afransen
Senior Member
As @Reecemartin points out in a recent video on youtube, such customer service promises tend to lead to schedule padding/slower service which is just another way of planning to be late every day.
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GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)
- Thread starter drum118
- Start date
littlewill1166
Active Member
Personally, I'd rather a service be slow and on time (GO), rather than fast and late all the time (VIA). It makes personal planning and scheduling easier, and it reduces the likelihood of me becoming anxious about being late getting somewhere. It's a zero-sum game since either the transit agency or the passenger has to pad their schedule at the end of the day. I'd personally rather the transit agency do it since they should theoretically know their own operations better.
ARG1
Senior Member
From what I understand, very little progress was actually done on the London - Toronto HSR route by 2018. Even if the current government would've went full steam ahead on the project (disregarding all of the problems with the project), its unlikely we would've actually seen anything up and running prior to 2030.
reaperexpress
Senior Member
It was clear from the beginning that the Windsor HSR plan was just a fancy thing for the Liberals to say before an election, and nobody had any intention of actually building it. I don't blame the Conservatives for cancelling it. However they definitely did pull funding for valuable transport projects like the Niagara GO extension (Confederation and Casablanca stations), and initiatives such as the 50% discount on TTC when transferring to or from GO
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anb
Active Member
I think they might wait until the bus terminal is finished at Bramalea GO to coincide with the 30 min service and as both the Zum and local Steeles buses would finally serve the station proper, Bramalea will already be turned into a frequent transit hub and will heavily drive up ridership on the trains. If that isn’t the case then September is most likely as said earlier.
SaugeenJunction
Senior Member
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
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They should aim for Mount Pleasant. No need for crowding in Bramalea.
anb
Active Member
After we see the success of Main LRT and Queen BRT, its hard to see why they would waste the opportunity not to extend 15-30 min service to DT Brampton (in before they call it Brampton Metropolitan Center or some ridiculous name by then). Mount Pleasant would be a dream to see that type of service but maybe we’ll see it one day in the far distant future if we ever strike a deal with CN or just build our own tracks.
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ssiguy2
Senior Member
Wynne's HSR line to London {little alone Windsor} was nothing more than a plan written on the back of a napkin a couple months before the election.
HSR to Windsor would be nice but not really necessary. If VIA would invest in track twinning and overpasses and offer a Windsor/London/Union express than speeds would increase dramatically. At 180km/hr top speed the trip to London could easily take less than 90 minutes and, equally importantly, be reliable. VIA, however, has made it quite clear that they have no intention of improving the route and as it stands now it is unreliable and painfully slow so I could see GO wanting to take the southern route as well. God knows the people of SWO couldn't possibly be worse off.
HSR to Windsor would be nice but not really necessary. If VIA would invest in track twinning and overpasses and offer a Windsor/London/Union express than speeds would increase dramatically. At 180km/hr top speed the trip to London could easily take less than 90 minutes and, equally importantly, be reliable. VIA, however, has made it quite clear that they have no intention of improving the route and as it stands now it is unreliable and painfully slow so I could see GO wanting to take the southern route as well. God knows the people of SWO couldn't possibly be worse off.
EnviroTO
Senior Member
Not really. October 2015 David Collenette was appointed as Special Advisor on High Speed Rail for Ontario, December 2016 the recommendation came out to build high-speed rail using RER investments from Toronto to Kitchener and a new track from there to London on the edge of an existing Hydro Corridor as phase one of HSR in Ontario. An announcement May 2017 of $15 million for preliminary design work and an environmental assessment, followed by the start of that environmental assessment on March 2018. The choice of Toronto - London was due to deliverability (cost and lower risks) and synergies with RER investments and corridor purchases. Investments into RER Kitchener would get paid off more quickly because it would also serve as the primary corridor for passenger traffic to London and beyond. It was around this same time that Ontario purchased Silver to Kitchener trackage.
robmausser
Senior Member
Its really annoying because a final plan of a 200kmh VIA HFR going Windsor > London > Kitchener > Toronto > Ottawa > Montreal > Quebec City would do amazing things for 1/3 of the population of Canada. It simply complicates things and adds frustrations if they are done by 2 different Federal/Provincial services. Anyone going from London to Ottawa for example, that has to change trains in Toronto and pay 2 fares for 2 different services is just going to say "why bother" and drive or fly.
rbt
Senior Member
Transfers aren't unusual in the better used railway networks. Most passengers in Spain/France/Germany making 500km+ trips would be transferring. Cross platform timed transfer points makes these extremely smooth; far smoother flying from London to Ottawa would be.
Fare integration is wholly political. There no technical reason why a single entity couldn't sell a combined VIA/GO/... trip ticket. Many times when people fly they don't even know who's operating the aircraft, only who they bought the ticket from; selling tickets on another companies flight is common.
Bordercollie
Senior Member
reaperexpress
Senior Member
The lack of fare integration is an issue regardless of which agency operates the Windsor-Toronto service. There are plenty of situations where people are already dissuaded from riding trains due to the double fares. At Oshawa, VIA passengers from Ottawa or Montréal can connect to the Lakeshore East line which normally runs every 15 minutes, guaranteeing a convenient transfer regardless of how delayed the VIA train is. So in theory, VIA should be able to run non-stop from Oshawa to Union while also having excellent coverage for the intermediate area via GO.
But due to the total lack of fare integration, passengers making this transfer get dinged by a big fare penalty. A trip on train 41 from Kingston to Union on 29 June 2022 costs $54 at the moment,
but a trip to Scarborough, which is between Kingston and Toronto, costs $65.
And don't get me started on the insane conditions on GO tickets sold by VIA, namely that you need to take the specific train listed on your ticket, even when the VIA trip planner tells you to wait 1h15 for a service which runs every 30 minutes.
The $11 difference in cost matches the cash price for a GO ticket from Oshawa to Scarborough. VIA doesn't even get the Presto discount, let alone integrated fares.
By definition, the passengers who transfer from VIA to GO at Oshawa will not be riding all the way to Union. Since they exit the train before the busiest point of the route, they have no impact on GO's operating costs (frequency/length of trains). GO should be able to offer VIA a good discount on tickets, and still end up with a net profit thanks to the increased ticket sales on the outer portions of the routes.
If there were fare integration, it wouldn't be that big of a deal for VIA to eliminate minor stops such as Malton or Georgetown, since passengers could connect to VIA at Guelph. Currently the 17:40 VIA train to Kitchener spends most of its time jockeying with the 17:34 GO train which has approximately the same average speed. The trains cross each others' paths numerous times, basically guaranteeing that one of them will delay the other at some point.
Current schedule, westbound
If VIA skipped Malton, it could easily overtake the GO train there and be done with it, and start clawing back the 30-minute gap behind the previous GO train. If VIA skipped Georgetown, they would no longer need to cross all the CN tracks there, reducing the chance of delays. These changes, combined with updating schedules to reflect recent track upgrades, would enable VIA to cover Toronto-Kitchener in under 90 minutes today.
Proposed schedule, westbound
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rbt
Senior Member
It would work however the companies negotiate it to work.
When to you go to the SNCF website and buy a ticket from Paris to Munich, and mid-way get a transfer onto a DB train, it still works as a single trip. If the first train is cancelled or delayed, the second portion of your trip is adjusted.
When you go to the Air Canada website and buy a ticket from Toronto to Auckland, and mid-way you transfer onto an Air New Zealand aircraft, it still works as a single trip. If the first flight from Toronto to Vancouver is cancelled or delayed, the second portion of your trip is adjusted.
There is precedence for VIA and their partner airline to both have some flexibility in these bookings. If you book from Peterborough Ontario to London England, and the VIA train (with transfer at Dorval) is delayed or cancelled, the flight portion of your trip could be adjusted just as if you flew from Peterborough to Montreal.
What you've described is not a technical issue; it's a contractual issue. If VIA allows sales with standard commissions and flexibility (as European railways typically allow; Portugal is/was a notable exception), then problems will be handled in the standard way. You contact the agent you used to purchase the ticket (Air Canada, VIA, or another travel agency) and have them fix the problem.
With HFR, I hope VIA starts pushing their ticketing through Amadeus and Travelport GDS systems (both already carry some railway scheduling), and negotiates code-sharing with major airlines from there.
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