ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

Between Mill and Block Line alone trips could shave several minutes. The creek bridge and the run along Hayward are taken far too slowly and seem to have been set to some absurdly conservative limit for no clear reason.

They should also signalize the pedestrian crossing behind the Fairway shops and put in lift arms, that would save the trains going slower there.

Yeah, the Hayward location is truly absurd.

The whole section from the creek to the hydro corridor is poorly thought out. Some of it can be fixed easily, some not so much.

I'm not sure you'd gain back 10 minutes though.

[nms]

According to the Project Agreement we would be seeing two car vehicles starting in the 2025-2030 phase of the agreement. This was based on the original launch date occurring in 2017.
https://web.archive.org/web/201608121759...sRFPV4.pdf

Planned Fleet Sizes
2017-2020 - 14
2020-2024 -16
2025-2030 -20

I am wondering when the region will be approaching Alstom to purchase more. The dual car operations were only to start when there is a fleet of 20,

So even accounting for the two year delay with the mid-2019 launch, the Region is conceivably well within the 2020-2024 (corrected to 2022-2026) window when 16 trains would be in the fleet.  Since I don't know how far in advance an LRV must be ordered, it might also be time to consider getting in line for LRVs 17 to 20.

[ijmorlan]

Between Mill and Block Line alone trips could shave several minutes. The creek bridge and the run along Hayward are taken far too slowly and seem to have been set to some absurdly conservative limit for no clear reason.

They should also signalize the pedestrian crossing behind the Fairway shops and put in lift arms, that would save the trains going slower there.

Yeah, the Hayward location is truly absurd.

The whole section from the creek to the hydro corridor is poorly thought out. Some of it can be fixed easily, some not so much.

I'm not sure you'd gain back 10 minutes though.

I thought it was originally supposed to be 90 minutes round trip anyway.

You could get back a fair bit at Erb and Caroline southbound. And just adding 10km/h in all the places where it is idiotically kept, not to the speed of adjacent traffic but to the official speed limit of adjacent traffic, would add up over all the street running areas. Also I regularly observe motor vehicles get the green first northbound at Allen; assuming it’s ready to go the LRT should get the green first. If there are other similar locations that would give a bit more too.

I agree it’s hard to know how the numbers would actually come out but overall it really isn’t operated with any sense of urgency so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see 10 minutes shaved off with improved operations.

[ac3r]

Quite true. The dirt doesn't really care how long it has to wait for the dump truck.

*blinks*...did ac3r really compare transit riders with...*checks notes*...dirt?!

I mean, even for them, I doubt that was the intention, but wow.

In any case, for transit riders, more frequent it always better. Other things can also be benefits, but there is basically no frequency high enough that more frequent won't be better.

That wasn't the comparison I was going for haha. I just meant that sometimes it's more beneficial to move more of something all in one go and that's particularly important when it comes to transit. I only mentioned dirt because I had been watching a TV documentary about the construction of a dam.

What I mean is convenience is of course a huge consideration when it comes to transit and of course having more frequent trains and buses is great but there is way more to consider. Keolis/RoW/GRT specifically studied this which is why you can look at the documents about when and how they plan to improve service in the future, both by improving headway and capacity. There are actual mathematical formulas used in this field that were created just to perfect the balance between both frequency and capacity. So while it's true that for transit riders more frequency is - I won't say better, because that is in fact false, but more convenient - that frequency doesn't matter if they're going to be inconvenienced by other factors.

Between Mill and Block Line alone trips could shave several minutes. The creek bridge and the run along Hayward are taken far too slowly and seem to have been set to some absurdly conservative limit for no clear reason.

They should also signalize the pedestrian crossing behind the Fairway shops and put in lift arms, that would save the trains going slower there.

I'll always be perplexed at this no matter what reasoning they may eventually provide. The speed just makes no obvious sense.

The northbound train leaving Block Line grinds to a very slow halt soon after leaving the station, almost like they're worried it'll tip over or derail if they go faster than 1 infant crawling per hour. But then any southbound train that approaches Block Line moves at a faster speed on the exact same track, so it surely can't be the grade or anything. And unless the Flexity Freedom's are even worse than we thought, surely they could take those actual tight turns to get across Hayward much faster than they do. I've been on plenty of trains, trams and streetcars that can make similarly tight turns a bit faster.

But then again this particular stretch of track is where I find the LRVs most often do that weird...thing...where they'll be moving along, they start vibrating and shaking like crazy, you hear the "bzzzz" noise of the traction sand being sprayed while the driver also lowers the throttle before speeding up again, almost as if they've got weird weight issues that are result in peculiar physics of the trains. This weird shake and brake happens all over the route and it's incredibly annoying, but it definitely occurs here more often than other places. It has me wondering if Metrolinx/TTC will regret using these on Line 5. The Valley Line in Edmonton should be opening this Saturday so it will be interesting to see what the broad public response will be to these trains because so far we're still the only ones using them here and they have not been very good all things considered.

[plam]

But then again this particular stretch of track is where I find the LRVs most often do that weird...thing...where they'll be moving along, they start vibrating and shaking like crazy, you hear the "bzzzz" noise of the traction sand being sprayed while the driver also lowers the throttle before speeding up again, almost as if they've got weird weight issues that are result in peculiar physics of the trains. This weird shake and brake happens all over the route and it's incredibly annoying, but it definitely occurs here more often than other places. It has me wondering if Metrolinx/TTC will regret using these on Line 5. The Valley Line in Edmonton should be opening this Saturday so it will be interesting to see what the broad public response will be to these trains because so far we're still the only ones using them here and they have not been very good all things considered.

Not perfect, but way better than Ottawa!

[ijmorlan]

Not perfect, but way better than Ottawa!

Not the comparison we want, at this point! Ottawa’s system is a fiasco.

[ac3r]

Is the Ottawa light metro still having issues? I figured they would have solved most of them by now.

[neonjoe]

It's the Ottawa light metro still having issues? I figured they would have solved most of them by now.

They have a plan for a meeting to discuss future plans for more meetings to solve the issue.

In all seriousness they do a have potential fix for the main issue. The design flaw was that the european axel assemblies were not compatible with the typical north american rail. Alstom plans to have a prototype fix ready for 2025.

[KevinL]

Given the same trains are destined for Finch West in Toronto, are similar issues expected there?

[ijmorlan]

It's the Ottawa light metro still having issues? I figured they would have solved most of them by now.

They have a plan for a meeting to discuss future plans for more meetings to solve the issue.

In all seriousness they do a have potential fix for the main issue. The design flaw was that the european axel assemblies were not compatible with the typical north american rail. Alstom plans to have a prototype fix ready for 2025.

That doesn’t explain the ridiculous door and signalling problems.

This is a multi-faceted screw-up.

[Bytor]

So even accounting for the two year delay with the mid-2019 launch, the Region is conceivably well within the 2020-2024 (corrected to 2022-2026) window when 16 trains would be in the fleet. 

We started two years late, so that would move the first phase to from 2017-202 to 2019-2022.

But we also lost ~2.5 years (2020-2022) to covid-19, so that first phase might 2019,2023-2025, and that pushes the second phase from 2020-2024 to 2025-2029.

2022 total year numbers were still -20% from 2019. This year we are looking at over +30% above 2019, but it's hard to say what growth would have been with no pandemic.

Up until 2013, GRT average annual growth rate was about 7.1%. From 2014 to 2016 ridership dropped because of larger than inflation price increases to the fares and construction disruptions.

2017 had +0.26%. 2018 had +6.71%. 2019 had +4.2% but only because of a huge fall bump from the start of LRT service.

This gives us a a pre-pandemic average growth rate of 4.8% from 2000 to 2019.

7% for 4 years is ~31% total, and 4.8% over 4 years is ~21%. That could mean that this year's huge increase in ridership over 2019 is really the pent up increase of each year since then from normal population-based growth to people switching modes that was suppressed by the pandemic.

That would fit, but is it so? How much does Conestoga College's huge increase in admissions affect this?

Since I don't know how far in advance an LRV must be ordered, it might also be time to consider getting in line for LRVs 17 to 20.

Prior to covid-19 the lead time was generally 3 years for that sort of thing. Now, who knows. Stuff is still screwed up and many transit systems' orders are a year or more behind.

[Bytor]

And unless the Flexity Freedom's are even worse than we thought, surely they could take those actual tight turns to get across Hayward much faster than they do. I've been on plenty of trains, trams and streetcars that can make similarly tight turns a bit faster.

This is another thing done by equations.

rₘ = (G * s²)/(g * (C + D))

rₘ is minimum radius of curve
G track gauge in mm
s is speed of train in m/s
g is the gravitational constant 9.81 m/s
C is the cant of the rails in mm
D is the cant deficiency expressed in mm

Cant deficiency is essentially how hard the train pushes toward the outside rail on a curve. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_deficiency

It doesn't seem to me like ION tracks were laid with any cant on curves like from Charles onto Borden. It feels like minimal centrifugal force outwards. It looks like about a 35m radius, so a small cant deficiency of 50mm gives us a max speed of about 12km/h around it. Cant deficiency cannot be higher, or you'd feel more centrifugal force as a passenger.

If you get an app that tracks your speed with GPS, the trams go about 10km/h around the Borden and Hayward corners.

Unless the trams you were on had a cant in their rails, they likely were not going any faster around similar sized corners.

[danbrotherston]

And unless the Flexity Freedom's are even worse than we thought, surely they could take those actual tight turns to get across Hayward much faster than they do. I've been on plenty of trains, trams and streetcars that can make similarly tight turns a bit faster.

This is another thing done by equations.

rₘ = (G * s²)/(g * (C + D))

rₘ is minimum radius of curve
G track gauge in mm
s is speed of train in m/s
g is the gravitational constant 9.81 m/s
C is the cant of the rails in mm
D is the cant deficiency expressed in mm

Cant deficiency is essentially how hard the train pushes toward the outside rail on a curve. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cant_deficiency

It doesn't seem to me like ION tracks were laid with any cant on curves like from Charles onto Borden. It feels like minimal centrifugal force outwards. It looks like about a 35m radius, so a small cant deficiency of 50mm gives us a max speed of about 12km/h around it. Cant deficiency cannot be higher, or you'd feel more centrifugal force as a passenger.

If you get an app that tracks your speed with GPS, the trams go about 10km/h around the Borden and Hayward corners.

Unless the trams you were on had a cant in their rails, they likely were not going any faster around similar sized corners.

This still doesn't explain why the train slows to that speed 300 meters north of the turn.

[tomh009]

At the moment, the complete return trip takes about 100 minutes, from the Conestoga departure until the train leaves the same station again. With 10-minute headways, that's ten trains. They would be able to run eight-minute headways without any additional trains--and eight-minute headways would be better for passengers than double trains. With eight (or so) more trains they would be able to run five-minute headways, with the same capacity as  double trains, but greater passenger convenience.

Increased frequency > increased train length

They really should be able to get the 100 minutes down to 90 minutes by being smarter about speed limits and refining signalling. That would also make a lot of headways work more naturally: 3 vehicles could maintain a 30 minute headway overnight, for example, or just 6 could provide 15 minute service.

I think about five minutes of that 100-minute total is spent at the final station, waiting for departure. Getting to 90 minutes really requires finding only 5-6 minutes of savings en route.

[neonjoe]

Lets make sure GRT knows that 30 minute iON headways are a non starter
They have the survey up for the proposed changes. https://grandrivertransit.qualtrics.com/...OJK338CstM