TTC: Other Items (catch all)

[AlvinofDiaspar]

This thread needs some perspective from a couple of its often-admired transit systems...

New York is currently having 70,000 subway delays per month. Toronto has about 2,500 per year.

Yesterday, London had a catastrophic signal failure on downtown subway lines for the fifth time this year, and all five have been in the middle of rush hour. They've also had two subway strikes so far this year - one in January and another in February.

The flip side is that those cities have much larger networks that offers some degree of redundancy and compensation against smaller failures. Little to no such redundancy exists in Toronto - in fact, we are hell bent on putting all eggs in one basket and making sure when it fails, it fails big.

AoD

 

[aquateam]

There are actually a lot of factors on your phone being able to connect to the wifi as the train pulls into the station. It's mostly do to the speed at which your phone can connect to it. During the doors open event at Downsview park I had the opportunity to speak with the CEO of TConet the company that is implementing the wifi serve across the TTC and he said it mostly come down o how fats your phone is able to get the signal as they use the faster equipment currently available and all of it is provide to the TTC free of charge, they actually pay the TTC to allow them to install it. As for Cell service the equipment is in place it's just up to the cell companies to connect to it. The previous ideas for cell service in the subway were rejected by the TTC because the companies all wanted their own access to the TTC tunnels and sations to put in the necessary equipment which the TTC didn't want to allow for safety reasons.

The point is that since there's no wifi in the tunnels, you need to constantly reconnect and disconnect during the 30 seconds that you're in the stop. The reason that there isn't cell service in the tunnel is really more the fault of the Big 3 than the TTC, the TTC wanted to make money off the cell service so they put out an open bid for paying them the rights to exclusively install the signalling in the tunnels. An Australian company BAI outbid Bell, but the big 3 are boycotting it since they don't want to pay BAI's rates, so they're waiting until BAI's contract expires (BAI needs to get 60% of the cell market on its network within a set timeframe) so they can just do it themselves.

 

[muller877]

This thread needs some perspective from a couple of its often-admired transit systems...

New York is currently having 70,000 subway delays per month. Toronto has about 2,500 per year.

Yesterday, London had a catastrophic signal failure on downtown subway lines for the fifth time this year, and all five have been in the middle of rush hour. They've also had two subway strikes so far this year - one in January and another in February.

As I understand it NYC considers each train that does not reach the end of the line within 5 minutes of its ETA a delay. And some of the lines in NY are very long. I would love to guess how many times a train misses its scheduled arrival from Downsview to Finch.

As I understand it the TTC does not record prolonged dwell times due to volume as a delay. Nor a delay less than 5 minutes.

Here is good summary of what metrics they use. Way more sophisticated than the TTC.
http://transitcenter.org/2016/11/01/memo-to-mta-board-youre-measuring-performance-wrong/

And here is what the TTC should be adopting
http://www.mbtabackontrack.com/performance/index.html#/home

 

[smallspy]

The point is that since there's no wifi in the tunnels, you need to constantly reconnect and disconnect during the 30 seconds that you're in the stop.

Maybe if your phone is a piece of crap.

My 4 year old BlackBerry has no problem connecting automatically for the 20 seconds that we're in range of the Wifi at each station. And considering the number of people on their state-of-the-art iPhones and Android devices, it doesn't seem to be a problem for them, either.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[amnesiajune]

The flip side is that those cities have much larger networks that offers some degree of redundancy and compensation against smaller failures.

Downtown (i.e. where only their wealthiest residents live), yes. Toronto isn't very different - when one subway is halted downtown, you can walk three blocks to the other one. Everywhere else in those cities, there's no redundancy. And there's often no replacement bus service (especially when trains get stuck in inter-borough bridges/tunnels), so when a subway line goes down you have to take the regular buses, wait for service to come back or find some other way to get around.

 

[nfitz]

This thread needs some perspective from a couple of its often-admired transit systems...

New York is currently having 70,000 subway delays per month. Toronto has about 2,500 per year.

Yesterday, London had a catastrophic signal failure on downtown subway lines for the fifth time this year, and all five have been in the middle of rush hour. They've also had two subway strikes so far this year - one in January and another in February.

... but, but, ... world-class city.


subways subways subways

My 4 year old BlackBerry has no problem connecting automatically for the 20 seconds that we're in range of the Wifi at each station. And considering the number of people on their state-of-the-art iPhones and Android devices, it doesn't seem to be a problem for them, either.

No guarantee the iPhones or Android devices are fundamentally better.

But I just upgraded(?) from a Blackberry Classic to the just-released Keyone (which is Android-based), so we'll see how it does. I normally reconnected automatically in each station, along Danforth at least.

Won't really be an issue once they finish wiring the tunnels.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Downtown (i.e. where only their wealthiest residents live), yes. Toronto isn't very different - when one subway is halted downtown, you can walk three blocks to the other one. Everywhere else in those cities, there's no redundancy. And there's often no replacement bus service (especially when trains get stuck in inter-borough bridges/tunnels), so when a subway line goes down you have to take the regular buses, wait for service to come back or find some other way to get around.

Downtown is also where a good chunk of people who aren't the wealthiest work - and they are the ones who have to walk three blocks to "another subway" that doesn't go where they need to go when it happens. Wouldn't you want redundancy where the need for it is the greatest instead of rehashing "but the rich can walk three blocks". It isn't the rich who are walking three blocks to get to the subway - but those who are trying to get home to the rest of the city that will be.

Honestly, why are we even having this conversation when walking up three flight of stairs is an insufferable outrage and yet walking three blocks is meh?

AoD

 

[Amare]

This thread needs some perspective from a couple of its often-admired transit systems...

New York is currently having 70,000 subway delays per month. Toronto has about 2,500 per year.

Yesterday, London had a catastrophic signal failure on downtown subway lines for the fifth time this year, and all five have been in the middle of rush hour. They've also had two subway strikes so far this year - one in January and another in February.

Sure those systems appear to have tons of delays when you initially look at the numbers, but the only way to truly compare if if you had stats of the number of delays each system had relative to the amount of passengers it serves, and to the amount of passenger kilometer traveled

 

[drum118]

TYSSE at Downsview Park to Celebrate Canada's 150th Birthday - Saturday, July 1, 2017

Come out and celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday at Downsview Park! To celebrate Canada’s 150 Downsview Park is hosting a full day event. Invite your family and friends to partake in an action-packed day of festivities with rides, food, music, entertainment and of course, a grand fireworks display at dusk to end the day.

Family-friendly activities include a midway, as well as free face painting, a kids play area, zipline, and so much more.

TTC’s Community Liaisons will be at the event sharing information about the new Line 1 subway extension. They will be joined by TTC’s pop-up shop!

Note: This event will be held in Parc Downsview Park at 70 Canuck Avenue (not at the future subway station).

Saturday, July 1, 2017
12 PM – 10 PM EDT
70 Canuck Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M3K 2C5
Event page: http://en.downsviewpark.ca/event/Canada-Day-Festival-2017

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Maybe if your phone is a piece of crap.

My 4 year old BlackBerry has no problem connecting automatically for the 20 seconds that we're in range of the Wifi at each station. And considering the number of people on their state-of-the-art iPhones and Android devices, it doesn't seem to be a problem for them, either.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

According the the people I talked to from tConet they said Iphones take the longest to cont to it and that Androids are generally faster. Most of the time I have no problem connecting to it quick enough for apps to send stuff through or for part of a youtube video to upload.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Won't really be an issue once they finish wiring the tunnels.

the tunnels are being wired for cell service only, in order fr them to put wifi in the tunnels they need to add receivers to the trains to pick up the signal. The train would become a mobile hotspot inside of the tunnels. For the cell phone signal in the tunnels they use a leaky cable ie one with holes along it so that the signal can be picked up so far freedom (formally wind mobile) is the only carrier to pick it up.

 

[Steve X]

WiFi (802.11b/g/n) was designed for stationary access. Cell signal was designed for high speed motion too (uses more battery through). Even if they did fill the tunnel with WiFi signal broadcasters, you can't connect to it as WiFi is made to connect to one access point unlike cell service which would switch to different access points along the tunnel. Yes, a hotspot is require on the train to maintain one stationary access point. That hotspot would need a very high bandwidth connection so 1000 riders on the train can simultaneously send/receive data.

For connecting to platform hotspots, it really depends on where you sit in the train. If you want WiFi, go to the back of the train where the train is about to stop when it arrives at the platform. The chances are much higher to connect to WiFi at the end of the train.

 

[amnesiajune]

WiFi (802.11b/g/n) was designed for stationary access. Cell signal was designed for high speed motion too (uses more battery through). Even if they did fill the tunnel with WiFi signal broadcasters, you can't connect to it as WiFi is made to connect to one access point unlike cell service which would switch to different access points along the tunnel. Yes, a hotspot is require on the train to maintain one stationary access point.

This is pretty much spot-on. Notice how you can walk the entire length of a subway platform without losing your wi-fi signal, but if the train is moving at all you're likely to have problems. BAI has said that whenever they do set up in-train wi-fi, it'll be with the hotspots in the trains themselves. I'm interested in how they'll feed the signal to the actual train though, since using cell signals is going to be very expensive - can they do it through the third rail?

 

[Irishmonk]

What would have made a better 150th birthday gift to Canada than a separate Express Yonge tunnel from R-Hill to Union. (A gift to, Canada because our CBD is the country's engine, brain, cultural nexus and money tree. The better it functions, the better the people toiling away there function, the better the country works. ;-)

Maybe it'll be ready for Canada's bicentennial--if Toronto hasn't become some kind of dysfunctional dystopia by then, with drone driving uber mercenaries airlifing the .1% to their PH offices and homes,

 

[Steve X]

This is pretty much spot-on. Notice how you can walk the entire length of a subway platform without losing your wi-fi signal, but if the train is moving at all you're likely to have problems. BAI has said that whenever they do set up in-train wi-fi, it'll be with the hotspots in the trains themselves. I'm interested in how they'll feed the signal to the actual train though, since using cell signals is going to be very expensive - can they do it through the third rail?

There's no other way in doing so. The distance between the hotspot and the phone has to remain almost the same. There are other specification of WiFi that could be used for an antenna to talk to a moving trains' hotspot. Even if they were to use cell data tech, BAI would be the carrier and the hotspot would have a special SIM that talks to the tunnel antenna which would probably be connected to fiber cables BAI would install themselves. Use of the third rail won't work. Everything is wrong with using the third rail. There's just too much noise with a 600 VDC going through them. Besides why would TTC even allow a third party to connect something to their equipment. Everything between TTC and BAI are separated. BAI still owns their equipment.