Alto - High Speed Rail (Toronto-Quebec City)

[kEiThZ]

I'm not sure even you know how exactly their yield management/revenue management works.

I don't need to. The very fact that they don't have fixed pricing should tell you something.

Also, being in aviation I've gotten enough exposure to the idea from my civvie friends.

Just that it appears to work in a suboptimal way: for both Via and the customer.

Works just fine for VIA. If a train goes out full, yield management has failed or it's an exceptional day. In the absolutely ideal yield management system, the last seat on the train should cost infinity dollars.

Time-to-departure seems to have a bigger effect.

With lower service frequency (not necessarily capacity), yield management places greater weight on departure time differentiation. Via frequencies are much lower than flights for TO-MTL right now.

Capacity not frequency. What do you think would happen if the number of seats for each departure were 1000 instead of 300? Still think the same sensitivity to timing would be there?

Also technical jargon can make discussions less inclusive.

Who cares? Don't like it? Don't engage.

 

[Bordercollie]

I don't need to. The very fact that they don't have fixed pricing should tell you something.

Also, being in aviation I've gotten enough exposure to the idea from my civvie friends.



Works just fine for VIA. If a train goes out full, yield management has failed or it's an exceptional day. In the absolutely ideal yield management system, the last seat on the train should cost infinity dollars.





Capacity not frequency. What do you think would happen if the number of seats for each departure were 1000 instead of 300? Still think the same sensitivity to timing would be there?



Who cares? Don't like it? Don't engage.

So when I travel in the corridor certain cars are assigned to certain stops. So from Ottawa to Toronto is car 1. So along the route nobody gets off and if the car is not full leaving Ottawa people board along the way.

I always wanted to know if they ever allocate more than one car for one destination? When car 1 gets full and business class is full do they stop selling tickets? Because I've never seen a situation where both car 1 and 2 was for Toronto. Or is that just my experience?

 

[urbanclient]

"With lower service frequency (not necessarily capacity), yield management places greater weight on departure time differentiation." Conversely, lower capacity per departure does not in itself increase departure time differentiation. It would increase prices for all departures, all other factors being the same. <--- Feel free to look this up.

Lower capacity per day, due to less departures/lower frequency does increase departure time differentiation.

Capacity not frequency. What do you think would happen if the number of seats for each departure were 1000 instead of 300? Still think the same sensitivity to timing would be there?

That changes scarcity, not how substitutable one departure is for another. Lower capacity per departure only reduces total daily capacity if frequency is fixed. Hence, lower frequency causes yield mgmt to emphasize departure time differentiation, by reducing temporal substitituion, whereas lower capacity per departure affects scarcity and in practice is only correlated with the aforementioned.

Frequency and capacity move together in some cases which is what you are probably getting at. That's why I said not necessarily.

 

[kEiThZ]

So when I travel in the corridor certain cars are assigned to certain stops. So from Ottawa to Toronto is car 1. So along the route nobody gets off and if the car is not full leaving Ottawa people board along the way.

I always wanted to know if they ever allocate more than one car for one destination? When car 1 gets full and business class is full do they stop selling tickets? Because I've never seen a situation where both car 1 and 2 was for Toronto. Or is that just my experience?

I've been moved cars before. But no idea how that lines up with their yield management. I assume Urban Sky can speak to that if it's not in his NDA.

The broader point here is that VIA does a bunch of things today to squeeze as much revenue as they can from the few seats they can sell. They'd be way cheaper if they could sell more seats. But the government won't allow that. Alto won't have anywhere near the same constraints. Abd I fully expect the Corridor will go from one of the most profitable aviation markets in the country to one that is mostly about serving connecting passengers.

 

[urbanclient]

Abd I fully expect the Corridor will go from one of the most profitable aviation markets in the country to one that is mostly about serving connecting passengers.

I hope so, fingers crossed

 

[afransen]

Have you used WiFi on a via rail train? I’m assuming it’s satellite-based, and it’s so bad I usually don’t even bother. I can’t imagine ALTO improving it that much.

Why? Starlink and eventual competitors will make satellite internet ubiquitous before Alto is realized.

 

[urbanclient]

Why? Starlink and eventual competitors will make satellite internet ubiquitous before Alto is realized.

Starlink is rolling out on some airlines like WestJet and it works great. Within 10 years, it or a similar competitor will be on every airliner.

 

[Racer_77]

Yes DC Oshawa Station to union station or Peterborough are both roughly 1 hr by car. However the point of having a shoulder station is to make the outer extremities of the region easily accessible.

That's fair. I think that it's kinda the intention that Peterborough isn't really "GTA East":

• From a "400-km view", someone might see a lot of transit lines leading into Union, so they wouldn't see a point in placing another stop so close, especially since the GTA is denser west of Yonge.
• Those mentions of commuters (or even weekend visitors) from Peterborough to Toronto also make a good point.
• Since Kingston is out of consideration, placing the stop that far out makes it accessible to a lot of communities like Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, even Belleville. And from a political angle, it avoids the "Metrolinx only cares about Toronto" type of complaints.

 

[kEiThZ]

Again. Alto didn't give a list of stations. They gave a list of cities they intend to serve. Not sure why everybody is just assuming there won't be more than one station in Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal.

 

[crs1026]

Peterborough is getting far more attention in this forum than it deserves. I wish people would stop fixating on it.

There is no reason to believe that it will end up with more train service than, say, Washago is getting with the return of the Nothlander.

Personally, my money is on Alto building a bypass, because the current track through downtown is awkward to reconstruct and frequent HSR service has many negative potential impacts on the surrounding urban area (which admittedly is in decline and could use a boost). Whereas a potential bypass routing has good road connectivity and is indeed within sight of the airport, which is currently marginal as a passenger terminal - iirc Westjet used it for a while but pulled out due to lack of business. Porter isn't looking at it, either. There are more flights to Gravenhurst at the moment.

I can imagine a Peterboro airport with a commuter connection using some HSR friendly high performance equipment similar to the Class 195 Javelins which run high speed regional trains on the UK's Eurostar route.... but I'm not sure that is really a priority justifying the investment comparable to just having good bus service down the 115 and 407 to points in Durham Region. Maybe my grandkids will want it, but it's not anything imminent.

So despite all the political promises, the Peterborough Alto infrastructure may look a lot like Washago's.... a parking lot, a ONR-scale shelter, and quite lonely outside of peak commuting hours Toronto-bound. Maybe a single eastbound run stopping in the morning allowing day trips to Ottawa and Montreal, with return in the afternoon. That can be accomplished without impacting Alto service planning or timing since most trains will not stop there.

I don't take all the political noise too literally. Peterborough is a sideshow.

- Paul

 

[roger1818]

A substantially part of the federal motivation for HSR was to reduce flying. Over and above driving. It was actually part of their climate policy a while back. Connecting Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal and Québec will reduce demand for flights between those cities substantially. Those are all the busiest airports in the Corridor.

This made me wonder, what are the busiest airports in "The Corridor." According to Wikipedia, in 2024, it was as follows. I would have included the Total Passengers, but for some reason it is missing for some airports. You can get a rough idea by looking at the airports above and below it though. Granted, most of the passengers will be traveling outside of the corridor.

National Rank​	Airport	Serves
1​	Toronto Pearson International Airport	Greater Toronto Area
3​	Montréal–Trudeau International Airport	Greater Montreal
6​	Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport	National Capital Region
10​	Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport	Toronto
12​	Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport	Quebec City Metropolitan Region
20​	Region of Waterloo International Airport	Waterloo Region
26​	London International Airport	London
27​	John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport	Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area

 

[lenaitch]

Peterborough is getting far more attention in this forum than it deserves. I wish people would stop fixating on it.

There is no reason to believe that it will end up with more train service than, say, Washago is getting with the return of the Nothlander.

Personally, my money is on Alto building a bypass, because the current track through downtown is awkward to reconstruct and frequent HSR service has many negative potential impacts on the surrounding urban area (which admittedly is in decline and could use a boost). Whereas a potential bypass routing has good road connectivity and is indeed within sight of the airport, which is currently marginal as a passenger terminal - iirc Westjet used it for a while but pulled out due to lack of business. Porter isn't looking at it, either. There are more flights to Gravenhurst at the moment.

I can imagine a Peterboro airport with a commuter connection using some HSR friendly high performance equipment similar to the Class 195 Javelins which run high speed regional trains on the UK's Eurostar route.... but I'm not sure that is really a priority justifying the investment comparable to just having good bus service down the 115 and 407 to points in Durham Region. Maybe my grandkids will want it, but it's not anything imminent.

So despite all the political promises, the Peterborough Alto infrastructure may look a lot like Washago's.... a parking lot, a ONR-scale shelter, and quite lonely outside of peak commuting hours Toronto-bound. Maybe a single eastbound run stopping in the morning allowing day trips to Ottawa and Montreal, with return in the afternoon. That can be accomplished without impacting Alto service planning or timing since most trains will not stop there.

I don't take all the political noise too literally. Peterborough is a sideshow.

- Paul

I agree, staying with the roughly the current alignment would require either a moveable bridge or an extensive and expensive elevated structure which would require the station to be moved anyway.

 

[micheal_can]

This made me wonder, what are the busiest airports in "The Corridor." According to Wikipedia, in 2024, it was as follows. I would have included the Total Passengers, but for some reason it is missing for some airports. You can get a rough idea by looking at the airports above and below it though. Granted, most of the passengers will be traveling outside of the corridor.

National Rank​	Airport	Serves
1​	Toronto Pearson International Airport	Greater Toronto Area
3​	Montréal–Trudeau International Airport	Greater Montreal
6​	Ottawa Macdonald–Cartier International Airport	National Capital Region
10​	Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport	Toronto
12​	Québec City Jean Lesage International Airport	Quebec City Metropolitan Region
20​	Region of Waterloo International Airport	Waterloo Region
26​	London International Airport	London
27​	John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport	Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area

I heard there was about 70 flights a day between Toronto and Montreal. It would be interesting to see how many flights between these airports exist.

 

[Jonny5]

I heard there was about 70 flights a day between Toronto and Montreal. It would be interesting to see how many flights between these airports exist.

Between Pearson and the Island Airport, Porter alone has 14 flights per day each direction.

 

[Mihairokov]

Today YTZ has 12 departures for YUL and 10 departues for YOW.

Today, YYZ has 24 departures to or via YUL and 16 departures for YOW.

YOW also has six departures for YUL which IMO is a route that HSR should theoretically nearly outright end.