Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

nfitz said:
For TR on Line 1, if you go with 1,080 a train, and a frequency of every 2 minutes, you are looking at 30,240 an hour. So about 24,000 versus 30,000.
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Thanks.

This seems to me like a problem. If the project is as essential as we have been lead to believe, if it is essential to provide another subway line into the core and relieve the Yonge line, leaving a capacity of 6000 people per hour on the table seems like a problem. What are we going to do in the future when the line starts getting overloaded? Expanding stations after the fact would be both expensive and disruptive - the easiest way to forestall such a problem coming up is to build for larger trains in the first place. But good thing the SSE gets the regular sized rolling stock :rolleyes:
 
T3G said:
Thanks.

This seems to me like a problem. If the project is as essential as we have been lead to believe, if it is essential to provide another subway line into the core and relieve the Yonge line, leaving a capacity of 6000 people per hour on the table seems like a problem. What are we going to do in the future when the line starts getting overloaded? Expanding stations after the fact would be both expensive and disruptive - the easiest way to forestall such a problem coming up is to build for larger trains in the first place. But good thing the SSE gets the regular sized rolling stock :rolleyes:
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You're free to go back 500 or so pages in this thread to read through the actual arguments.
 
I do not think a capacity discrepancy of 6000 is self evidently enough of a good idea to so off hand dismiss any concerns levelled against it. If the arguments for building transit that can carry less are so compelling, why must I go back through 500 pages of discussion?
 
T3G said:
I do not think a capacity discrepancy of 6000 is self evidently enough of a good idea to so off hand dismiss any concerns levelled against it. If the arguments for building transit that can carry less are so compelling, why must I go back through 500 pages of discussion?
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All I'm saying is this topic has been beaten to death, and I think most of us aren't in a mood for relitigation.
 
T3G said:
I do not think a capacity discrepancy of 6000 is self evidently enough of a good idea to so off hand dismiss any concerns levelled against it. If the arguments for building transit that can carry less are so compelling, why must I go back through 500 pages of discussion?
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But to add some context, the 600 passengers per train number that @nfitz used is kinda sus. The number that I recall being used is 750 per train, in line with other systems that use similar rolling stock/lengths such as Rome Line C (100m long, 3m Wide Hitachi Vehicles). This gives the Ontario Line a capacity of around 30k.

Edit: To be charitable, my only guess is maybe the 600 number is assuming 80m long trains, which will likely be the initial operating length of the trains, however that's not the ultimate length the line is being built for.
 
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Or... People can read the business case report.

600 people per 4-car train is technically true. If I remember correctly, Metrolinx is going launch the line with the "Refined Operating Concept" that has shorter 80m trains and up to 34 trains/h. But the line will be built to handle 40 5-car trains/h with a capacity of 750 people.

So the Ontario Line will launch with a capacity of up to 24,000 p/h/d but has an ultimate capacity 30,000 p/h/d once they upgrade to 5 car trains in the future.


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For context. nfitz replied in this thread to urbancog's post on the Montreal thread, which started this conversation.
urbancog said:
The Ontario Line trains are really high-floor LRTs / Stadtbahn vehicles. The Provincial Govt calls the line a Subway for it's own reasons.
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I'll also leave my reply up, as I don't feel like arguing semantics and explaining local nomenclature.
NoahB said:
The Ontario Line vehicles will not be designed to work in contexts that include cars. That in itself will exclude it from being an "LRT" in the common American/Canadian sense or a Stadtbahn in the German sense.

Just because they have pantographs does not make it a Stadtbahn.

The REM and Ontario Line are functionally identical. The latter will have more capacity and use different models for rolling stock and signaling. Nobody will call the REM a Stadtbahn. The REM's translators called it an 'LRT'/'métro léger' because they wanted to distinguish it from the existing Montreal Metro as it has its own operator and was potentially gonna has a separate fare scheme.

Metrolinx/TTC have no reason to distinguish the Ontario Line from the Subway network.
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I don't get the characterization of the OL trains being LRT. Only in the North American context perhaps, because they aren't the traditional heavy-rail mega trains on most north american metro systems.

I mean, if the OL is LRT, what are Montreal's tiny metro trains? Or Vancouver's 40m long Canada Line trains? Nobody calls those systems LRTs. It's farcical. The OL is a metro line with a design capacity higher than any other metro system on the continent other than one line - the Toronto Line 1.

People need to look outside of this city alone to understand the OL in a proper context. It is under all contexts and definitions a full metro line, and one with a fairly high design capacity to boot, higher than even Line 1 was capable of until about 8 years ago.

The problem is that we compare internally to Line 1, which has an unusually high theoretical maximum capacity.
 
innsertnamehere said:
higher than even Line 1 was capable of until about 8 years ago.

The problem is that we compare internally to Line 1, which has an unusually high theoretical maximum capacity.
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Also keep in mind that with the slower TRs and longer travel times, the only way to reduce headways with ATC is by running more trains on the line.
 
And remember that the TTC subway loses about 10% of capacity to operational inefficiencies (source for this stat is Steve Munro's analysis from a few years ago). So any theoretical, quoted capacity is lower in the real world.

I wonder if that 10% issue will also affect the OL.
 
the TRs get delayed at stations due to high passenger volumes which makes theoretical frequencies challenging.

My understanding is that Line 1 struggles with this because:
- existing stations are substandard in design and their limited size and circulation space slows boarding of trains, which increases dwell times (and therefor minimum frequencies).
- The TRs are simply such large trains that it takes more time for passengers to board and exit
- The TRs are slow compared to modern metro construction, which puts pressure on headways as well.

The OL does not have these issues as it's stations will be entirely new and high volume and the trains themselves are much smaller which means less dwell time to load and unload. This means 90 second frequencies should be possible like Vancouver achieves with the Skytrain.
 
innsertnamehere said:
- The TRs are simply such large trains that it takes more time for passengers to board and exit
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They are the exact same size (width) as all previous trains used on lines 1, 2 & 4, except the open gangways. I don't think running smaller trains like those on the OL or IRT would make line 1 any better.
innsertnamehere said:
- The TRs are slow compared to modern metro construction, which puts pressure on headways as well.
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They are slower compared to the T1s and H5s that used to run on line 1, often resulting in headway gaps as a result. However, now that the whole line is operated with TRs, this is less of an issue if more trains are on the line (not that there are never gaps nowadays anyway).
 
innsertnamehere said:
Yes, the size thing has less to do with the TRs specifically and more so the overall size of a standard Toronto subway car.
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IIRC, the TRs use construction that means there is more free internal space with the same external cross-section as the T1s (and earlier cars). Unfortunately, the TTC didn't configure the TRs so that people could easily find hand-holds throughout the cars
 
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