VIA Rail

[crs1026]

^The trouble with queues is, once they form, they have to be policed…. and the question that forms in the mind of every member of the queue is, “How much longer until this line moves?” It’s human nature that once a queue forms, the wise move is to join it, So now you have a line of people who (rationally or not) are standing instead of sitting down, less able to amuse themselves with laptop or tablet or book, with no purpose other than to not miss the train. And maybe get enough luggage space.

To the passenger, VIA’s process is unclear, ad-hoc, and not well explained. There are no obvious reasons why boarding can’t begin. Ottawa is actually the most frustrating, because with its big glass you can see your train but can’t get to it. I’m not fussed with any particular international precedent other than, if others do it differently, VIA certainly isn’t exercising best practice.

I can understand why VIA would not want people at platform level until they are ready to receive and guide them. And there aren’t a lot of benches at track level, so waiting in the concourse is likely more comfortable and the more sensible choice. Nobody lets passengers wander around on the tarmac waiting for their flight to be ready.

If you look at old pictures of Toronto or Montreal terminals from the 1940s or even 1960s, they were even more packed with people and chaotic….. long lines and horrible primitive PA systems.

The key point to me is, for all the good reasons why “it has to be this way”, queuing is an inherently unpleasant customer experience. Airports are not a source of inspiration, but should simply be the benchmark for what VIA should aspire to be “better than”. But what’s key…. VIA should be recognizing that its current process is suboptimal for the customer and seizing the opportunity to make the experience more pleasant, and changing whatever operational practices need to be changed to make that possible.

To my mind, that means having the train ready for boarding well ahead of departure, and having the gate open at that early time to minimise queuing. (I know, that means overall dwell time may be longer, on-duty times and payment for staff, etc…..). Or, as a lesser standard, having clearer “will board at x minutes before departure” parameters and making these reliable in practice. VIA’s current “ritual” needs to be excised from its internal culture and its customer experience.

- Paul

 

[littlewill1166]

GO and EXO operate from Toronto Union and Montreal Central respectively with similar infrastructure. Neither have these silly procedures and long lineups. Maybe VIA should take a page out of these commuter operators, VIA might even lower its labour costs.

 

[just east of the creek]

I'm not. The whole argument is about density and how in Japan they aren't afraid or too stuck up to have passengers en masse on the platform waiting for a train like a train station should rather than to wait like a plane. Whether it's shinkansen or rer or whatever is irrelevant. I'm not arguing for a mode of transport, just for more efficiency instead of old world via mentalities

Remind me if I am wrong because my experiences in Korea, Japan and China blend together sometimes.

In China the High Speed Rail experience is much more like an airport or airline - security checks to get into the station concourse (Once you have your ticket), you are then held in the concourse until your gate opens, then you can move to the platform level and wait for the train. Once boarded you have a specific car and seat and your ticket is checked to make sure you are in the correct seat. One major difference is size and scale, these stations are generally huge to immense in every facet, compared with North America, much more on the scale of airport terminals, and the crowds are also immense - line ups for tickets, for security, and the trains are full. The Chinese regional systems (the older railways) are very different - different stations, routes, tracks and speeds. Crowded , but in most other respects, more relaxed in terms of officialdom.

If I remember correctly, both Japan and Korea had similar systems in place for High Speed Trains, but just less officious and overdone. And then the slower speed regional systems which were again, pretty relaxed.

In all of these countries, the High Speed trains are large and the crowds similar - but the stations are built to handle these volumes. Platforms are 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 times the size of a Union platform, concourses on a scale similar to Pearson. You can argue that this is just overkill, and you would be probably right, until you travel during the Chinese New Year (for example) and the crowds are just so immense that these places are just jammed to a point where its hard to move around. Plus there is a lot of civic pride in these systems, they are a sign of cutting edge technology developed at 'home' and viewed as such, and government policy places a lot of emphasis on their performance and place in the national and regional economies. And development is continuous.

So much different then this country. But then again Canada is the 2nd largest country in land mass a with a population of 35 million? China is the 3 or 4th largest country by land mass with a population of 1.4 billion people. Japan is a country with about 3% of Canada's land mass and a population of 125 million or so, Korea has about 1% of the landmass and a population of 50 million. Size is not an excuse for VIA, they can and should be better in many ways, but there are differences that play a role in how they are funded and how they are run, and these will not go away easily.

Perhaps our comparisons should be with legacy stations in Europe? Again, Union would be smaller, but Union was built on those station models and when you compare handling people, maybe those comparison might be important and relevant?

 

[T3G]

Eurostar let’s people check-in like for airplanes and queue in a waiting area, Spain apparently performs safety checks before boarding a train (same as China, if I recall correctly) and the UK let’s people wait in large waiting areas at its major terminal stations until the train is ready for boarding. As a German, I wholeheartedly dislike these boarding procedures, but how are they that different from VIA’s?

Wow, I've never heard of these procedures being done in western Europe before. My own personal anecdotal experience only covers central Europe but I've never seen or read anyone make an allusion to this being done in the west.

Very disappointing to hear the rot has spread elsewhere!

 

[rbt]

I'd argue VIA's mentality is a "new world" one, not an "old world one". There is no place in the old world that I know of that treats trains like planes the way VIA and Amtrak do!

Some of Spain's HSR stations have (or did have) much stronger security than most airports.

Madrid had baggage screening, a separate locked waiting room prior to boarding [entry to this room was not allowed when boarding began, and was locked before track-level entry was allowed] and gates to access track level.

 

[Urban Sky]

GO and EXO operate from Toronto Union and Montreal Central respectively with similar infrastructure. Neither have these silly procedures and long lineups. Maybe VIA should take a page out of these commuter operators, VIA might even lower its labour costs.

At least in the case of Gare Centrale, I’m pretty certain that EXO (or previously: AMT) doesn’t let you access the platform unless the train is ready for boarding, which inevitably leads to queuing for weekday afternoon departures…

Wow, I've never heard of these procedures being done in western Europe before. My own personal anecdotal experience only covers central Europe but I've never seen or read anyone make an allusion to this being done in the west.

Very disappointing to hear the rot has spread elsewhere!

Eurostar has little choice given the extent of border paranoia present in the UK, but I agree with the other targets of your criticism…

 

[cplchanb]

Okay, let’s try it the other way around. Faced with the same infrastructure as VIA and unable to “fix” the infrastructure to suit their needs, JR would come up with very similar boarding procedures as VIA for its intercity services. Infrastructure drives bording processes…

Some of Spain's HSR stations have (or did have) much stronger security than most airports.

Madrid had baggage screening, a separate locked waiting room prior to boarding [entry to this room was not allowed when boarding began, and both locked doors and gates to access track level.

I can see why for europe because there are many international trains everywhere. However for domestic travel it seems too much.

 

[rbt]

I can see why for europe because there are many international trains everywhere. However for domestic travel it seems too much.

Spanish HSR trains are almost entirely domestic, particularly from Madrid which had the high-level security. Their only international route is the train to Lisbon IIRC.

While you can buy tickets to the rest of Europe, those either involve a cross-platform transfer at the border to a TGV (France train), or start as TGV in Barcelona which has French style security (very little).

 

[Frank_Lee]

Spain's actually had a fair number of successful and attempted train bombings over the years, though.

 

[T3G]

I can see why for europe because there are many international trains everywhere. However for domestic travel it seems too much.

Much of Europe also has an open travel area in the form of the Schengen Zone, so there should be little requirement for border checks.

 

[tsm1072]

My experience with Amtrak is that they don't force you to cue, they just don't announce a platform until the train is ready to board (Typically 10 minutes prior to departure). GO also announces platforms 10 minutes prior to departure. If union has general signage for both Via and GO trains, they could use this same method. People may end up at the wrong end of the platform, but that should be solvable with platform level signs.

 

[Urban Sky]

I can see why for europe because there are many international trains everywhere. However for domestic travel it seems too much.

My experience with Amtrak is that they don't force you to cue, they just don't announce a platform until the train is ready to board (Typically 10 minutes prior to departure). GO also announces platforms 10 minutes prior to departure. If union has general signage for both Via and GO trains, they could use this same method. People may end up at the wrong end of the platform, but that should be solvable with platform level signs.

I challenge both of you to name a single intercity passenger rail service on this planet which grants passengers unrestricted access at any of its metropolitan termini onto platforms which are as narrow, as low and as busy as Union Station.

We can discuss all we want about what VIA could do if it had contemporary platform infrastructure, VIA's processes won't change as long as these hard constraints don't change...

 

[MisterF]

^The trouble with queues is, once they form, they have to be policed…. and the question that forms in the mind of every member of the queue is, “How much longer until this line moves?” It’s human nature that once a queue forms, the wise move is to join it, So now you have a line of people who (rationally or not) are standing instead of sitting down, less able to amuse themselves with laptop or tablet or book, with no purpose other than to not miss the train. And maybe get enough luggage space.

To the passenger, VIA’s process is unclear, ad-hoc, and not well explained. There are no obvious reasons why boarding can’t begin. Ottawa is actually the most frustrating, because with its big glass you can see your train but can’t get to it. I’m not fussed with any particular international precedent other than, if others do it differently, VIA certainly isn’t exercising best practice.

I can understand why VIA would not want people at platform level until they are ready to receive and guide them. And there aren’t a lot of benches at track level, so waiting in the concourse is likely more comfortable and the more sensible choice. Nobody lets passengers wander around on the tarmac waiting for their flight to be ready.

Airports don't really work as a comparison as there are very good reasons to limit access to the tarmac. At many train stations you can walk right onto the platforms with or without a ticket. Obviously there are good reasons to limit that at Union with its claustrophobic platforms.

Speaking of airports, I always wait until the line to board the plane has died down a bit before joining it. Getting in line early to be one of the first to board never made sense to me. Every minute sitting in a spacious seat in the terminal is one less minute standing in line and then sitting in a cramped seat on the plane.

So much different then this country. But then again Canada is the 2nd largest country in land mass a with a population of 35 million? China is the 3 or 4th largest country by land mass with a population of 1.4 billion people. Japan is a country with about 3% of Canada's land mass and a population of 125 million or so, Korea has about 1% of the landmass and a population of 50 million. Size is not an excuse for VIA, they can and should be better in many ways, but there are differences that play a role in how they are funded and how they are run, and these will not go away easily.

Perhaps our comparisons should be with legacy stations in Europe? Again, Union would be smaller, but Union was built on those station models and when you compare handling people, maybe those comparison might be important and relevant?

I've always thought that comparing with China is pointless when there are so many more relevant comparisons like France or Scandinavia. Although the density issue that keeps getting brought up is overblown. The majority of our population is in a single corridor the size of Romania, so the density of the rest of the country is largely irrelevant to services in the corridor.

 

[nfitz]

Eurostar has little choice given the extent of border paranoia present in the UK, but I agree with the other targets of your criticism…

I don't think bog standard passport control is "border paranoia". I don't recall the process much at all - I don't think it was much more than flashing your passport - though perhaps they scan now.

 

[littlewill1166]

I challenge both of you to name a single intercity passenger rail service on this planet which grants passengers unrestricted access at any of its metropolitan termini onto platforms which are as narrow, as low and as busy as Union Station.

We can discuss all we want about what VIA could do if it had contemporary platform infrastructure, VIA's processes won't change as long as these hard constraints don't change...

I'm not sure this was the point. For me, I'm trying to say that VIA should have a look at commuter operators in North America and adopt aspects of their operating models to increase efficiency and reduce overhead costs (which will hopefully result in lower ticket prices).