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Montréal Transit Developments

robmausser said:
Thats wrong. Once Line 1 is entirely ATC operation it will be driverless; albeit one employee will still sit in the driver seat to operate the doors.

Currently there are 2 employees, one to operate the doors and one to drive.

Having 2 employees currently is a useless union requirment, and so is the 1 driver with ATC.

But, the trains will drive themselves, the employee isn't a driver, they are a "sit there and open the doors" operator.

And I guess to make sure nothing goes wrong with the ATC. I mean, the Skytrain has operated driverless since 1985 without a single major accident, and in 1995 driver negligence on the TTC subway killed a bunch of people and injured hundreds of others, but hey, whatever
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That's wrong - if it were correct, Montreal's existing metro would already be considered "driverless".

If we're going to be pedantic: instead of driverless, we could say automated. But either term refers to having no train operator whatsoever, which is how the REM will operate.
 
felix123 said:
That's wrong - if it were correct, Montreal's existing metro would already be considered "driverless".

If we're going to be pedantic: instead of driverless, we could say automated. But either term refers to having no train operator whatsoever, which is how the REM will operate.
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The difference between the two is that a human being is sitting in a chair not doing anything to control the train and you are calling ME pedantic... LOL
 
robmausser said:
The difference between the two is that a human being is sitting in a chair not doing anything to control the train and you are calling ME pedantic... LOL
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Driverless, in this case, is referring to GoA4 level automation, which means the train handles everything itself. While you are talking about GoA2 level automation, where you still have an operator 'driving the doors' and pushing the 'start driving' button at each station like in Montreal's Metro. That train operator will be responsible for driving the train in emergencies during GoA2 operation. A GoA4 can automatically go to the nearest safe station or wait for instructions from the control center without anyone needing to be present inside the train. GoA2 will literally shut down the whole train/line if the driver does not press the start button at each station - an emergency measure.
 
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W. K. Lis said:
The "employee" in the train does not have to "sit" in the chair for the whole trip. They can stand, stretch their legs, talk to passengers or the control centre, check on passengers, etc..
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That's GoA 3 where there is an attendant in the train for emergency purposes but not necessarily on the driver's seat. It's also called Driverless Train Operation. (DTO)

GoA 4 means there is no employee whatsoever in the train. Also called, Unattended Train Operation (UTO)

TTC is working to reach GoA 2 which is Semi-Automatic Train Operation (STO). Unlike the name, the trains don't run fully automated. As people have mentioned above, an operator needs to sit on the driver seat and press buttons or open and close the doors . They can't be away from their seat. Although they can afford to be distracted without serious consequences.
 
Deadpool X said:
That's GoA 3 where there is an attendant in the train for emergency purposes but not necessarily on the driver's seat. It's also called Driverless Train Operation. (DTO)

GoA 4 means there is no employee whatsoever in the train. Also called, Unattended Train Operation (UTO)

TTC is working to reach GoA 2 which is Semi-Automatic Train Operation (STO). Unlike the name, the trains don't run fully automated. As people have mentioned above, an operator needs to sit on the driver seat and press buttons or open and close the doors . They can't be away from their seat. Although they can afford to be distracted without serious consequences.
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They can act as an "attendant". Ready to step in for an emergency.
 
I think the idea is to eliminate drivers to reduce the dependency on 'attendant' scheduling and labour cost from providing service, in addition to providing more predictable and reliable service.

There's lots of driving and operating to do out there. No need to fret about keeping people on the train.
 
Sorry, late in the conversation here, but could someone explain of the current STM Metro is able to achieve full driverless / autonomous operations, as it is with the current infrastructure and rollingstock in place? Or further upgrades are still needed? If we are able to achieve that today, is there a valid reason why we still need a manual operator/attendant in the front cab of each Azur train, other than union requirements to keep jobs in place?

My impression is that when trains approach stations, STM Metros is already achieving full automation. For example on the Orange Line, trains are already stopping at designated parameters that are directly aligned with the door markers on each platform with great accuracy. At least in that part of the operation, it requires very little human intervention and hence why STM can proceed with their platform screen door project on Orange Line.
 
SFO-YYZ said:
Sorry, late in the conversation here, but could someone explain of the current STM Metro is able to achieve full driverless / autonomous operations, as it is with the current infrastructure and rollingstock in place? Or further upgrades are still needed? If we are able to achieve that today, is there a valid reason why we still need a manual operator/attendant in the front cab of each Azur train, other than union requirements to keep jobs in place?

My impression is that when trains approach stations, STM Metros is already achieving full automation. For example on the Orange Line, trains are already stopping at designated parameters that are directly aligned with the door markers on each platform with great accuracy. At least in that part of the operation, it requires very little human intervention and hence why STM can proceed with their platform screen door project on Orange Line.
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I don't have concrete information. But this uncited excerpt on Wikipedia might hold a clue.
Trains are programmed to stop at certain station positions with a precise odometer (accurate to plus or minus five centimetres, 2"). They receive their braking program and station stop positions orders (one-third, two-thirds, or end of station) from track beacons prior to entering the station, with additional beacons in the station for ensuring stop precision. The last beacon is positioned at precisely 12 turns of wheels from the end of the platform, which help improve the overall precision of the system.[citation needed]
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It seems that the train is controlled by beacons on the track and not directly by a command center like what I see in all GoA4 systems I know of. Other restrictions might be that the tracks don't have an intrusion detection system. And also there is a fire department/safety thing going on that severely limits the number of trains within the tunnels between stations. (a train is not allowed to leave a station until the train ahead arrives at the next station.)

Does anyone have more concrete info on this?
 
SFO-YYZ said:
Sorry, late in the conversation here, but could someone explain of the current STM Metro is able to achieve full driverless / autonomous operations, as it is with the current infrastructure and rollingstock in place? Or further upgrades are still needed? If we are able to achieve that today, is there a valid reason why we still need a manual operator/attendant in the front cab of each Azur train, other than union requirements to keep jobs in place?
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They Metro has been operating using ATC since the mid-1970s, using the original 1960s and 1970s rolling stock. The automation was part of the 1970s expansion of the system. I'm sure you've seen the metro trains arriving with the driver sat reading the newspaper, and not even looking out the window ... that was certainly common in the early 1980s.

The driver closes the door, and as far as I know, just presses the button to let the system take over. Essentially the driver is there to close the doors and press the button. And contingencies. (which makes me wonder what the second driver used to do ... perhaps got a nap until the train changed direction).

The Scarborough RT used to work in a similar manner didn't it, in the 1980s, when it was new?
 
NoahB said:
I don't have concrete information. But this uncited excerpt on Wikipedia might hold a clue.

It seems that the train is controlled by beacons on the track and not directly by a command center like what I see in all GoA4 systems I know of. Other restrictions might be that the tracks don't have an intrusion detection system. And also there is a fire department/safety thing going on that severely limits the number of trains within the tunnels between stations. (a train is not allowed to leave a station until the train ahead arrives at the next station.)

Does anyone have more concrete info on this?
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The beacons send a number to the train of how many wheel turns are needed to reach the next station. This is controlled by the command center but not the trains directly. i.e. a train can't be guided automatically remotely; there still needs to be an operator.

The limit of one train per interstation is there because most interstations are in a U shape, thus when a trains loses power and automatic braking fails, it wouldn't crash with another vehicle in the tunnel. That limitation could be removed with other designs.
 
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nfitz said:
You misunderstand me. I didn't say it wasn't light rail.


Eglinton Line only has equal capacity to Canada Line, if you make a lot of assumptions, such as much more frequent trains on one instead of the other, replacement (or at least rebuilding) existing trains, and assumptions about about being able to maintain frequent service with crush capacity, rather than design capacity.

One challenge is that this new east-west light rail is going to have, like at Bloor station, is a huge number of people getting out at the terminus, and at the interchange station near Berri. The train being shorter isn't going to impact the dwell time much, with the biggest bottleneck being getting people out of the train ... which is primarily a function of the number of people who have to walk through the door. I suppose you could help this by putting on even more doors - similar to the old Montreal Metro cars. But the trend has for some reason to go for less doors.

Hopefully they use centre and side platforms at the terminus and station at Berri to address this.
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The point is it *isn't* light rail, referring to something as light rail is already generally bad because light rail is not a concrete term, it has many interpretations - but especially on a Toronto forum where "light rail" means a tram or something with tram rolling stock calling a light metro an LRT is doing it a big disservice.

Eglinton Line has the same capacity as Canada Line based on official documents. Ridership data indeed suggested the CL will be able to handle those numbers, Eglinton is going to struggle given how poor the door arrangement and circulation on it's trains are.
 
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