Also, the passenger throughput per door is higher when they can just walk off, instead of having to teeter down stairs. (Not everybody can just hop down the stairs)
Oh yeah, frustrated passengers opening the door and lowering the stairs themselves is a dangerous no-no.
2. Electric trains accelerate and decelerate much faster, cutting time off the trip. They have more rated HP and can "burst" up to something like 2x the rated HP when accelerating from a stop.
(Except on those fun fall days when the train slides on the wet leaves...)
Source: personal experience as an MBTA commuter rail rider (reverse commuting to Concord) for four years, former occasional NJ Transit rider (on the electrified Northeast Corridor)
I've ridden the commuter rail for 13 years. I can't believe "exactly nobody" has noticed that raised platforms load and unload roughly 2x faster. More conductors would help too, but anyone not excited about raised platforms everywhere is unobservant.
What's the deal with this in Boston? Do the doors not have automatic opening hardware? Are they checking tickets on entry instead of walking down the train and punching them at your seat?
What would excite us is more staff. You can only get on/off a train at a door where there is a conductor (you only get on/off at a door opened by a conductor) regardless of platform height, most time spend getting on/off is waiting in line for everyone in front of you to go through whichever few doors are open. We don't need faster clock speeds, we need more cores (metaphorically speaking). Even the conductors complain about this. They could literally hire more people tomorrow if they wanted to. Three is no need to go through a long RFP + proposals + procurement process like they would need to do for new rolling stock.
This entire piece reads like some aloof central planners telling everyone else what they need without actually assessing the situation.
Another thing that would be exiting is trains that run on time. Whether they run on diesel or whale oil won't matter to most people as long as they're an improvement over the status quo. A week doesn't go by when there isn't a (mechanical breakdown related) 1hr+ delay on any given line.
Edit: Yes, raised platforms are faster but they're not so much faster (and they're certainly not cheaper) than utilizing the existing infrastructure (i.e. all the doors on the train) to a greater extent.