At its meeting on June 23, the TTC Board considered a report on platform doors for its subway system:

• Platform Edge Doors Study – Outcome of Feasibility and Business Case Studies
• Platform Edge Doors Study – Feasibility Report
• Platform Edge Doors Study – Business Case

The main report recommends that the Board:

1. Receive the PEDs Study report.
2. Approve addition of PEDs requirements, including operational and technical system requirements to the TTC Design Manual and Master Specifications for implementation at future new stations.
3. Direct staff to include funding based on estimates for the implementation of a pilot installation at TMU Station (Dundas) as part of the 2026 budget submission.
4. Approve ongoing planning work, including prioritizing stations for implementation of appropriate technologies based on specific needs and drivers of each station.

At the meeting, there was an attempt to refer the report to staff for further study:

Motion to Refer Item moved by Fenton Jagdeo (Lost)

Refer the report back to staff for further analysis to compliment [sic] the platform edge door study that includes:

1. Other technology, infrastructure, or passenger management solutions at stations that could improve operational efficiency, customer experience, and safety.
2. Prioritization of stations that would most benefit from platform edge doors and those that could realize safety, operational, and customer experience improvements utilizing other solutions.
3. Capital budget costs of (non platform edge door) station enhancement investments that could be implemented in 2026 to improve safety, operations, and customer experience.
4. Expanded business cases that include metrics for potential operational cost savings, service reliability improvements, and customer delay time savings that could be realized with platform edge doors at the highest priority stations.
5. A jurisdictional review of alternate platform edge door funding models that leverage non-fare (advertising) revenues.

There was also a motion to refer the report to the Strategic Planning Committee for further discussion:

Motion to Amend Item (Additional) moved by Councillor Dianne Saxe (Carried)

The TTC Board requests that staff provide the Strategic Planning Committee with class 5 estimates of the costs and benefits to the TTC of technically feasible options to detect or discourage track-level intrusions at subway and LRT stations, including those being installed by Metrolinx on new stations in Toronto.

The Feasibility Report by AECOM is a long document, but the core of it lies in the first 90 pages covering many aspects of potential implementations and designs. One significant conflict between this report and the management recommendations lies in the choice of stations for a trial installation. Although management recommends Dundas/TMU, a busy downtown station, the Feasibility Report recommends lightly used stations where problems can be worked out without a major upset to service and riders.

It is further highly recommended that TTC implement a number of PED installation pilot projects at different stations representing the typical condition for each type of design solution. Representative stations are proposed based on low ridership numbers to minimize impact to the subway system and ridership inconvenience associated with performance of the work and the anticipated learning curve. Potential stations include North York Centre, Lawrence, Glencairn and Old Mill. This variety of stations will allow contractors to familiarize themselves with all station groups and structural solutions. [p. 19]

The project is estimated to take over 20 years to complete system-wide at a substantial cost:

The total capital cost for the implementation of the PEDs system for Lines 1, 2 and 4 is estimated at $4.1 billion, with average costs of $44 million to $55 million for two platforms of a station based on the preliminary (Class 5) cost estimate, which includes a cost escalation to the midpoint of construction projected in 2036. The estimated cost was also included in the 2025-2039 Capital Investment Plan and remains unfunded. Subject to the approval of the recommendations of this report and available funding room available, $44 million will be included in the 2026-2035 Capital Budget and Plan submission for the implementation of a pilot installation at TMU Station (Dundas) for Board consideration. The preliminary cost estimate does not include the ATC interface. This will be further reviewed and discussed with the Line 1 ATC supplier as the PEDs project progresses and an implementation strategy is developed. [Management Report, p. 2]

Note that the study lists many other aspects of the project for which costs are not included. I will turn to these in the detailed part of this article.

The PED project is not funded in the Capital Plan and would have a significant effect on annual spending, especially if there is political pressure for a compressed timeline.

The study reviewed four different implementations:

• Full-height doors with a roughly 300mm ventillation space at the top.
• Partial height doors.
• Intrusion detection systems (IDS)
• “Rope” barriers.

Based on a scoring system full-height doors were favoured because they are the only proven system that completely prevents track level access. However, this is only one component of the evaluation and the differences overall are small, except for “rope” systems due to a “less-proven” ranking.

The costs for full- and half-height doors are substantial thanks to the station modifications needed for their installation many of which are common to both schemes.

An important issue in such a review is to determine just what reason lies behind the desire to install PEDs. The commonly cited issue is suicides, and yet the TTC has a greater problem with people walking at track level. Other problems include fires caused by debris blown onto track level, and the potential contact between passengers on the platform and trains. Various implementations address each of these to a greater or lesser extent.

If the intent is to make track level access difficult and deter the majority of intrusions, then walls of some height are required. Sensors can detect unwanted intrusion, but they will not prevent it, and could be prone to false positives.

The operative word in “IDS” is “detection”. Such a system can detect entry into the guideway, but not prevent it. This will be used on the underground portions of the soon-to-open Lines 5 and 6 in Toronto, and we will see how well it works, especially in distinguishing between real intrusions and false positives that would halt service.

Installing PEDs is not simply a matter of erecting a wall along the platform. There are issues of structural integrity of platforms, relocation of services in the under-platform area, station and tunnel ventilation, power supply and control systems, and emergency operation of the doors. Most of these are common to half and full-height implementations, although the effect on ventilation is less for half-height doors.

The implementation of PEDs at existing stations will require extensive planning, with the majority of the work taking place at track level during non-operating hours and will need to be implemented alongside ongoing State of Good Repair (SOGR) work in subway tunnels and stations. Implementation of the PED system as part of major works, such as Bloor-Yonge Capacity Improvements (BYCI) will minimize operational and customer disruptions while addressing cost and schedule efficiency.

Extensive subway station closures and station bypasses will be necessary to effectively complete track-related work for the PED system and to minimize the challenges. Partial and full closures of subway lines and stations were used in Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Copenhagen, and Seoul’s Metros to successfully retrofit the PED system in existing stations. [Management report pp 1-2]

The TTC has never undertaken an “extensive” closure of a station, let alone a line, beyond weekend maintenance shutdowns. This has substantial implications at busy stations near major destinations or with extensive surface feeder services.

The Business Case (also by AECOM) presents the advantages and disadvantages of PEDs.

The Business Case is a troubling document because it purports to show the monetary value of the project, albeit over an extended period. I am not convinced that this is an appropriate way to address the issue. The majority of the savings comes from fatality incidents which contribute to many of the factors below, notably to the imputed value of lost lives. Some of these savings are not direct dollar spending (such as emergency response costs), and cannot be recouped as an offset to the capital cost.

Arguing the preservation of life as a “business case” begs the question of whether fiscal hawks would agree to the project if there were not a good “return on investment”. Conversely, a 20-year implementation plan has little sense of urgency. The question, then, is how quickly the project could actually unroll, at what cost, and a what disruption both to ongoing subway operations and the overall capital plans for the TTC.

The footnote above refers to anticipated longer dwell times at stations as the control systems for both the platform doors and trains agree with each other about opening and closing while trains are stopped.

There is some irony to the proposal of Dundas/TMU Station as a trial installation. At the previous TTC Board meeting, the University made a proposal to set up a research effort with the TTC based on their business startup model. The idea was that there were potential developments that could be marketed to the world. One of the focus areas was to be intrusion detection, although such systems have existed for decades in various forms. In December 1985, SkyTrain in Vancouver opened with an Intrusion Detection System, although a replacement technology is now under consideration. IDS is not a new concept, and whether TMU can bring some enhancement that does not already exist in the market remains to be seen.

At this point, management asks the Board for approval to continue study of a potential PED rollout. This would include evaluation of appropriate technologies for different types of stations. and make budget provision for a trial implementation at Dundas/TMU. Any installation work is still a few years away, and a full rollout further still. An obvious question is whether an interim Intrusion Detection System is worthwhile, or even sufficient for the less heavily-used stations.

The challenge is to define the system’s goal and the level of protection needed to achieve this. Will problems simply migrate from stations with full segregation between platforms and trains to others with lesser or no detection or barrier? What proportion of the system must be converted to achieve a significant reduction in unwanted events? How long would it take to achieve this?

The remainder of this article delves into the technical review of PEDs and what their implementation on the TTC network would entail.

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