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I really doubt this. You're using a vehicle that was designed to be run on street with slow average speeds - a tram style service, in a metro style service where its constantly running at high speeds and is constantly being abused by large crowds. Its like pulling a trailer with an SUV - technically possible but don't be surprised when things quickly start breaking down.
The cynic in me says that would be the very first thing forgotten by anyone on a particular side of a future LRT vehicle selection. I would Alstom knows enough about Ontario to think the same.
Using low floor vehicles is the biggest mistake. It just cost more to build and maintain. They really are for premetro systems, not a fully grade separated one. Large crowds shouldn't be a major issue. The streetcars on King get the same abuse and is in line with Ottawa.
From their website:
As I said, they can run at those speeds, its technically possible, but its really pushing their design to an absolute limit. The amount of wear trains get under Metro style operations is significantly more than a tram style operations. Also don't forget that we're talking about Low Floor trains, where the bogeys and engines are fitted into a very tight physical space, meaning that they are even more prone to wear and tear (and for this reason, LFLRVs are often far more expensive to maintain than their high floor counterparts).
Reminder: Alstom was also subcontracted to perform maintenance on these vehicles.
I don't think it was Alstom who did that, but someone did. In any case, RTG was awarded the bid before the vehicle selection was done. They chose between Siemens and Alstom. i.e. Alstom had very little to do with the development of the bid.
It honestly looks like the City just copied/kept the requirements from the old N-S line, which did have street running sections. When the decision was made to go 100% grade-separated, either nobody went back to do an analysis on whether low-floor LRVs was still the best option, or if they did the higher-ups ignored it.
I'm sorry but are you one of the Engineers who designed the system or the trains? Do you have any actual background on this? Because low floor or high floor the components are the same.
I am basing this off of what engineers who have experience in this field have told me.
I wasn't referring to low vs high floor from a reliability standpoint, but rather from a capacity standpoint. Low floor really only makes sense if you have street-level platforms. If your system is entirely grade-separated and using full stations, high floor increases the capacity of each vehicle, and can be configured in a wider variety of internal layouts.
