desired changes by the states.  It would actually reflect pretty close to the process Russia went through in 2011-2014 in eliminating their time changes. 

[tradephoric]

2020 Tokyo Olympics consider daylight saving to beat heat
http://www.espn.co.uk/olympics/story/_/id/24209126/2020-tokyo-olympics-consider-daylight-saving-beat-heat

[english si]

^^ The long-distance events at London 2012 all started at 8am DST, that they will start the marathon at 7am standard time in Tokyo isn't additional mitigation for heat of any sort.

DST and a 7am start would be one way to mitigate. A 6am start would be another way. I imagine both are being investigated.

[Eth]

^^ The long-distance events at London 2012 all started at 8am DST, that they will start the marathon at 7am standard time in Tokyo isn't additional mitigation for heat of any sort.

DST and a 7am start would be one way to mitigate. A 6am start would be another way. I imagine both are being investigated.

It was a 7:05 (with DST) start in Atlanta in 1996, and a quick check of Wikipedia tells me that Atlanta and Tokyo have virtually identical summer temperatures, so I think that would probably work.