KEEPING TRACK
LRT deadline approaches
Thales Canada on Tuesday has just seven days left to get the Metro LRT Line running properly or face “serious consequences” city council threatened in December.
That’s up to and including legal action and finding a new contractor, even if that means reverting to “flagmen,” said Mayor Don Iveson last December after council voted unanimously for the deadline.
But are flagmen really an option? Can Edmonton fire Thales?
City officials are working on a plan, but industry expert Chris Jackson warns that’s akin to “going nuclear.”
Everything Thales crews have installed uses proprietary software that would have to be ripped out if a different company comes in. But without a solution, these Metro Line challenges will hamper further LRT expansion north.
With such big decisions afoot, Postmedia took a step back to investigate how Edmonton landed in this difficult situation.
We pulled the original contract bids and evaluation through a freedom of information request. It all starts there, with a set of city officials wooed by Thales Canada’s “aggressive” timelines proposed for completion, but a little worried at a lack of experience with street crossings.
WHAT IS EDMONTON TRYING TO DO?
For decades, Edmonton’s LRT operated with a traditional fixedblock train signal system. That means the whole capital line is divided into segments called blocks and a track-side light doesn’t turn green for one train until the previous one has left the block.
It’s very safe because it keeps trains far apart from each other, but it’s inefficient — one track accommodates fewer trains.
The fixed-block system worked fine until city officials decided to have the new Metro Line extension and the existing line overlap in a downtown tunnel.
Trains need to run with just 21/2 minutes between them in the tunnel, and that means an upgrade to “moving block” technology. Think of how cars operate on a road — each driver keeps a set distance from the vehicle in front, narrowing the gap when traffic is slow. That’s moving blocks.
Because the LRT drivers can’t see in the tunnel, trains will keep their distance from each other by sending a radio signal with their position to a central computer.
Transit officials decided to also use this new technology after the Metro Line exits the tunnel and runs at grade to NAIT. It’s not clear exactly why. The extreme north and south ends of the existing Capital Line will still run with the existing fixed-block technology.
The new Valley Line avoids this with simple line-of-sight driving. Train operators will go no faster than the traffic around the train and respond to train signals integrated with the traffic lights.
WHY IS THE NEW SIGNALLING SYSTEM SO COMPLICATED?
Thales’ moving block technology has been used on Vancouver’s SkyTrain since 1986 and in 40 other jurisdictions, according to its bid for the Metro Line. But those are subways or elevated tracks. What’s new in Edmonton is using hightech moving-block technology where the line has to interact with vehicle-traffic signals.
“In theory, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work,” said Jackson, editor-in-chief of the industry publication Railway Gazette Group, based in the United Kingdom. But it’s another layer of complexity.
That’s one reason why, even now when the Metro Line is running at full speed, there are still errors. At least six times since the line opened, the computer sent a train onto the wrong track or failed to engage the traffic crossing arms properly.
But once Edmonton gets the crossings working reliably, it’s still not out of the woods.
As of December, transit officials still hadn’t tried running the trains in full moving-block mode in the tunnel, which they need to do if they’re ever going to let the lines overlap properly.
This has been done before. In San Francisco, Thales built a similar system where trains are driven by line of sight on the surface, then where five lines come together in the Market Street tunnel, the hightech moving block system takes over.
But that system took six years from the day the contract was signed in 1992 to actually running it with passengers, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation review. The first weeks it opened, service slowed to a crawl, trains backed up several deep and nearly 10 per cent of the trains either weren’t picked up by the computer or lost connection in the tunnel. That meant emergency braking.
Still, heavy rail lines now do this all the time, said Jackson. It’s a challenge, but doable: “Setting it up to be reliable can be an issue.”
It’s not known how this process is going here. No city or Thales officials were available for an interview, and all updates to city council on the Metro Line since December have been in private. Another secret discussion is scheduled for Tuesday for an unidentified “contractual update.”
HOW DID THALES GET THE CONTRACT?
Thales Canada was one of five companies to bid for the signalling contract, but it quickly jumped to the head of the pack.
According to the 2011 evaluation criteria obtained by Postmedia through a freedom of information request, its projected milestone dates for the contract were “aggressive, ahead of (the) curve.” The innovation it offered to the city presented a “good opportunity on schedule.”
But already it seemed the crossings, where the train had to interact with vehicle-traffic signals, would be an issue. “Lack of crossing ” experience was noted for both the proposed site superintendent and the company overall.
When it came to ranking proposals, the timeline and experience Thales was willing to offer propelled it over the top. Plus, on the technical requirement to run trains within 21/2 minutes of each other through the downtown tunnel, it was the only company to score full marks.
In the end, Thales was the only company to earn the 600 points necessary to advance to the next stage of bidding. It’s unclear who did the evaluation because at that time, city officials only recorded “group” when multiple employees were involved.
Thales promised their SelTrac CBTC system could be ready by September 2013, if necessary. It would use radio waves to communicate train positions with each other and the main control system, using that precise system to minimize impact to pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
A train axle counter at either end of the station platform would provide a backup safety system. More than 1,000 Toronto-based employees would be available to help out and the site manager was an Edmonton native with 24 years of experience eager to return home for the project.
The signals would cost $45.4 million.
WHY DOES IT MATTER NOW?
The Metro Line is running and carrying 19,400 passengers a
day. But because it’s not running properly, it’s causing issues on the main line.
Rather than weaving Metro Line trains between trains on the original Capital Line, city officials are currently rerouting to NAIT every third train from the south.
That means crowding in the south because the Metro Line can only handle three-car trains. In the north, it means passengers often wait 10 minutes rather than every five minutes between trains during rush hour.
“Every third train we lose. That’s the price we pay right now,” said Coun. Ben Henderson, who called it the most frustrating file he’s seen on council.
He’s still hopeful Thales will meet its April 30 deadline, but council needed to draw a line in the sand, he said. “We just felt we couldn’t go forever on this. But if they don’t meet it, there are no easy answers.”
Coun. Tony Caterina said he’ll push to reinstate full frequency for northeast passengers, even if that means forcing NAIT-bound passengers to get off at Churchill Square and walk or shuttle five blocks to the Metro Line’s MacEwan Station, where they can get back on a train.