ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[jamincan]

And at least a couple of months since anybody drove their vehicle into one of the trains! 

Another ION collision, just when I was thinking it was a while since the last one.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/crash-invol...-1.4993999

So... Can we blame Panamaniac for this one?

Judging from the pictures, it looks like in this case the driver didn't drive into the LRV, so technically I think we're still in the clear on that front.

[danbrotherston]

Driving has absolutely gotten worse during COVID. This is confirmed by the police themselves. 

But yeah it has been a while. CTV commentors have missed their whining. Course it's the same day that news that the LRT is popular among businesses so they have to deny reality even harder now.

[panamaniac]

And at least a couple of months since anybody drove their vehicle into one of the trains! 

Another ION collision, just when I was thinking it was a while since the last one.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/crash-invol...-1.4993999

So... Can we blame Panamaniac for this one?

I confess that I felt a moment's guilt, like I jinxed it!

[panamaniac]

Does not surprise me a bit.  Was in that area around 7pm, I saw a car blow a red light at 60km and if the elderly lady wasn't already half way past, this person would have killed her!

I find that during this COVID, the drivers doing so many wrong things are not staying home, but driving around to show off and or that they own the roads?!

Did the driver "blow a red light"?  More likely turned in front of the moving train, no, like most of these crashes have been?

[danbrotherston]

Does not surprise me a bit.  Was in that area around 7pm, I saw a car blow a red light at 60km and if the elderly lady wasn't already half way past, this person would have killed her!

I find that during this COVID, the drivers doing so many wrong things are not staying home, but driving around to show off and or that they own the roads?!

Did the driver "blow a red light"?  More likely turned in front of the moving train, no, like most of these crashes have been?

Given the four in hospital injuries and the fairly serious damage to the LRV, I would guess this was a bit more high speed than most no look right turns.

[panamaniac]

Did the driver "blow a red light"?  More likely turned in front of the moving train, no, like most of these crashes have been?

Given the four in hospital injuries and the fairly serious damage to the LRV, I would guess this was a bit more high speed than most no look right turns.

Could be, as the damage to the passenger side of the truck was considerable.  I was speculating, based on the damage to the train, which seemed to be in the front corner.

[KevinT]

So that's #24 on my tracker, an average of two a month. (I actually only have notes for 23, but the media reported the July 8, 2019 collisions as #7 and #8 when I was only at 5 up to that point. No idea which one I'm missing or if their count was just off.)

[Square]

Does not surprise me a bit.  Was in that area around 7pm, I saw a car blow a red light at 60km and if the elderly lady wasn't already half way past, this person would have killed her!

I find that during this COVID, the drivers doing so many wrong things are not staying home, but driving around to show off and or that they own the roads?!

Did the driver "blow a red light"?  More likely turned in front of the moving train, no, like most of these crashes have been?

I don't know.  My comment was a different scenario, not related to the LRT collision.

[Bob_McBob]

The official collision count up to the end of March was 30, so a few have been missed by the train nerds, plus the media rarely reports on them anymore. There was apparently one on June 8 where an ebike was hit and the rider was knocked off, but I assume there were no significant injuries since it wasn't in the news. 

[Bytor]

Cost per mile of light rail is typically ~$100M (USD) /mile

Not sure on exact figure but let's say ION cost $900M.
900/12 = $75M/mile or roughly $55M (USD) /mile

I think compared to a typical American light rail, Waterloo did it quicker (once actual construction started)and much less expensive.

Your "typical" cost is more comparable to the cost of elevated rail at $150M/km of double track.

On ground electrified rail is around $45M/km of double track.

[Bob_McBob]

Also I was looking at the latest council report on ION and there are a few interesting points.

• A bunch of revenue, boarding, and ridership data that's hard to draw any conclusions from due to the transit strike and COVID-19.
  
• Bombardier has essentially halted warranty deficiency work on the LRVs since February, again due to COVID-19.
  
• Bombardier is replacing deficient welds on 11 of the region's LRVs at the OMSF over the next two years. They claim the issue poses no safety risk but is being done to meet the expected 30 years service life.
  
• Bombardier is building a spare LRV for the region in Kingston, to be delivered late 2020 or early 2021.
  
• Approximately 11% of fares are inspected daily. 3% of inspected riders have not paid their fare, and approximately 35 people are charged with provincial offences related to fares every month.
  
• The region didn't anticipate the failure rate with platform validators and had to order more spare units as a result.
  
• Various work was done on the fare system during the free fare period, including altering the fare payment terminals to improve cashless transaction speed (has anyone noticed improvements?).
  

[KevinL]

• The region didn't anticipate the failure rate with platform validators and had to order more spare units as a result.
  

Isn't that down to the equipment vendor? Why would the Region have to be the one to order spare parts?

[danbrotherston]

Also I was looking at the latest council report on ION and there are a few interesting points.

• A bunch of revenue, boarding, and ridership data that's hard to draw any conclusions from due to the transit strike and COVID-19.
  
• Bombardier has essentially halted warranty deficiency work on the LRVs since February, again due to COVID-19.
  
• Bombardier is replacing deficient welds on 11 of the region's LRVs at the OMSF over the next two years. They claim the issue poses no safety risk but is being done to meet the expected 30 years service life.
  
• Bombardier is building a spare LRV for the region in Kingston, to be delivered late 2020 or early 2021.
  
• Approximately 11% of fares are inspected daily. 3% of inspected riders have not paid their fare, and approximately 35 people are charged with provincial offences related to fares every month.
  
• The region didn't anticipate the failure rate with platform validators and had to order more spare units as a result.
  
• Various work was done on the fare system during the free fare period, including altering the fare payment terminals to improve cashless transaction speed (has anyone noticed improvements?).
  

Thanks for digging these up...I've been swamped with other regional items and haven't had time to take a look. Some of these are extremely concerning.

The platform validators are garbage...the fact that we already need spares just shows how much of a piece of trash they are. We should be immediately terminating this contract and seeking damages.

Which leads to the second part...it is completely insane that we are inspecing 11% of fares. That's absurdly high.  That is probably, I dunno, between five and seven orders of magnitude (that's 10,000 and 1,000,000 times) as high a frequency as we inspect drivers.

And 3% no fare rate is also very low.  (Ungodly low compared with driver who approach a 100% violation rate for minor offenses like speeding <10km/h over limit, failure to signal, or running amber, and still very very low compared with the number of drivers with major offenses like texting and driving, major speeding, and reckless driving).

But most disturbing of all, that we are laying charges. Tom Galloway claimed this wasn't the case publicly on twitter. It is extremely concerning that we are charging people in the face of a payment system that was, at least last time I tried to use it, nearly completely unusable. I have ridden without paying my fare due to broken equipment, and I am extremely fastidious and technically capable, if I am unable to make it work sometimes, I know with certainty others will be having issues.

I find this whole situation infuriating. I have been on an LRV that was forced to brake extremely hard WHILE being fare inspected. At this point, the fare inspections are sending a very strong message to me. I'd like to raise this with regional council...unfortuantely...it's at the end of an already long list...

In terms of ridership, yeah, all bets are off these days (sure is too bad that we fund the system out of user fees, roads won't suffer similar collapses in funding I'm sure), but I believe before that happened ridership was strong, and at least some businesses seem very happy, and have seen an increase in customers.

[Bob_McBob]

• The region didn't anticipate the failure rate with platform validators and had to order more spare units as a result.
  

Isn't that down to the equipment vendor? Why would the Region have to be the one to order spare parts?

It's unclear who is paying for the additional units since they just put it under Transit Services.

Platform Validators continue to be an area of significant concern. Of the 44 deployed units, seven have been returned for repair under warranty. Research during project development indicated that the validators were at low risk of failure, and as a result, Transit Services maintained only a 5% spare ratio. As the number of failed units now exceeds 15%, staff has relocated units from less used platforms to the busiest areas to minimize inconvenience to customers. Additional spare units have been ordered. Vendor staff are analyzing returned units to identify the root causes of the failures, and hardware updates are expected to be provided in the coming months.

[danbrotherston]

Isn't that down to the equipment vendor? Why would the Region have to be the one to order spare parts?

It's unclear who is paying for the additional units since they just put it under Transit Services.

Platform Validators continue to be an area of significant concern. Of the 44 deployed units, seven have been returned for repair under warranty. Research during project development indicated that the validators were at low risk of failure, and as a result, Transit Services maintained only a 5% spare ratio. As the number of failed units now exceeds 15%, staff has relocated units from less used platforms to the busiest areas to minimize inconvenience to customers. Additional spare units have been ordered. Vendor staff are analyzing returned units to identify the root causes of the failures, and hardware updates are expected to be provided in the coming months.

So 10% of platform readers are out of commission, but we are still validating fares and ticketing offenders?

That is insane!

Basically where as drivers get a free pass on virtually every traffic offense, we've taken down the speed limit signs and are still ticketing people for speeding on transit...

You know..."fuck the police" sounds about right right now.