The Vancouver Sun is famous for its ‘puff'” stories about SkyTrain but with each “puff” story comes little slips and new information.
870 employees seems a lot for a “driverless” system, which was sold to the public that it had fewer employees, thus cheaper to operate than light rail. Somewhat inconveniently, SkyTrain costs about 40% more to operate than comparable light rail systems and is one of the main reasons no one buys it.
Loving the idea of driverless trains means higher subsidies must be paid to keep the driverless train in operation.
It seems Ms. King, a career bureaucrat and not a transit specialist, by loving driverless trains, also loves the idea of higher taxes to build and operate them!
The whole idea of the story is to lull the public to really like SkyTrain, as the Vancouver Sun has done for the past 35 years.
Funny that a far more useful story would be to find out why only seven of these proprietary railways have been built in almost 40 years? But then, that would mean investigative reporting and that Ms. Sinoski would actually have to some research into the subject. Not so with “puff” stories; easy to write and it pleases editors and advisors.
Somehow, I do not think that the public will be that easily fooled.
SkyTrain boss attempts to put human face on Metro Vancouver transit
She loves the idea of driverless trains, but new SkyTrainAi??boss Vivienne KingAi??is on a mission toAi??give transit a more human face.
She has already startedAi??by asking her 870 staff members ai??i??Ai??engineers, maintenance workers and SkyTrain attendants ai??i??Ai??to wear name badges as they go about their work. AndAi??next month, on Sept. 8, King, whoAi??also wears a badge, willAi??join SkyTrain attendants and her vice-president of engineering at Waterfront to greetAi??the travelling public before visiting other stations.
ai???They can come and say hello and tell me their worries if they want,ai??? sheAi??said.Ai??ai???Itai??i??s all about putting a face to this business. I want customers to know there are people running their railway. The first thing is that our staff is actually going to get out of the office and meet the people.ai???
She acknowledges it wonai??i??t be easy changing the perception. As the new president of TransLink subsidiary B.C. Rapid Transit Co. ai??i??Ai??the entity responsible for the SkyTrain, Canada Line and the new Evergreen Line ai??i??Ai??King will have to weather the persistent negativity surrounding the beleaguered transportation system.
Indeed, before she took the job, there were a series of shutdowns on the SkyTrain, and a failed transportation plebiscite, in which the public rejected a proposed 0.5 per cent sales tax that would have generated more funding for transit expansion. Most recently, King faced flak over an in-house commissioned analysis that flagged increasing risks on the SkyTrain system,Ai??mostly the 30-year-old Expo Line.
New SkyTrain boss Vivienne King is on a mission to give transit a more human face. Gerry Kahrmann / PNG
ai???I was very disappointed. That was a good report because it highlighted some things for us and they have all been modified,ai??? she said. ai???Itai??i??s aging but itai??i??s not unsafe.Ai??I remember when I first started, people would go on ai???Oh SkyTrain, it breaks down all the time.Ai??That comes from bad publicity, everything like that resonates with people.ai???
Much of itAi??comes down to improving customer service, which ultimately falls on the fleetai??i??sAi??262 full- and part-time SkyTrain attendants, she said. But thatAi??in itself is a challenge because most of the publicAi??donai??i??t know exactly what theAi??attendantsAi??do.
When KingAi??first arrived, for instance, she thought the attendants ai??i??Ai??wearingAi??black shirts ai??i??Ai??were security guards, and, more than once, has had to question workersAi??on their behaviour. In one case, she was curious why an attendant was standing at the end of a platform looking disinterested, only to learn he was ensuring the track was safe after an intrusion alarm. In another, she confronted a worker whoAi??was standing with his back to the transit passengers and staring out the glass of the station. He told her he was waiting for a visually impaired passenger.
She has since suggestedAi??the uniformsAi??be changed toAi??blue, andAi??thatAi??orangeAi??safety vests be wornAi??byAi??workers who are dealing with issues other than customer service. ai???I tell them ai???youai??i??re the front face of our organization so what you do is what the customers think of all of us,’ai??? King said.
King maintains theAi??attendantsAi??are the ai???eyes and earsai??? of the system,Ai??trainedAi??to do everything from helping passengers to resolving conflicts and manually resetting and driving stalled trains. King once pressed theAi??yellowAi??emergency strip in a train car when a manAi??was shouting, swearing and had wet himself, and then started harassing passengers. An attendant came on at the next stop and helped to remove the passenger.
ai???I was uncomfortable so I can imagine how my customers felt. It was a test for meAi??because I wantedAi??to see what would happen,ai??? sheAi??said. ai???If anyone says we should get rid of the SkyTrain attendants, the public should say no.Ai??They are our backup security system.ai???
King, who regularly travels the transit system, said itai??i??s important to let the public know whoai??i??sAi??behind the transit system, so they understand when stations have to be closed or bus bridges set up while work is being done to upgrade the rails. As one of her first measures, King has ordered a new inspection regime of the SkyTrain system that will see the entire line ai??i??Ai??rather than one-third at a time ai??i??Ai??inspected every year,Ai??while also seeking regular upgrades for the inner workings of the track, including the wires, electrical connectionsAi??andAi??switches.
ai???Iai??i??d been through the experience where trains were failing because they werenai??i??t maintained on time,ai??? she said. ai???This is the backbone of Vancouver, we mobilize this whole city.Ai??We have to be able to maintain it at a level thatai??i??s going to keep it running for the next 30 years. Keeping it in a state of good repair is critical to any good rail.ai???
So lets see here, 870 engineers, maintenance workers and attendants. The article goes into greater detail in that, 262 are full and part time attendants for a fleet of 286 Mark 1,2 & 3 Skytrain Cars and 20 ,2 section Canada Line Trains(40 cars) for grand total of 326 cars. 262 Attendants for 326 driverless rail cars. How is the driverless system saving any money at all!
I am not a supporter of driverless systems in general, but the 2015 research article below concludes they are more ‘efficient’ in several respects. Rather than idle speculation regarding Skytrain, why not provide some comparative data on total employment per transit passenger mile or some other relevant metric?
Impacts of Unattended Train Operations on Productivity and Efficiency in Metropolitan Railways
Abstract:
Urban metro subway systems (metros) around the world are choosing increasing levels of automation for new and existing lines: the global length of metro lines capable of unattended train operation (UTO) is predicted to triple in the next 10 years. Despite significant investment in this technology, empirical evidence for the financial and service quality impacts of UTO in metros remains scarce. This study used questionnaires and semistructured interviews with the Community of Metros and Nova Group benchmarking groups to assemble emerging evidence of how automation affected costs, staffing, service capacity, and reliability. The results from an analysis of data from 23 lines suggested that UTO could reduce staff numbers by 30% to 70%, with the amount of wage cost reduction depending on whether staff on UTO lines were paid more. On the basis of the experience of seven metros, the capital costs of lines capable of UTO were higher, but the internal rate of return had been estimated by two metros at 10% to 15%. Automated lines were capable of operating at the highest service frequencies of up to 42 trains per hour, and the limited available data suggested that automated lines were more reliable. The findings indicated that UTO was a means to a more flexible and reliable operating model that could increase metro productivity and efficiency. The study identified important work needed to understand the impacts of UTO and identify where statistical analyses would add value once sufficiently large data sets became available.
Authors:
Cohen, Judith M
Barron, Alexander S
Anderson, Richard J
Graham, Daniel J
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Issue Number: 2534
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981
Zwei replies: Like most, including academics, you have the discussion about driverless trains absolutely wrong as driverless trains are the ultimate degree of signalling and signalling is the fine art of keeping trains from crashing into one and another.
Automatic signalling on metros was to reduce the cost of signalling and the first automatic subways was London’s Victoria Line, which opened in the late 1960’s. Though it retained a driver for legal and union reasons (now safety as well), all the driver had to do was press a button to start the train. The Victoria Line was signalled to achieve better than 3 minute headway’s but is limited to 3 minute headways because the station platforms take at least 2 minutes to clear in the peak hour.
Small mini-metro’s like VAL and SkyTrain which ran short trains, had to achieve close headway’s to obtain capacities advertised and the movable “block: system was devised to allow more trains to operate, the problem was and is cost (operating trains more frequently increases maintenance costs) and here is the real question: “does automatic operation reduce cost or increase costs on a transit line?”
Studies have shown that automatic operation only reduces costs when traffic flows exceed around 20,000 pphpd.
Clearly with SkyTrain, which has operating costs about 40% higher than comparable LRT operations, automatic or driverless operation increases operational costs, thus is more expensive to operate than comparable LRT operations.
This is why LRT made the driverless SkyTrain obsolete, it was much cheaper to operate and with a simple or no signalling system (line of sight), could penetrate deeper into lower density areas as well into high density city centres.
You see, the studies did not compare light-metro with LRT, but metro systems with other metro systems and thus are meaningless in the LRT/SkyTrain debate.
The point of whether what is more efficient in a study of metros vs light metros is really irrelevant when you are comparing LRT to Light metros. The real problem here is that regardless of how efficient the system is theory or another country with an entirely different operating regime, in Canada there are some realities that can’t be ignored. The people who run Skytrain at Translink and the BC rapid Transit Co. can’t just unilaterally decide to run trains at a greater frequency. They already run at the limit their Safety and Operations Certificate allows them. They have to apply to Transport Canada if they want to change the conditions on that Certificate. Its not just a certificate although there is one issued, its really a whole series of reports and safety test that they actually get tested on.
The last one and I know because my ex neighbor (advantages of living in Ottawa) was one of the people who put your transit people through their paces to allow their current limit of 109 seconds, said that to increase frequency or reduce your headway further Translink would have to correct the safety faults and concerns they found in their last report. There were many small ones, there usually is however, a few main ones were as follows. The lack of electrical current capacity on all lines to run more trains. This requires significant electrical upgrades, which were planned but there is currently no money for to implement, especially on the Expo Line. All the signaling software and hardware is in need of attention and upgrade, the last major one was in the 1990’s. That program was temporarily sidelined to provide capital funding for Translink’s Evergreen Line. The system that monitors track intrusions and restarts the basic computer operating systems after shutdowns, needs urgent upgrade. This was not only identified by Transport Canada but by the report investigating the shutdown and stopages on the system in 2015. That work is only beginning now because only a portion of the $10+ Million for electrical panel upgrades, track/diode hardware replacement and connectors, as well as a whole whack of new computer software and hardware plus other minor administrative improvements have been provided. Again budget issues and a backlog of other deferred maintenance and upgrades partly due again, to needing money for the Evergreen Line project. The report also identified several upgrades/replacement for 3 double track crossovers and a multitude of conversions of slow speed turnouts into higher speed turnouts. That will require more capital funding but also a great deal of extra maintenance time (as in extended shutdowns of certain track sections during normal operating hours).
The biggest part of Transport Canada’s long term concerns was the insufficient resources being spent on operational costs. Remember to get enough money in the budget to run trains during peak period at frequencies of up to 109 seconds, Translink had to cut back evening and late night service on those same lines. The reports from Transport Canada will a require a Freedom of Information Request to Translink. that is one for each report to access them. The report used to be available here in Ottawa but cuts made by the Harper government to stored information at Transport Canada’s Library and Report Storage System was cut to the bone and may or may not exist anymore. The operational reality is really quite different from reports and studies.
Actually, here is Ottawa’s main reason for not adopting the Skytrain technology and choosing LRT which is from the 2009 Rail System Selection Report Executive Summary. It is very similar to what zwei said:
“The choice of technology determines the future flexibility of a transportation network within Ottawa. By developing a Light Metro style system, the core will meet its capacity prediction targets and have sufficient margin for growth beyond the prediction; but the report finds that the potential although very high, ultimately however, capacity within the core may not warrant such a system”.
Also:
“The implementation of a high capacity light metro style system may divide Ottawa’s transportation network into a set of fragmented, unconnected and disparate transportation modes, which will multiply staff costs, overheads, maintenance and spares and maintenance facilities. This fragmentation will also cause numerous onward transfers between transport modes for daily passengers moving into the core from the suburbs. The choice of a Light Metro system will effectively increase transportation costs due to the much higher costs of segregation for the outlying suburbs, which will result in lower efficiencies of running and potentially higher ticket costs”.
Finally:
Light Rail is recommended as the technology choice for deployment in Ottawa as it: • Provides the necessary capacity for the ridership predictions in the main core, • Can accommodate low passenger capacity in the extensions outside of the main core, • Results in less fragmentation of the network, reducing the need for onward transfers, • Has less impact on the urban fabric and allows the ability to build a non-segregated system in the Greenbelt, • Has lower system capital costs with Light Metro, • Has comparatively lower life time operating and maintenance costs with Light Metro, • Allows better integration of technology for the Carling-Lincoln Field’s corridor. • Provides greater network flexibility and promotes development of the transportation network in the core, • Is a proven design, and • Is more suited for the climate in Ottawa.”
It would be helpful if you could cite the “studies [which have] have shown that automatic operation only reduces cost…around 20,000 pphpd” and “Skytrain…operating costs about 40% higher than comparable LRT operations”.
Zwei replies: Actually Dondi, they are industry norms. Gerald fox’s LRT vs. AGT study in the 80’s showed that LRT, operating on a comparable R-o-W as AGT was cheaper to operate. You did not read what I wrote, driverless operation is a signalling question, not a man power question as it shows that Our SkyTrain system has more employees than comparable light rail operations and as wages account for 70% to 80% of operating costs, SkyTrain just costs more to operate without any benefit.
In a recent Montreal times Op-Ed piece; “in 2006 the operating cost per passenger for Calgary’s LRT was $0.26 while in Vancouver is was $3.92.”
Only 7 such systems built since the late 70’s and not one allowed to compete against LRT speak volumes.
Zwei, I did not know that the only topics deemed appropriate on this blog are those whose purpose is to make the case for how LRT is better than light metro.
I was bad and instead raised a more specific issue – evidence on the costs of driverless vs. driven trains, noting that I do not support the former (I’d like more people working in transit, not fewer). I am very sorry.
Thank you for the reference to Fox’s study but it was a long time ago – was Skytrain even in that study?
You still didn’t provide the source for your statement that Skytrain has more employees than comparable light rail operations. I am not claiming you are wrong, but please, what is your reference so we can evaluate the comparability, etc?
You should be embarrassed to raise such an obviously bogus comparison as an operating cost of 26 cents per passenger in Calgary vs. $3.92 in Vancouver.
According to that report, Vancouver had the highest operating cost per service hour of the 6 regions compared in 2014, at $181.47 (the median was 156.43), but Toronto/Hamilton beat out Vancouver for the highest operating cost per passenger trip with $3.96 vs. $3.86. Calgary’s operating cost per service hour was $147.08 and per passenger trip it was $3.36.
These numbers show Vancouver’s region-wide operating costs are higher than most of the compared regions but not by crazy amounts.
But they cover all forms of transit in the region, so we still lack the numbers for driverless Skytrain vs. a comparable system with drivers – number of FTE employees, total labour costs, whatever. What is your reference for Skytrain costing 40% more than comparable LRT?
Zwei replies: Dondi, you still don’t get it; there is no light-metro LRT debate, because LRT made light metro obsolete decades ago, very few cities build with light metro and those that do, generally have buyer’s remorse.
Metro Vancouver’s politicos, bureaucrats and planners have bought into the light-metro dream and facts don’t count anymore. Very few who comment on transit have actually spoken to a “rail” expert, let alone a real transportation specialist and the result is over 30 years of transit nonsense.
As stated before Pachal’s study is an “apples to oranges comparison” and his report card is not valid.
The 40% higher figure came from TransLink itself about a decade ago, in a story about SkyTrain in the Province; in the same way we find that SkyTrain has 870 odd employees, far more than comparable light rail operations and with wages accounting for 70% to 80% of operating costs, it is logical to assume that SkyTrain costs more to operate.
This higher number of employees for Automated Guided Transit, as shown in Gerald Fox’s study (which included SkyTrain and VAL) is valid today. AGT cost more to operate than comparable LRT operations, that is why no one buys them, unless there is chicanery involved, such as Honolulu.
As for the Op-Ed piece in Montreal, I think it is not bogus because it confirms other comparisons with SkyTrain and that were in the media a decade ago. Costing half the km. to build and with far fewer employees, carrying huge volumes of passengers, Calgary’s LRT was indeed cheap to operate.
When it comes to transit and cutting through the BS (which is hard to do in Vancouver) we have made grave errors in both transit planning and transit application. No one want to take ownership of these errors and we continue doing the same expensive thing over again, expecting different results.
The refusal to do it right, the continued anti customer stance of TransLink, has made TransLink the pariah it has become today. It is with this blinkered and dogmatic thinking, that has kept a TramTrain service from Vancouver to Chilliwack from coming into being.
Zwei, again with the light metro-LRT debate? I did not raise this topic – your first reply did and your second does it again, even though you say there is no debate..
What exactly is “apples to oranges” about Pachal’s data from CUTA on operating costs? Or, better, what is more “apples to oranges” than other comparisons out there, since this issue plagues every comparison?
Your source for “Skytrain…[has more employees]..than comparable light rail operations”, please?
It would help discussion if we could stay on the topic of operating costs, and not bring in capital costs, as with your point about Calgary’s per km. cost to build. There is no dispute than capital costs for light metro, especially when driverless, are higher than for conventional LRT.
I tracked down a copy of the Cohen article whose abstract I quoted above. Skytrain was one of the metros studied, The responses are anonymized but someone who knows transit systems would probably be able to figure out who is who in many of the responses.
As the abstract indicated, these metro systems reportedly pegged the per head total staff reductions from the highest level of automation (my guess is that Skytrain fits within this category) at 30% to an extreme case of 70%, and that the internal rates of return for the increased capital costs required for such automation were over 10%.
Like I wrote before, I favour more employment and human presence in transit, not less. But the evidence from this study is that driverless systems are more ‘efficient’ in the particular, narrow senses worshipped by many transit managers.
This does not bear directly on the transit mode debate unless the operating costs savings are enough to not only cover the increased capital costs (which the study suggests they do) but also the difference in operating and capital costs between transit modes (e.g., light metro vs. LRT) taking into consideration service issues in the comparison like frequency, hours, etc.
But going driverless is not just an issue for metros with segregated guideways. The driverless or at least computer-assisted driver on LRT tracks running through traffic is also a spectre (highly unwelcome in my opinion) that we may face in the foreseeable future. Huge resources are currently going into efforts to replace long haul truck drivers with automated controls. If they can get a computer to drive a truck from here to Mexico and approval from the government to do it they will claim the same should be true of LRT – and probably before the same is said of buses.
Zwei replies: Dondi, it is obvious you don’t want to know and I am beginning to think you are a troll.
SkyTrain, a proprietary light metro has been on the market for about 40 years; it was showcased at Expo 86; both BC Transit and TransLink were in partnership of Bombardier Inc. to sell SkyTrain abroad; SkyTrain has been studied by more cities than any other proprietary railway and only seven have been built in that time?
Keep in mind that not one SkyTrain light metro has \ever been allowed to compete directly with LRT of a transit line and all SkyTrain’s built to date were either by political diktat, or a bidding process that disallowed LRT.
Most of your issues are non issues, cleverly done to seem they are important, no sorry, in the real world, if there is a transit line to be built first one looks at traffic flows, then designs the appropriate transit mode and builds it and not one SkyTrain has ever done this and the the reason is simple, it costs more to build, operate and maintain than light rail.
Question: “How many hospitals and schools must be closed to fund a costly and over staffed transit line?”
@Dondi,
You seem agitated. What’s with the specious claims by your friend and Langley councillor who suggests that “revenue kilometres per service hour” (in physics it is called velocity, dS/dt) and “passenger trip intensity” make transit by TransLink (s-train) superior to other modes of public transit?
“Revenue Kilometres per Service Hour: An indication of the distance transit goes for every hour of service delivered. A higher number indicates that transit service operates at a faster speed, over a larger service area, or both.”
“Passenger Trip Intensity: An indicator of the productivity of a transit system that is adjusted for the Service Hours per Capita. Regions with a higher score have transit systems that align more closely with transit service demand than systems with a lower score.”
Can you ask him to provide us with his calculations of these two parameters? He’s utterly confused.
First, making public transit fast (dS/dt) with s-train comes at the cost of long trips to the s-train station. Did he include the time wasted to walk or bus it to the s-train station in his calculation of dS/dt, door to door?
Second, passenger trip intensity as he refers to it is unrelated to the mode of public transportation. TransLink recycles passengers from buses to its s-train network. This is the reason for apparently high demand for public transit by TransLink. That is, TransLink’s exaggerated ridership figures counting people twice don’t reflect the relatively small number of transit users in Metro Vancouver (ranging from 13% of the population on a weekday to 3% of the population on a holiday or Sunday). Study Green’s theorem.
Let’s change gears. TransLink maintains that building roads creates road space to encourage people to buy a car and drive. I could take the contrarian view and argue that there is nothing wrong with more car sales to stimulate the economy. I could also punch holes in TransLink’s claim about roads leading to road congestion. I did quite well in my 12 calculus courses at university and could use lots of fancy math to show how road congestion really depends upon the relative number of cars to roads and the propensity of people to live in a certain area.
It wouldn’t do any good. People like you haven’t got a clue what I’m saying and will argue until you’re blue in the face that if we build freeways in the high Arctic, people will buy cars and move there.
Fine, I’ll agree with you. I’m going to blindly and unequivocally agree with all the sanctimonious claims by transit zealots whose beliefs can’t be challenged: if we build more roads and bridges to try to alleviate the bottlenecks and road congestion, it will create road space and attract more drivers! Satisfied?
Okay, good. Building subways and viaducts for s-train takes drivers off the roads to create road space and attract other drivers. Therefore, you must also agree that it is impossible for s-train to reduce road congestion. In fact, research has proven this, and we don’t have to argue about it.
“The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from U.S. Cities” concluded that “the provision of public transportation has no impact on vehicle kilometres travelled.”
Whew, I’m glad that we got that out of the way. Aren’t you?
If you truly want to put people on public transit, trams and buses competing for road space along with parking restrictions are the way to go. One tram holding 450 people replaces a handful of cars carrying a few dozen people at most, on the roads. Roads, roads, roads. You can’t fight road congestion on the roads with subways under roads and viaducts over roads. After two decades of TransLink planning and building s-train lines, here is the result:
This is what we’ve been saying on this blog. Trams or tram-trains on the roads can be used to alleviate road congestion, to UBC, for instance. On the other hand, s-trains in subways and viaducts don’t cut road congestion but do make firms building them money and keep lots of useless planners managing them at TransLink employed, maybe you’re one of the useless planners at TransLink.
Look Dondi, most people don’t want to take the bus to s-train and spend three to four hours or more on public transit. They don’t want to pay for s-train which they don’t want to ride. Get it through your thick skull. I and other drivers already resent paying the first $10 of our $50 gasoline purchase to TransLink to finance scammers lying about how s-train takes cars off the roads.
Fact: s-train swaps out short distance commuters on the bus or tram for long distance commuters on s-train. Who are you to decree that s-train riders are more important than bus or tram riders? Dondi, you and your Langley councillor-friend are part of the putrid establishment behind TransLink. Vice, greed, corruption… TransLink.
I did not raise the issues that either Zwei or Chris pursue in this exchange.
I just questioned Zwei’s assertion about the comparable number of Skytrain employees. I don’t think the case for more jobs in transit rather than fewer jobs (I want more) is helped by denying that driverless systems can and do reduce total employment.
In the absence of comparative data on Skytrain employment I cited Pachal’s CUTA data for operating costs per service hour and operating cost per passenger trip by transit region. These measures seem pretty straightforward.
@Dondi, to move 12,500 passengers hourly on two tram routes over 49 km in total (one-way distance) requires about 500 drivers and support staff (10 tram employees per kilometer of route). You’re clever; calculate how many employees for yourself: trams travel at 20 kph and there are three shifts for drivers over the day. Drivers make up 80% of the operating costs and about 80% of the staff for trams.
In comparison, from what I can tell, TransLink (BCRTC) utilizes about 1,183 employees (661 attendants + 172 TransLink police + 350 BCRTC others = 1,183) to manage and plan the Expo Line and Millennium Line running on 49 km of routes (one way distance) to move 12,500 passengers hourly. To plan and manage these lines, BCRTC employs an astounding 24 union workers per kilometer of route. Wow, wow, wow!!!
In 2012, CMBC employed 5,305 drivers operating Sea-buses, buses and shuttles running on about 2,600 km of routes (one-way distance). Buses by CMBC need about 2 employees per kilometre of route.
You got your wish, TransLink employs lots of tools making fools of people who want to keep paying the swindlers at TransLink. About 1,200 TransLink goons to plan and manage a measly 49 km of s-train routes (Expo Line and Millennium Line)? Wholly crap.
The Cambie Street subway is essentially run by SNC Lavalin. Who knows how many people SNC Lavalin charges TransLink to “manage” the subway. I’m betting many more than 10 employees per kilometer of route.
I trust that this answers your question. TransLink is about twice as expensive as it has to be and has about twice as many employees that it needs to have. Okayz? I’ll get back to the Olympics, now. Fill in your pal in Langley. He might want to revise his research to reflect reality. TransLink’s productivity is 100% worse than with trams.
If you’re a crooked moron, you build s-train lines. It’s what you do; it’s what you do; it’s what you do…
Kelly Sinoski
So lets see here, 870 engineers, maintenance workers and attendants. The article goes into greater detail in that, 262 are full and part time attendants for a fleet of 286 Mark 1,2 & 3 Skytrain Cars and 20 ,2 section Canada Line Trains(40 cars) for grand total of 326 cars. 262 Attendants for 326 driverless rail cars. How is the driverless system saving any money at all!
I am not a supporter of driverless systems in general, but the 2015 research article below concludes they are more ‘efficient’ in several respects. Rather than idle speculation regarding Skytrain, why not provide some comparative data on total employment per transit passenger mile or some other relevant metric?
Impacts of Unattended Train Operations on Productivity and Efficiency in Metropolitan Railways
Abstract:
Urban metro subway systems (metros) around the world are choosing increasing levels of automation for new and existing lines: the global length of metro lines capable of unattended train operation (UTO) is predicted to triple in the next 10 years. Despite significant investment in this technology, empirical evidence for the financial and service quality impacts of UTO in metros remains scarce. This study used questionnaires and semistructured interviews with the Community of Metros and Nova Group benchmarking groups to assemble emerging evidence of how automation affected costs, staffing, service capacity, and reliability. The results from an analysis of data from 23 lines suggested that UTO could reduce staff numbers by 30% to 70%, with the amount of wage cost reduction depending on whether staff on UTO lines were paid more. On the basis of the experience of seven metros, the capital costs of lines capable of UTO were higher, but the internal rate of return had been estimated by two metros at 10% to 15%. Automated lines were capable of operating at the highest service frequencies of up to 42 trains per hour, and the limited available data suggested that automated lines were more reliable. The findings indicated that UTO was a means to a more flexible and reliable operating model that could increase metro productivity and efficiency. The study identified important work needed to understand the impacts of UTO and identify where statistical analyses would add value once sufficiently large data sets became available.
Authors:
Cohen, Judith M
Barron, Alexander S
Anderson, Richard J
Graham, Daniel J
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
Issue Number: 2534
Publisher: Transportation Research Board
ISSN: 0361-1981
Zwei replies: Like most, including academics, you have the discussion about driverless trains absolutely wrong as driverless trains are the ultimate degree of signalling and signalling is the fine art of keeping trains from crashing into one and another.
Automatic signalling on metros was to reduce the cost of signalling and the first automatic subways was London’s Victoria Line, which opened in the late 1960’s. Though it retained a driver for legal and union reasons (now safety as well), all the driver had to do was press a button to start the train. The Victoria Line was signalled to achieve better than 3 minute headway’s but is limited to 3 minute headways because the station platforms take at least 2 minutes to clear in the peak hour.
Small mini-metro’s like VAL and SkyTrain which ran short trains, had to achieve close headway’s to obtain capacities advertised and the movable “block: system was devised to allow more trains to operate, the problem was and is cost (operating trains more frequently increases maintenance costs) and here is the real question: “does automatic operation reduce cost or increase costs on a transit line?”
Studies have shown that automatic operation only reduces costs when traffic flows exceed around 20,000 pphpd.
Clearly with SkyTrain, which has operating costs about 40% higher than comparable LRT operations, automatic or driverless operation increases operational costs, thus is more expensive to operate than comparable LRT operations.
This is why LRT made the driverless SkyTrain obsolete, it was much cheaper to operate and with a simple or no signalling system (line of sight), could penetrate deeper into lower density areas as well into high density city centres.
You see, the studies did not compare light-metro with LRT, but metro systems with other metro systems and thus are meaningless in the LRT/SkyTrain debate.
The point of whether what is more efficient in a study of metros vs light metros is really irrelevant when you are comparing LRT to Light metros. The real problem here is that regardless of how efficient the system is theory or another country with an entirely different operating regime, in Canada there are some realities that can’t be ignored. The people who run Skytrain at Translink and the BC rapid Transit Co. can’t just unilaterally decide to run trains at a greater frequency. They already run at the limit their Safety and Operations Certificate allows them. They have to apply to Transport Canada if they want to change the conditions on that Certificate. Its not just a certificate although there is one issued, its really a whole series of reports and safety test that they actually get tested on.
The last one and I know because my ex neighbor (advantages of living in Ottawa) was one of the people who put your transit people through their paces to allow their current limit of 109 seconds, said that to increase frequency or reduce your headway further Translink would have to correct the safety faults and concerns they found in their last report. There were many small ones, there usually is however, a few main ones were as follows. The lack of electrical current capacity on all lines to run more trains. This requires significant electrical upgrades, which were planned but there is currently no money for to implement, especially on the Expo Line. All the signaling software and hardware is in need of attention and upgrade, the last major one was in the 1990’s. That program was temporarily sidelined to provide capital funding for Translink’s Evergreen Line. The system that monitors track intrusions and restarts the basic computer operating systems after shutdowns, needs urgent upgrade. This was not only identified by Transport Canada but by the report investigating the shutdown and stopages on the system in 2015. That work is only beginning now because only a portion of the $10+ Million for electrical panel upgrades, track/diode hardware replacement and connectors, as well as a whole whack of new computer software and hardware plus other minor administrative improvements have been provided. Again budget issues and a backlog of other deferred maintenance and upgrades partly due again, to needing money for the Evergreen Line project. The report also identified several upgrades/replacement for 3 double track crossovers and a multitude of conversions of slow speed turnouts into higher speed turnouts. That will require more capital funding but also a great deal of extra maintenance time (as in extended shutdowns of certain track sections during normal operating hours).
The biggest part of Transport Canada’s long term concerns was the insufficient resources being spent on operational costs. Remember to get enough money in the budget to run trains during peak period at frequencies of up to 109 seconds, Translink had to cut back evening and late night service on those same lines. The reports from Transport Canada will a require a Freedom of Information Request to Translink. that is one for each report to access them. The report used to be available here in Ottawa but cuts made by the Harper government to stored information at Transport Canada’s Library and Report Storage System was cut to the bone and may or may not exist anymore. The operational reality is really quite different from reports and studies.
Actually, here is Ottawa’s main reason for not adopting the Skytrain technology and choosing LRT which is from the 2009 Rail System Selection Report Executive Summary. It is very similar to what zwei said:
“The choice of technology determines the future flexibility of a transportation network within Ottawa. By developing a Light Metro style system, the core will meet its capacity prediction targets and have sufficient margin for growth beyond the prediction; but the report finds that the potential although very high, ultimately however, capacity within the core may not warrant such a system”.
Also:
“The implementation of a high capacity light metro style system may divide Ottawa’s transportation network into a set of fragmented, unconnected and disparate transportation modes, which will multiply staff costs, overheads, maintenance and spares and maintenance facilities. This fragmentation will also cause numerous onward transfers between transport modes for daily passengers moving into the core from the suburbs. The choice of a Light Metro system will effectively increase transportation costs due to the much higher costs of segregation for the outlying suburbs, which will result in lower efficiencies of running and potentially higher ticket costs”.
Finally:
Light Rail is recommended as the technology choice for deployment in Ottawa as it: • Provides the necessary capacity for the ridership predictions in the main core, • Can accommodate low passenger capacity in the extensions outside of the main core, • Results in less fragmentation of the network, reducing the need for onward transfers, • Has less impact on the urban fabric and allows the ability to build a non-segregated system in the Greenbelt, • Has lower system capital costs with Light Metro, • Has comparatively lower life time operating and maintenance costs with Light Metro, • Allows better integration of technology for the Carling-Lincoln Field’s corridor. • Provides greater network flexibility and promotes development of the transportation network in the core, • Is a proven design, and • Is more suited for the climate in Ottawa.”
.
It would be helpful if you could cite the “studies [which have] have shown that automatic operation only reduces cost…around 20,000 pphpd” and “Skytrain…operating costs about 40% higher than comparable LRT operations”.
Zwei replies: Actually Dondi, they are industry norms. Gerald fox’s LRT vs. AGT study in the 80’s showed that LRT, operating on a comparable R-o-W as AGT was cheaper to operate. You did not read what I wrote, driverless operation is a signalling question, not a man power question as it shows that Our SkyTrain system has more employees than comparable light rail operations and as wages account for 70% to 80% of operating costs, SkyTrain just costs more to operate without any benefit.
In a recent Montreal times Op-Ed piece; “in 2006 the operating cost per passenger for Calgary’s LRT was $0.26 while in Vancouver is was $3.92.”
Only 7 such systems built since the late 70’s and not one allowed to compete against LRT speak volumes.
Zwei, I did not know that the only topics deemed appropriate on this blog are those whose purpose is to make the case for how LRT is better than light metro.
I was bad and instead raised a more specific issue – evidence on the costs of driverless vs. driven trains, noting that I do not support the former (I’d like more people working in transit, not fewer). I am very sorry.
Thank you for the reference to Fox’s study but it was a long time ago – was Skytrain even in that study?
You still didn’t provide the source for your statement that Skytrain has more employees than comparable light rail operations. I am not claiming you are wrong, but please, what is your reference so we can evaluate the comparability, etc?
You should be embarrassed to raise such an obviously bogus comparison as an operating cost of 26 cents per passenger in Calgary vs. $3.92 in Vancouver.
I can’t vouch for how Pachal compiled his data from CUTA but his 2016 Transit Report Card (http://sfb.nathanpachal.com/2016/07/2016-transit-report-card-released.html) provides two metrics on operating costs – per service hour and per passenger trip.
According to that report, Vancouver had the highest operating cost per service hour of the 6 regions compared in 2014, at $181.47 (the median was 156.43), but Toronto/Hamilton beat out Vancouver for the highest operating cost per passenger trip with $3.96 vs. $3.86. Calgary’s operating cost per service hour was $147.08 and per passenger trip it was $3.36.
These numbers show Vancouver’s region-wide operating costs are higher than most of the compared regions but not by crazy amounts.
But they cover all forms of transit in the region, so we still lack the numbers for driverless Skytrain vs. a comparable system with drivers – number of FTE employees, total labour costs, whatever. What is your reference for Skytrain costing 40% more than comparable LRT?
Zwei replies: Dondi, you still don’t get it; there is no light-metro LRT debate, because LRT made light metro obsolete decades ago, very few cities build with light metro and those that do, generally have buyer’s remorse.
Metro Vancouver’s politicos, bureaucrats and planners have bought into the light-metro dream and facts don’t count anymore. Very few who comment on transit have actually spoken to a “rail” expert, let alone a real transportation specialist and the result is over 30 years of transit nonsense.
As stated before Pachal’s study is an “apples to oranges comparison” and his report card is not valid.
The 40% higher figure came from TransLink itself about a decade ago, in a story about SkyTrain in the Province; in the same way we find that SkyTrain has 870 odd employees, far more than comparable light rail operations and with wages accounting for 70% to 80% of operating costs, it is logical to assume that SkyTrain costs more to operate.
This higher number of employees for Automated Guided Transit, as shown in Gerald Fox’s study (which included SkyTrain and VAL) is valid today. AGT cost more to operate than comparable LRT operations, that is why no one buys them, unless there is chicanery involved, such as Honolulu.
As for the Op-Ed piece in Montreal, I think it is not bogus because it confirms other comparisons with SkyTrain and that were in the media a decade ago. Costing half the km. to build and with far fewer employees, carrying huge volumes of passengers, Calgary’s LRT was indeed cheap to operate.
When it comes to transit and cutting through the BS (which is hard to do in Vancouver) we have made grave errors in both transit planning and transit application. No one want to take ownership of these errors and we continue doing the same expensive thing over again, expecting different results.
The refusal to do it right, the continued anti customer stance of TransLink, has made TransLink the pariah it has become today. It is with this blinkered and dogmatic thinking, that has kept a TramTrain service from Vancouver to Chilliwack from coming into being.
Zwei, again with the light metro-LRT debate? I did not raise this topic – your first reply did and your second does it again, even though you say there is no debate..
What exactly is “apples to oranges” about Pachal’s data from CUTA on operating costs? Or, better, what is more “apples to oranges” than other comparisons out there, since this issue plagues every comparison?
Your source for “Skytrain…[has more employees]..than comparable light rail operations”, please?
It would help discussion if we could stay on the topic of operating costs, and not bring in capital costs, as with your point about Calgary’s per km. cost to build. There is no dispute than capital costs for light metro, especially when driverless, are higher than for conventional LRT.
I tracked down a copy of the Cohen article whose abstract I quoted above. Skytrain was one of the metros studied, The responses are anonymized but someone who knows transit systems would probably be able to figure out who is who in many of the responses.
As the abstract indicated, these metro systems reportedly pegged the per head total staff reductions from the highest level of automation (my guess is that Skytrain fits within this category) at 30% to an extreme case of 70%, and that the internal rates of return for the increased capital costs required for such automation were over 10%.
Like I wrote before, I favour more employment and human presence in transit, not less. But the evidence from this study is that driverless systems are more ‘efficient’ in the particular, narrow senses worshipped by many transit managers.
This does not bear directly on the transit mode debate unless the operating costs savings are enough to not only cover the increased capital costs (which the study suggests they do) but also the difference in operating and capital costs between transit modes (e.g., light metro vs. LRT) taking into consideration service issues in the comparison like frequency, hours, etc.
But going driverless is not just an issue for metros with segregated guideways. The driverless or at least computer-assisted driver on LRT tracks running through traffic is also a spectre (highly unwelcome in my opinion) that we may face in the foreseeable future. Huge resources are currently going into efforts to replace long haul truck drivers with automated controls. If they can get a computer to drive a truck from here to Mexico and approval from the government to do it they will claim the same should be true of LRT – and probably before the same is said of buses.
Zwei replies: Dondi, it is obvious you don’t want to know and I am beginning to think you are a troll.
SkyTrain, a proprietary light metro has been on the market for about 40 years; it was showcased at Expo 86; both BC Transit and TransLink were in partnership of Bombardier Inc. to sell SkyTrain abroad; SkyTrain has been studied by more cities than any other proprietary railway and only seven have been built in that time?
Keep in mind that not one SkyTrain light metro has \ever been allowed to compete directly with LRT of a transit line and all SkyTrain’s built to date were either by political diktat, or a bidding process that disallowed LRT.
Most of your issues are non issues, cleverly done to seem they are important, no sorry, in the real world, if there is a transit line to be built first one looks at traffic flows, then designs the appropriate transit mode and builds it and not one SkyTrain has ever done this and the the reason is simple, it costs more to build, operate and maintain than light rail.
Question: “How many hospitals and schools must be closed to fund a costly and over staffed transit line?”
Get over it
@Dondi,
You seem agitated. What’s with the specious claims by your friend and Langley councillor who suggests that “revenue kilometres per service hour” (in physics it is called velocity, dS/dt) and “passenger trip intensity” make transit by TransLink (s-train) superior to other modes of public transit?
“Revenue Kilometres per Service Hour: An indication of the distance transit goes for every hour of service delivered. A higher number indicates that transit service operates at a faster speed, over a larger service area, or both.”
“Passenger Trip Intensity: An indicator of the productivity of a transit system that is adjusted for the Service Hours per Capita. Regions with a higher score have transit systems that align more closely with transit service demand than systems with a lower score.”
http://sfb.nathanpachal.com/
Can you ask him to provide us with his calculations of these two parameters? He’s utterly confused.
First, making public transit fast (dS/dt) with s-train comes at the cost of long trips to the s-train station. Did he include the time wasted to walk or bus it to the s-train station in his calculation of dS/dt, door to door?
Second, passenger trip intensity as he refers to it is unrelated to the mode of public transportation. TransLink recycles passengers from buses to its s-train network. This is the reason for apparently high demand for public transit by TransLink. That is, TransLink’s exaggerated ridership figures counting people twice don’t reflect the relatively small number of transit users in Metro Vancouver (ranging from 13% of the population on a weekday to 3% of the population on a holiday or Sunday). Study Green’s theorem.
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/multivariable-calculus/greens-theorem-and-stokes-theorem/greens-theorem/v/green-s-theorem-example-1
Let’s change gears. TransLink maintains that building roads creates road space to encourage people to buy a car and drive. I could take the contrarian view and argue that there is nothing wrong with more car sales to stimulate the economy. I could also punch holes in TransLink’s claim about roads leading to road congestion. I did quite well in my 12 calculus courses at university and could use lots of fancy math to show how road congestion really depends upon the relative number of cars to roads and the propensity of people to live in a certain area.
It wouldn’t do any good. People like you haven’t got a clue what I’m saying and will argue until you’re blue in the face that if we build freeways in the high Arctic, people will buy cars and move there.
Fine, I’ll agree with you. I’m going to blindly and unequivocally agree with all the sanctimonious claims by transit zealots whose beliefs can’t be challenged: if we build more roads and bridges to try to alleviate the bottlenecks and road congestion, it will create road space and attract more drivers! Satisfied?
Okay, good. Building subways and viaducts for s-train takes drivers off the roads to create road space and attract other drivers. Therefore, you must also agree that it is impossible for s-train to reduce road congestion. In fact, research has proven this, and we don’t have to argue about it.
“The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from U.S. Cities” concluded that “the provision of public transportation has no impact on vehicle kilometres travelled.”
http://www.vancourier.com/opinion/columnists/hold-your-nose-and-vote-no-on-plebiscite-1.1791689
Whew, I’m glad that we got that out of the way. Aren’t you?
If you truly want to put people on public transit, trams and buses competing for road space along with parking restrictions are the way to go. One tram holding 450 people replaces a handful of cars carrying a few dozen people at most, on the roads. Roads, roads, roads. You can’t fight road congestion on the roads with subways under roads and viaducts over roads. After two decades of TransLink planning and building s-train lines, here is the result:
http://globalnews.ca/news/1913528/vancouver-remains-the-most-traffic-congested-city-in-north-america/
This is what we’ve been saying on this blog. Trams or tram-trains on the roads can be used to alleviate road congestion, to UBC, for instance. On the other hand, s-trains in subways and viaducts don’t cut road congestion but do make firms building them money and keep lots of useless planners managing them at TransLink employed, maybe you’re one of the useless planners at TransLink.
Look Dondi, most people don’t want to take the bus to s-train and spend three to four hours or more on public transit. They don’t want to pay for s-train which they don’t want to ride. Get it through your thick skull. I and other drivers already resent paying the first $10 of our $50 gasoline purchase to TransLink to finance scammers lying about how s-train takes cars off the roads.
Fact: s-train swaps out short distance commuters on the bus or tram for long distance commuters on s-train. Who are you to decree that s-train riders are more important than bus or tram riders? Dondi, you and your Langley councillor-friend are part of the putrid establishment behind TransLink. Vice, greed, corruption… TransLink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w211KOQ5BMI&index=4&list=RD8de2W3rtZsA
Get lost. Spread your crap somewhere else.
I am bewildered.
I did not raise the issues that either Zwei or Chris pursue in this exchange.
I just questioned Zwei’s assertion about the comparable number of Skytrain employees. I don’t think the case for more jobs in transit rather than fewer jobs (I want more) is helped by denying that driverless systems can and do reduce total employment.
In the absence of comparative data on Skytrain employment I cited Pachal’s CUTA data for operating costs per service hour and operating cost per passenger trip by transit region. These measures seem pretty straightforward.
@Dondi, to move 12,500 passengers hourly on two tram routes over 49 km in total (one-way distance) requires about 500 drivers and support staff (10 tram employees per kilometer of route). You’re clever; calculate how many employees for yourself: trams travel at 20 kph and there are three shifts for drivers over the day. Drivers make up 80% of the operating costs and about 80% of the staff for trams.
In comparison, from what I can tell, TransLink (BCRTC) utilizes about 1,183 employees (661 attendants + 172 TransLink police + 350 BCRTC others = 1,183) to manage and plan the Expo Line and Millennium Line running on 49 km of routes (one way distance) to move 12,500 passengers hourly. To plan and manage these lines, BCRTC employs an astounding 24 union workers per kilometer of route. Wow, wow, wow!!!
In 2012, CMBC employed 5,305 drivers operating Sea-buses, buses and shuttles running on about 2,600 km of routes (one-way distance). Buses by CMBC need about 2 employees per kilometre of route.
You got your wish, TransLink employs lots of tools making fools of people who want to keep paying the swindlers at TransLink. About 1,200 TransLink goons to plan and manage a measly 49 km of s-train routes (Expo Line and Millennium Line)? Wholly crap.
The Cambie Street subway is essentially run by SNC Lavalin. Who knows how many people SNC Lavalin charges TransLink to “manage” the subway. I’m betting many more than 10 employees per kilometer of route.
I trust that this answers your question. TransLink is about twice as expensive as it has to be and has about twice as many employees that it needs to have. Okayz? I’ll get back to the Olympics, now. Fill in your pal in Langley. He might want to revise his research to reflect reality. TransLink’s productivity is 100% worse than with trams.
If you’re a crooked moron, you build s-train lines. It’s what you do; it’s what you do; it’s what you do…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaEFUwt5eT8
TransLink staffing levels in 2012:
http://www.pressreader.com/canada/the-vancouver-sun/20140215/281732677385917
Pay and listing of TransLink personnel:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/translink-bonuses-executive-salaries-draw-criticism-1.2753332