Staffing on light rail systems
From a previous post http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/now-we-know-why-skytrain-is-so-expensive-to-operate/ we find that there are 600 or more employees (530 in the CUPE Union) that work on the SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines. The Canada Line is a conventional metro and employs over 200 people (with 180 in the CUPE union) and both metro systems are quite separate.
The Canada Line, a standard gauge metro is 19.2 km long and has 16 stations.
The Millennium Line is 20 km long and has 13 stations.
Canada Line, is 19.2 km long and has 16 stations.
The Canada line is not a proprietary Skytrain railway, nor is it compatible in operation with the SkyTrain in operation, as such it is a separate metro system.
The SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines combined total 49.2 km, (actual track mileage) with 33 stations.
The claim by TransLink that the three combined Vancouver metro lines have about 360,000 boardings a day is open to debate, as TransLink, like BC Transit before, deliberately overstates ridership by about 10% to 20%. As well, there is no actual counting of boardings counts (except with the Canada line where boarding counters are on each car), rather TransLink uses a secret method to ascertain ridership. Also the 360,000 claimed boardings a day does not translate to about 180,000 passengers a day, rather with the proliferation of the $1.00 a day student U-Pass to all post secondary institutions along the SkyTrain routes, many students are making multiple trips or boardings. Some estimate that many U-Pass holders board the Skytrain system four or more times a day!
With over 54,000 UBC and 27,000 SFU students alone, eligible for the $1.00 a day U-Pass, multiple trips made by students can easily inflate metro ridership numbers and give the impression that the metro system is carrying far more unique customers than it really is!
It also should be noted that TransLink's philosophy of operation is to force all Vancouver bound transit customers onto the one metro line (Expo line & Canada Line), thus much of the SkyTrain's ridership, over 80% according to TransLink, are forced to transfer from bus to metro to make the journey into downtown Vancouver.
The total Vancouver metro system is 68.7 km long with 47 stations, employs over 800 people, with over 710 belonging to the CUPE Union.
Just the Expo & Millennium Lines have about 260,000 (claimed) boardings a day, yet has about 600 employees to oversee the two lines.
It is almost impossible to have an apples to apples comparison with SkyTrain and light rail, but it does seem that the SkyTrain transit system when compared with a comparable light rail system, holds true to Gerald Fox's AGT/LRT study released some twenty years ago, that when comparing LRT with an automatic metro, on equal routes, found that automatic transit systems employed about 15% more staff than comparable light rail systems.
The following are staffing levels of various UK public transit systems.
Croydon Tramlink
Type – at-grade Tramway
Route Length 28km
No of Vehicles 24No
No of stations 39No
Annual ridership 28 million
No of staff 190
Nottingham NET
Type – at-grade Tramway
Route Length 14km
No of Vehicles 15No
No of stations 23No
Annual ridership 10 million
No of staff 120 (tram conductor operation)
Manchester Metrolink
Type – at-grade Tramway
Route Length 37km
No of Vehicles 58No
No of stations 37No
Annual ridership 21 million
No of staff 330
Birmingham Midlands Metro
Type – at-grade Tramway
Route Length 21km
No of Vehicles 16No
No of stations 23No
Annual ridership 5 million
No of staff 170 (tram conductor operation)
Sheffield Supertram
Type – at-grade Tramway
Route Length 29km
No of Vehicles 25No
No of stations 48No
Annual ridership 15 million
No of staff 200 (tram conductor operation)
London Docklands Automatic Light Railway (DLR)
Type – grade separated Automatic Light Rail
Route Length 34km
No of Train sets 118No
No of stations 40No
Annual ridership 69 million
No of staff 470
Tyne & Wear Metro
Type – at-grade Light Metro [proportion of system – track sharing with heavy rail]
Route Length 78km
No of Train sets 90No
No of stations 60No
Annual ridership 41 million
No of staff 700
London Underground (LUL)
Type – Heavy Metro subway & sub-surface
Route Length 420km
No of Train sets 789No
No of stations 275No
Annual ridership 1.3billion
No of staff 11,300
