WATCH LIVE | Day 10 of the consultation:
The tests heard on Thursday the ninth day of public inquiry into the Confederacy Line were the most serious for the city to date.
The city of Ottawa gladly accepted a light rail system that it knew was probably unreliable and changed the criteria to make it easier for Rideau Transit Group to pass the final tests of the Confederation Line.
The testimony of city engineer and railroad manager Richard Holder confirmed that the city accepted the LRT and put it into service while making a calculation that would fix the problems after passengers began to circulate.
“I will suggest to you that the city knew there were reliability issues with the system at the time it decided to launch the public service,” commission chief co-lawyer Kate McGrann told Holder in a particularly illuminating exchange. .
“We knew there would be some reliability issues,” he replied. “Yes, we did. We didn’t anticipate that there would be reliability issues to the extent that we would have derailments.”
Richard Holder, the city’s railroad engineer and manager, said Thursday in video on the Ottawa LRT’s public poll. (Kate Porter / CBC)
McGrann insisted, “Did the city know that reliability issues could interfere with the provision of reliable service to the public?”
Holder responded that the train manufacturer Alstom, which is also the company in charge of maintenance, had been reporting improvements.
“That’s not an answer to my question, sir,” McGrann said. “My question was that the city knew there were reliability issues that could interfere with the provision of reliable service to the public.”
“That’s right,” Holder replied.
The city agreed that the LRT was done while the 34 cars were in trouble
In late April 2019, when the LRT came a year late, Rideau Transit Group (RTG) told the city that the LRT was substantially complete.
It was a major last step in the process of delivering the Confederate Line to the city, and it came with a $ 59 million payday.
But the city rejected RTG’s claim of substantial completion and the project’s independent certifier sided with the city. In a letter dated May 2, 2019 to RTG, the city said 25 vehicles had defects that were “extensive and continuous and that caused lack of access to the entire fleet.
“Vehicles have not been shown to be reliable.”
On July 26, 2019, RTG again requested a substantial termination, and this time the city and the independent certifier agreed.
But it turns out the city agreed that the LRT was basically over and paid $ 59 million, even though there was a long list of pending issues that it decided to give up and postpone.
Failure to comply with the entire system to meet the requirements of the fleet due to ongoing defects / deficiencies.- One of the defects that the city gave up.
These are not the so-called minor deficiencies, which are allowed in the contract, but elements that “could be considered quite important, [a] The key is the number of vehicles that would be available with the availability of the revenue service, ”Holder said.
Unresolved items included light rail vehicles, the 34. There was no wagon that did not have an open problem.
Another pending issue that the city gave up? A “failure to meet system-wide fleet requirements due to ongoing defects / deficiencies.”
Delays like this in October 2019 were common in the early days of LRT service. Now, a public inquiry has heard that the city knew there would be reliability issues. (Giacomo Panico / CBC)
It is unclear why the city would accept that the Confederation Line was substantially complete as long as it knew these details, but Holder stated that the city believed train defects would improve between substantial completion and before RTG delivered it to the city, which turned out to be just. a month later.
In addition, the Confederate Line had to go through a trial period before the city accepted it, which Holder said added another layer of protection for the city.
The test score was provided during the test
Although the light rail contract provided for a 12-day trial period, the requirements for what constituted a pass were vague, so the city and RTG agreed on the specific criteria in 2017.
But in the run-up to the 2019 test, the city and RTG’s construction group agreed on a generally tougher version of the dashboard. The investigation found that the performance of the requested LRT in 2019 better reflected what the city expected in a light rail system, according to the contract.
But a few days after the start of the test, Holder was called to speak with city management to discuss the criteria.
And when the Altus Group independent certifier sent the city its test validation statement dated August 23, 2019, it described how the criteria were changed to the 2017 version during the trial period. .
First, the requirement to run 15 trains during the morning and afternoon rush hours was reduced to 13.
“They were having challenges getting 15 trains in the morning,” Holder told the commission.
In addition, the performance measure that indicates how many trains are on track for customer service and for how long, called total vehicle availability ratio kilometers or AVKR, was reduced to 96% from 98%.
And that 96 percent limit should only be met on nine of the test days, not on each of the 12 days. Thus, the system could experience three terrible days of service in less than two weeks, and those days would not count.
Finally, there was a requirement that the reliability of the train (again, the AVKR) not fall below 90 percent on any day of the test.
But that changed to a requirement that there be no three consecutive days that train availability be less than 94 percent, meaning RTG could have, in McGrann’s words, “two very bad days” and still pass.
Kate McGrann, senior co-advisor to the Ottawa Light Rail Transit Commission, asked for hours a city train manager about the city’s willingness to launch the LRT when it knew there were problems. (Frédéric Pepin / Radio-Canada)
RTG successfully completed the test on August 22, 2019, and the next day, Mayor Jim Watson announced that the city would officially take over the Confederation Line and that the city would open it to the public on the 14th. of September.
Holder said the system was secure and never received any specific advice not to get it up and running. RTG felt it was ready and would incur significant sanctions if the system did not work, he noted.
McGrann asked Holder if there were still reliability issues after the substantial completion and after the launch of the LRT, and Holder agreed.
He said the city “was aware that the reliability of the system would improve”, but that at the start of the public launch “there may be issues that would affect availability”.
All in one day 10:18 LRT consultation week 2: How were the trains prepared?
Kate Porter takes us to provincial research on the Ottawa LRT system, which this week raised questions about how far the system was at the launch date.