The full set of delay logs for 6 Finch West found their way to me recently. The first six days were published in a previous article:
The full set is available in a PDF here. These have been condensed substantially to make browsing easier and to focus on the location, type and duration of delays and incidents.
Many of these delays are short enough that they are not reported to the public via service alerts, but there was a period from December 29-31 when no alerts for Line 6 were issued at all.
A common pattern through the month is that most of the delays are due to infrastructure or equipment failures.
- Inoperative or non-responsive switches, especially on snow days.
- Emergency braking caused by overspeed conditions. Some of these could be false positives, or could indicate an aggressive enforcement of speeds.
- Emergency braking caused by passengers reopening doors. This is a common practice on streetcars, and a design that causes delays through normal passenger behaviour clearly needs a rethink.
- Positional problems at stations caused by spin-slide braking which triggers misreporting of vehicle location.
- Cold cars.
- Many error codes appear on the operator consoles, and these are cleared by “remedial procedures”. There is no discussion of why these happen, and because maintenance is not handled by the TTC, there is no transparency to that part of the operation. An obvious problem is that if normal procedure is to treat error codes as spurious, they lose their meaning and importance.
- Failed communications both of hand-held radios and of the control/signalling system.
- No equipment available. The Line 6 fleet is 18 cars of which 15 are scheduled for peak service.
- Inability to maintain schedule.
- Washroom and work breaks for operators. This implies a scheduling problem which is accentuated by perennial delays on the line.
Operational issues with restrictive speeds at intersections and delays due to traffic signals are not logged as delays except for overspeed incidents. The one exception is a log entry from Christmas Day when by mid-evening the entire line was running about 49 minutes late. This is not a heavy traffic day, but the problem illustrates the mismatch between the line’s design and even the padded schedule that was implemented.
Metrolinx has been silent on the question of reliability of components that lie with its P3 partner, Mosaic, or of any work plan to address shortcomings in the vehicles, systems and infrastructure.
City Council supports changes to the traffic signal behaviour to provide aggressive transit priority, and a report on this is due early in the year. Once that comes out, we will see how much of the original design is due to foot-dragging by car-oriented planning in the Transportation Services Department who are responsible for the signals.
A detailed analysis of service such as I have provided for other TTC routes is impossible because there are no tracking data for the Line 6 vehicles. This is a problem even for the TTC who have no way to review the line’s operation, and for trip prediction apps. This is a glaring oversight that should be corrected as soon as possible to improve real-time rider information and to allow retrospective analysis of operations.
Steve Munro 
Andrew Posluns will take on the role of chief congestion officer and executive director of strategic capital coordination, beginning Jan. 5.. Wonder if that include “congestion” inflicted upon light rail, buses, streetcars, the subway, and pedestrians. Since they are “transportation” as well, not just the motor vehicles.
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It’s interesting to note that the low spare ratio and excessive running times are related issues. If the line ran according to the originally advertised 34min running time, fewer vehicles would be required to cover peak service, and the spare ratio would be higher. I assume the current fleet of vehicles was ordered based on the original estimate of ~34min.
Steve: I suspect so too. They’re running at 20% with an 18:15 ratio, and that’s pretty much industry standard. However for very small fleets like this, a higher ratio is typically needed. Of course Finch was originally to be part of a network, and the MSF would also have housed the fleet for Jane with connections to other routes so that the network as a whole could share spares.
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If this line is ever extended westwards (or eastwards to Yonge as it was originally contemplated) are there provisions for ordering more cars and does the maintenance facility have room for an expanded fleet?
Steve: That will be an interesting challenge considering the small likely order and the number of other lines that might need new cars at the time. Yes, there is room at the MSF. As for whether the existing contracts make any provision for a larger fleet, that’s all buried under the usual Metrolinx secrecy.
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The public is often suspicious of “LRT”. If TTC/Metrolinx/Mosaic wanted to confirm that “LRT” is just a fancy term for “crawling unreliable streetcars” I don’t think they could be doing a better job.
If Metrolinx and Mosaic and Infrastructure Ontario wanted to confirm that P3s are horrible and useless, I don’t think they could be doing a better job either.
Of course maybe these aren’t their goals. However this is what they are producing.
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It turns out that, because the LRVs are double ended, you can see the speedometer in the back to see exactly how fast (or how slow) the LRV is going. This video shows the speed going through the curves between Albion and Kipling, and it’s agonizing.
But it’s not only the actual speed you can see — there’s constantly a big marker, constantly changing to show the atrociously slow speed limit for whatever section the LRV’s traveling through. And I have to think that has the unintended effect of making the LRVs even slower. (If it’s not there and the speed isn’t being actively monitored, an operator is safe to hover at or around the speed as long as they’re reasonably close. If there’s a big “DO NOT EXCEED” marker and the operator is being monitored, you can see in the video how a 35 km/h speed limit turns into a 32 or 33 km/h “de facto” speed limit so as to not accidentally exceed the limit by 1 km/h and earn a meeting with a supervisor.)
It’s not your imagination, the LRVs are slow, it’s intentional, and while yes signal operations are part of the problem, fixing the signals will not fix all of the problem.
Steve: This is a classic example of implementing a system that encourages “safe” driving to avoid an overspeed limit. Buses are not forced into such a situation, but the “LRT” is. Built in stupidity.
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Why wouldn’t they just make it so overspeed is impossible, pedal to the metal just gives you the max speed for that section…if it’s truly a safety thing, then there is no reason to go above the speed…but also no reason to make the driver have to figure this out manually.
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Safety theatre run amok once again. What an asinine design. Is it TTC culture again, as they’ve been known for this kind of stupidity, or is it Metrolinx, as they’re known for their own brand of stupidity?
Steve: I think both bear some blame for this mess.
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Are Mosaic paying any penalties for this.. will we even know?
Steve: The contract with Mosaic is under the usual Metrolinx blanked of “commercial confidentiality”.
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Yet, on many suburban arterial roads, they reduced the speed limits from 60 km/h to 50 km/h. Some, like The Queensway went from 60 km/h to get 40 km/h posted speed limit signs. However, nothing else. The traffic lanes remained the same width. So motorists, including buses, continue to drive at 60 km/h or more, because the roadway “feels” you should go faster.
Of course the light rail, streetcars, and subway are overly micromanaged on “safety”. Even if the rails “feels” like they can go faster. They are erring on the side of “safety” too much.
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