The group that built the Ottawa Confederation line did not do much work combining Ottawa’s new light rail trains with the computer system that controls them, according to a public investigation.
This lack of integration could even have caused the door problems experienced by drivers after the launch of the train system, a witness to the commission investigating Ottawa LRT breakdowns suggested Monday.
Alstom manufactured the trains for the Ottawa LRT, while Thales Canada Inc. provided the computerized signaling system that controls braking and propulsion, gates, sensors along the tracks and more.
It was up to the Rideau Transit Group, OLRT Constructors, to do the critical work of merging the two companies’ systems. The Confederate Line was the first to integrate a train control system based on Thales communications with a low-light light rail vehicle, the commission’s lawyers said.
At public hearings on the Ottawa light rail system, however, Thales project director Michael Burns stated that he tried to draw the train builder’s attention from the outset to how his company and Alstom had to solve the problems in silos instead of collaborating.
“They had challenges to fulfill that role,” he said of OLRT Constructors.
Poor pre-release “health check”
The commission investigating the Ottawa light rail system heard a similar conclusion last Friday from Rupert Holloway, a SNC-Lavalin vice president and civil engineer who oversaw the construction of the train system at OLRT Constructors in May. 2018 to May 2019.
He said the Ottawa train system includes thousands of complicated digital devices, and the integration of Confederate Line systems was “crucial.”
Holloway gave the example of how various systems should work if there was a fire in a train in the tunnel. Train computers should detect the fire and tell the Belfast Road control room, fresh air should flow to drivers as they evacuate, and elevators should be turned off to prevent other motorists from getting off. to the tunnel.
In retrospect, Holloway said RTG’s construction arm spent a lot of time focusing on building the tunnel, “a world-class piece of civil engineering,” but lost focus when it came to “the integration challenge “.
“We certainly failed to meet this challenge as effectively as we could have done,” Holloway told the commission.
A witness from the company that provided the train control systems for the Ottawa LRT stated on June 20, 2022 that the gates did not behave as expected after the system was put in place because the train manufacturer had changed an order. (Andrew Lee / CBC)
The Ottawa LRT even received a bad grade six months before the original date in 2018, when the system was to be delivered to Ottawa City Council.
OLRT Constructors had hired the consultant SEMP Ltd. to do a “health check” on whether the Ottawa system was on track to be up and running.
“The level of project system engineering so far is considered to be substantially below the minimum acceptable level for a project of this size and complexity,” the consultant summarized in November 2017.
“That was a real catalyst for us,” Holloway said. OLRT Builders then spent more than $ 20 million to blow up UK experts to help fix the gaps, he said.
Passenger trapped at the door
Burns described a couple of cases in which Alstom had made changes to the behavior of the trains, without Thales knowing.
During pre-launch tests, he said Thales discovered that Alstom had changed the software so that a train would stop if the emergency brake was applied too many times, for safety reasons. Thales, meanwhile, had his own test for emergency brakes.
Then, after residents began boarding the train in 2019, Burns said there was a case where a woman was trapped when a train door closed prematurely.
Burns explained that Thales would have waited for the door to reopen if something prevented it from closing. After investigating, he found that Alstom had assigned a different command to this signal.
Thales had to modify the software to avoid this door problem.
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The investigation also found that Thales had not yet finished his work on the first stage of the Confederate Line. Under the contract, Thales was to install its control system at the Belfast Road maintenance and storage facility, but it was not completed.
Burns said the non-automated system in the railroad yard slowed the launch of the LRT system in the morning.
The issue of integrating various systems is expected to be discussed further Tuesday morning, when he plans to declare Lowell Goudge from Alstom. Goudge oversaw the integration of the train system and was Alstom’s safety certificate.
In the afternoon, the commission will hear Jacques Bergeron, responsible for the integration of the Thales and Alstom systems from 2014 to 2018.