Provincial Auditors Ignore SkyTrain – TransLink’s Financial Chaos Will Continue
What is interesting about this item in the Vancouver Sun, is that provincial auditors, looking for maintenace cost savings in TransLink, are ingoring the SkyTrain light-metro system and I wonder why?
“The report, which didnai??i??t examine maintenance costs for SkyTrain ai??i?? run by BC Rapid Transit Co. ai??i?? suggested TransLink must ai???re-evaluate maintenance services and modernize its approach given its high and increasing unit costs.ai???
The answer is simple, with TransLink and the provincial government are obsessed with SkyTrain andAi??its higher maintenace cost would prove embarrassing. SkyTrain costs about 40% more to maintain than modern light rail and reporting higher maitenace costs would prove to be embarrassing, especailly when construction onAi??the $1.4 billion Evergreen SkyTrain Line is soon to commence.
No one in TransLink or the provincial government will admit, that the major cause of TransLink’s financial problems is the very expensive SkyTrain and Canada line light metro systems. Until TransLink and the provincial government come clean on the true cost of the light metro network, TransLink will suffer continued major financial distress.
B.C. auditors to examine TransLink for more cost savings
Ai??Bus maintenance and community shuttle also under scanner
Ai??By Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver SunMay 17, 2012TransLink is once again facing increased scrutiny ai??i?? this time by provincial auditors ai??i?? in a bid to find further cost savings at the beleaguered transportation authority.
TransLink spokesman Drew Snider said provincial auditors will search for operating efficiencies across the board, including within the organizationai??i??s bus maintenance program and its subsidized community shuttles. Both were raised in a recent audit report by TransLink Commissioner Martin Crilly as areas where potential cost savings could be found.
In 2010, TransLinkai??i??s total direct maintenance expenditures for conventional bus and community shuttle services totalled $111.5 million and $5.3 million respectively.
The maintenance costs, which total more than service kilometres driven, were higher than other transit organizations across Canada, according to Crillyai??i??s report. They were also the second largest area of spending for TransLink, accounting for about 22.8 per cent of its total operating costs.
TransLinkai??i??s bus operations ai??i?? run by its subsidiary Coast Mountain Bus Co. ai??i?? are considered more expensive to maintain partly because thereAi?? is a mix of significant trolley, diesel-hybrid and compressed natural gas fleets. And unlike other transit cities, Coast Mountain includes some ai???non-wrench timeai??? ai??i?? obtaining parts, tools or documents ai??i?? in its internal labour rate charged to jobs, while offering the highest wage rates for both operators and mechanics.
Between 2006 and 2010, direct maintenance costs for trolley, natural gas and community shuttles experienced average increases for the fleets of 75.3 per cent, 130.3 per cent and 220 per cent respectively.
Direct costs spent on vehicle repairs and maintenance increased by 62 per cent over the five years, which is in excess of service expansion and labour cost growth over the period. Community shuttles were a big driver in the higher maintenance costs, by more than doubling over the five-year period.
ai???If these trends continue, it will be a challenge for CMBC to maintain these fleets within reasonable budget constraints and fleet life cycle costing will have to be revisited,ai??? the report said.
The report, which didnai??i??t examine maintenance costs for SkyTrain ai??i?? run by BC Rapid Transit Co. ai??i?? suggested TransLink must ai???re-evaluate maintenance services and modernize its approach given its high and increasing unit costs.ai???
TransLink officials declined to comment on the high maintenance costs or what was being done to reduce them because the provincial audit was underway.
Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender, vice-chairman of the Mayorsai??i?? Council on Regional Transportation, said the audit should help shed some light on what can be done to trim TransLinkai??i??s overspending. He noted TransLinkai??i??s board is challenging the transportation authority to also find efficiencies but noted there are implications involved because of union contracts.
The transportation authority has some tough decisions to make, he added. Community shuttles, for instance, are crucial to those who use them but are often criticized by people who see them going around the block only half full.
ai???We have to take a hard look at rationalization of routes … are their routes and services we have that are not cost-efficient?ai??? Fassbender said. ai???There are routes in Vancouver where they have pass-ups because the buses are full and they have other routes where the buses are a quarter full.
ai???The choice has to be made: do you cut it or do you subsidize it? Thatai??i??s a political decision and the mayorsai??i?? council wants to be more involved on that.ai???
The mayorsai??i?? council, which will meet with Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom next week, has been pushing to have more control over how TransLink spends its money. Lekstrom has tabled legislation, which will allow Fassbender and mayorsai??i?? council chairman Richard Walton to sit at the board table, a move Fassbender says will allow them some weight in the decisions that are made.
Meanwhile, Snider said TransLink is also looking at all of Crillyai??i??s recommendations and will roll out improvements. Earlier this week, TransLink announced it would phase out its TaxiSaver program for HandyDart ai??i?? in which users can receive subsidized taxi services coupons ai??i?? in a bid to put the $1.1 million in savings each year back into the HandyDart program.
ksinoski@vancouversun.com
Not surprising that maintenance costs are more for SkyTrain given that trains run far more frequently than LRT systems especially in the evenings and weekends. It is great not to have to wait more than 5 minutes for a train especially when it is dark and cold. With LRT frequencies often 15 to 20 minutes on off-peak hours, it is simply much quicker for people to drive when the roads are less congested.
In 2012, the Expo and Millennium Lines have 1,128,000 service hours http://www.translink.ca/~/media/documents/bpotp/10_year_plan/2012_plans/2012_supplemental_plan_moving_forward.ashx page 20. Compare this to Calgary’s C-train with only 186,000 http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/statistics.html.
Six times the service for only 40% greater maintenance costs. Seems like a good deal.
Zweisystem replies: In your dreams old chum. The problem with SkyTrain it is maintenance intensive. Our current SkyTrain system is about 40% more costly to operate than the Calgary C-Train. The problem with SkyTrain is two-fold:
1) The reaction rail for the LIM needs to be constantly adjusted to maintain the critical 1 cm air-gap between the reaction rail and the LIM. As tires and rails wear, the reaction rail needs to be adjusted manually.
2) SkyTrain cars have more axles and wheels to maintain than comparable LRT vehicles. Articulated railcars only have 6 axles to maintain, compared to the SkyTrain 8 – more axles and wheels to maintain, the higher the cost.
Like Rico, you seem to invent what you want to beleive – ever notice no one buys with SkyTrain anymore? Could it be it is just too expensive to maintain compared with light rail.
Absolutely daft, that the government will not allow an audit of the SkyTrain rapid transit system. What are they trying to hide? What are they afraid of?
I find it rather strange that in Vancouver one finds automatic metros cheaper to operate than automatic metros in other cities around the world.
Unconventional railways are always more expensive to operate than conventional railways and those who profess otherwise are just not telling the truth.
Vancouver, with the advent of this blog, has become an international joke, where the flat-earth society has seem to reign supreme. Is this what the colonies have bred, ignorance and stupidity? It seems well so with the musings of Rico and others, pretending that Vancouver’s automatic SkyTrain system is a god given transit mode that produces miracle operation only in the that city.
I find it strange indeed that the support for the Skytrain metro system is so high, when it has been rejected by knowlegable transit planners around the world.
For myself, Vancouver and its transit planners are a joke and I hope the local taxpayers stop finding them amusing and treat them as Luddites.
I have read two published articles citing Vancouver and its transit planning something to avoid.
TransLink is wholly controlled by the provincial government and there is a conflict of interest in the provincial government doing an audit of itself. Reporter Kelly Sinoski of the Vancouver Sun merely reports what TransLink wants reported and has no integrity. She has done more over the years to spread TransLink propaganda than any other reporter in the Lower Mainland.
Through the Vancouver Sun, TransLink has managed to shift attention away from the ~$330 million wasted annually by the redundant TransLink bureaucracy. Minor fare evasion losses, transit police costs… are distractions to keep the focus off the money wasters in the corner offices at TransLink.
Yep, you sure know when you’ve stirred up the hornets nest Zwei, IK & Eric the little buggers fly arround trying to sting everything within reach and that’s just the insects.
Actually Zei you actually are somewhat correct. Translink showed a lower maintainance cost for LRT than RRT in their Broadway analysis. That said the combined maintainance/operating cost per rider of Skytrain is pretty good. Not as good as Calgary (with probably the lowest operating costs by rider in the world) but still about 1/3 of the average reported values from the APTA for light rail in the US. So not the best but still way above average in North America.
Zweisystem replies: The last ‘hard’ figures I saw, comparing just the Expo Line with the C-Train, saw maintenance costs were about $20 million more annually for SkyTrain. Again I point to the fact, no one buys SkyTrain and no one wants SkyTrain and if it was so good, why is this so?.
@rico
The maintenance costs for RRT on Broadway are likely higher because there are many more trains being run per day both to handle the much greater ridership of RRT.
Everyone should be comparing maintenance costs per vehicle and or passenger km. It is pretty obvious that the more trains are run, the greater the wear on the trains and the track.
Zweisystem replies: Richard, your ignorance sometimes is astounding. You pretend to be all knowledgeable but your love affair with SkyTrain, certainly demonstrates the opposite. You never answer my question; “If SkyTrain is so much cheaper to operate than LRT, why has it been rejected by operating authorities around the world?”
Your avoidance of any answer is telling.
I do enjoy the perverse logic of those who support Vancouver’s SkyTrain rapid rail system. If they had actually studied the subject, they would know that automatic transit systems do cost a lot more to operate than transit systems that require drivers.
Driverless transit systems were in the vogue in the 80’s and 90’s, but are now looked on upon as too expensive infrastructure. Unlike light rail, automatic or driverless transit systems can’t network onto cheaper right of ways, so their scope for development is rather limited and thus their abandonment.
I do find the costs for Skytrain are rather light and Rico and others never add the rather large provincial subsidy, which according to the author of this blog, exceeds $250 million annually.
The Docklands light railway, which is also an automatic light railway, was only built because it used abandoned and derelict right of ways, thus its’ initial costs was very much lower than contemporary automatic light metros. If the DLR had to be built from scratch, it would never had been built at all.
It seems strange that only Vancouvers’ Skytrain defies the norm set by automatic metros around the world. Sadly for the rate payers in Vancouver, Skytrain will force an almost vertical spiral in taxes. That politicians can’t see this is astounding and appalling.
Zei,
Calgary has one of the lowest if not lowest operating costs per rider in the world so a good system to try and copy but no shame in not achieving the same results. It is like saying the A- on your report card is an embarisment because you did not get top mark in your class of one hundred.
No one bothers to answer your no one builds skytrain shtick anymore because everybody else understands it is not about Bombardier but about grade seperation or for some people ATC. Most people eventally give up if the other person is incapable of getting it.
I.K. Brunel,
You have a valid point about driverless systems being unable to utilize cheaper corridors. Of course this is not always a concern, for example the Broadway corridor is clearly not going further west than UBC.
Not sure what your 250 million subsidy refers to, debt servicing? If so it is not part of operating costs or maintainance costs. Last I checked maintainance and operating costs per rider for Skytrain was about $1.12 per trip and debt servicing including the provincial debt was somewhere between 2 and 3 dollars per trip (I could look it up if you care I do remember the total cost per trip was less than 4$ per trip).
Might want to catch up on your research a bit. There are a large number of systems in the world with automatic train controls both with and without drivers and several more are being planned.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_driverless_trains
The list here doesn’t even include the Evergreen Line or the system in Honolulu.
Oh, and for the tenth time, you need to compare LRT systems against metro or at least light metros. Comparing LRT systems to SkyTrain systems isn’t even apples to oranges, it is Granny Smith Apples to oranges. It is just not a logical or fair comparison.
Zweisystem replies: Actually Richard you should read some transit history as you would learn a few things.
SkyTrain or ICTS, as it was then known, was supposed to bridge the gap of what old non articulated streetcars could carry and that of a metro. Modern LRT with articulated vehicles, priority signaling and the concept of the ‘reserved rights-of-way’ bridged this gap at a lot lower overall cost. The result, there was no market for ICTS and its name was changed to ALRT or Advanced Light Rail Transit to directly compete against LRT and SkyTrain failed miserably. SkyTrain had again two more name changes and now is marketed as ART or Automatic Rapid Transit. Comparing LRT to SkyTrain is valid and modern LRT made SkyTrain obsolete. The result of course, is no sales for SkyTrain.
As for automatic metros, most are proprietary systems with a lot of under the table dealing, just like the Honolulu metro. I am quite confident that the Honolulu metro, like SkyTrain will be come a financial millstone around the operating authority’s neck.
As I said before Richard, read a book on the subject, you might learn a thing or two.
Stewarts Lane, you just know what the media are telling you and the media just know what TransLink says. This is an open forum. If you disagree, provide the proof.
Ignorance is bliss. Stay happy and deluded. It is too much for you to contemplate that TransLink might be a scam.
I agree with your point of view Eric, 100% and likewise those of Zwei & IKB.
I was merely expressing the view that writing a critique on the state of transport planning in Vancouver is akin to shaking a stick at a hornets nest. Stirred up, and maddened by the truth the inhabitants of the Translink nest lash out at anyone who dares to criticise them.
Apologies for being obtuse
Stewarts Lane, sorry for the confusion on my part.
The genesis of Karlsruhe’s TramTrain was to omit one transfer from commuter train to tram, as German transit planners’ well know that one can lose upwards of 70% of ones’ potential ridership per transfer. The success of TramTrain well illustrates this singular point.
Yes, the line was built to the minimum spec. The Victoria Line in London is a clsiasc example of just how long building to minimum spec can hurt. And yes, with the exception of platform length, the amenities are similar. This doesn’t mean that is a good thing.Traffic volumes have been declared optimistic for every single rail system in North America for the past 50 years and in the past 10 or so, they have actually proven conservative.As for the P3 bit, I haven’t seen any proof that building this as a P3 saved any money or time, especially in the long term, given the issues I mentioned in the post.