LEAVE THE DOORS ALONE
LRT suffers first big delay
Someone tried to force a door open on a train at uOttawa Station during the morning rush Tuesday, creating a domino effect that crippled the transit network at the worst time possible.
The major service delay during the morning peak period prompted transportation general manager John Manconi to provide a simple bit of advice to customers: “Leave the doors alone.”
It was only the second day of the new OC Transpo transit network backboned by the Confederation Line LRT.
Buses constantly empty passengers at Tunney’s Pasture, Hurdman and Blair stations during the morning rush. As the service slowed down Tuesday morning, passengers at Tunney’s Pasture were backed up from the platform to all the way outside the station.
During an afternoon press briefing, Manconi explained why the LRT line slowed down.
Around 8:05 a.m. a westbound train pulled into uOttawa Station and passengers got off the train, but there were still passengers exiting when the “doors closing” signal sounded.
According to Manconi, a customer pushed the doors with both arms while getting off, causing the doors to jam. “Negative manual intervention,” is how Manconi described it.
The operating system is designed so that a train can’t move when a door is jammed.
Manconi said the edges of the doors have very sensitive safety features so people aren’t caught in between the doors and dragged down the platform. The doors open if something is preventing them from closing. A door problem can be related to a software issue or mechanical issue. The cause of the door jam on Tuesday morning could be a mechanical issue and the technicians are investigating why they couldn’t reset the door, Manconi said.
“It got jolted or held back in such a state that those technicians couldn’t isolate the door,” Manconi said.
A door technician couldn’t solve the problem, and then the rail operator and an Alstom technician tried to fix the problem, but they couldn’t figure it out, either. Transpo had to let everyone off the train and put it out of service.
A “diversion service” started at 8:15 a.m. to get other trains around the inoperable train. Trains in both directions had to share a single track between uOttawa and Hurdman stations, reducing the train frequency on the LRT line to between 15 and 20 minutes from the five-minutes-or-less intervals customers usually experience at peak times. Transpo also activated replacement bus service at 8:30 a.m. between Hurdman and Tunney’s Pasture stations.
Service was restored at 8:43 a.m. It took until 9:16 a.m. to clear station platforms of people waiting to get on a train.
Manconi, who emphasized that the LRT line didn’t shut down, said Transpo is looking into the door problem and why staff couldn’t fix it at the station. He noted that Transpo has experienced some door issues on the trains and has addressed them.
“As with all modern train systems, doors have many features to ensure safety is never compromised and all doors must be in a fully closed and locked position for trains to move,” Manconi said.
The state of the doors — specifically, the sensors that dictate what happens when there’s an obstruction — was one of the city’s watch items as it pushed Alstom to make necessary adjustments to the trains earlier this year. While Manconi said door problems happen on rail systems, he didn’t say if there was a connection between the problem on Tuesday and the issues identified during Ottawa’s train testing.
Manconi said LRT doors open 86,000 times each day.
Transpo is also taking a close look at the door dwell times; in other words, the length of time doors stay open to let passengers off and on trains. Each station is different, depending on the volume of passengers. The doors have been operating in automated mode.
“The system’s going under massive calibrations,” Manconi said.
Manconi said Transpo has gone through scenarios like the one Tuesday morning during its drills. He apologized to customers for the service delay and thanked staff for handling it. Transpo is looking into implementing more messaging, such as station announcements, when there’s a delay in service.
Manconi had advice for LRT customers to make everyone’s trip better, and even though the suggestions seem obvious, Transpo officials are watching behaviour that could affect service.
First, customers should use all 14 doors on the train for entering and existing trains, rather than using only a handful of doors. “We paid for those doors for a reason,” Manconi said.
Also, customers shouldn’t hold the doors or congregate around the doors on the trains or platforms, Manconi said.
Prepare to get off the train if your stop is coming up, rather than waiting for the last second, he said.
And one final tip: let people get off the train before getting on.
It got jolted or held back in such a state that those technicians couldn’t isolate the door.