Absent operators on Trillium Line Saturday give OC Transpo its own test

A train departs a station along the Trillium Line on Thursday, May 16. There is still no opening date for the new north-south rail line. (Leah Larocque/CTV News Ottawa)

The head of OC Transpo says there were several operator absences on Saturday during trial running of O-Train Lines 2 and 4, causing some changes to the simulated passenger service the line is being tested on.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday during a media availability, Transit Services general manager Renée Amilcar said that 11 operators were not available on Saturday, requiring OC Transpo to remove one train from service on Line 4, the spur to the Ottawa airport, for about six hours Saturday night. This meant 29 planned trips did not run Saturday.

However, Transit Media Relations sent a clarification Wednesday to say that the figures Amilcar provided were incorrect.

"25 Diesel Rail Operators are required to provide Saturday service, not 26. There were also 12 Diesel Rail Operators that were unavailable, not 11. Despite proactively scheduling extra operators to act as replacements, we had more unplanned absences than we had accounted for. Ultimately, this led to a staffing shortage after 6 pm that resulted in 29 missed trips on Line 4," the statement said.

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Ultimately, the staffing shortage did not impact the scoring of trial running, which was listed as 100 per cent for Saturday, because operator availability is outside of the control of TransitNext, the group that built and maintains the two light rail lines. It is TransitNext that is being tested, though Amilcar said the City of Ottawa is also being tested in its own way.

"We are also carefully monitoring our own efforts to ensure we are ready to deliver a level of service that our customers expect on day one," Amilcar said. "Since this issue was within the city's area of responsibility and TransitNext performed well in all of their areas, we credited TransitNext for these 29 missed trips, which represent eight per cent of total trips on Lines 2 and 4 on Saturday."

Staffing levels returned to normal on Sunday.

Amilcar said the decision to reduce the number of trains running on Line 4 first because of the absences is the strategy OC Transpo will consider when the line officially opens to the public.

"It's easier to remove one train from South Keys to the Airport instead of from Limebank to Bayview, which is the main line. As well, it's easier for OC Transpo to provide a bus to boost the train if it's needed because we have only two stops," she said. "That said, it's important for us to continue to work on the training so we can increase the number of operators to be able to deal with those kinds of issues and that's exactly what we are doing."

Amilcar added that OC Transpo is trying to find the balance between increasing the number of on-call operators without increasing costs too much.

"We don't want to have 20 extras neither, right, because that will cost a lot, but we don't want to cut the service, so we are trying to find a balance, and this is exactly what we are learning during this trial running. It was a very good test on Saturday for us," Amilcar said. "So even with 10 extras, we were in the situation, so we need to absolutely increase this number, but as I said, we are managing with taxpayers' money, so we will not double this number just for fun. We will need to find a balance."

CCTV camera issue causes delays Monday

There were two instances of issues with CCTV cameras on one train on Monday that caused delays, which is why the daily performance on Monday was listed at 99.4 per cent.

Richard Holder, director of engineering services, said the issue arose when the train in question arrived at a terminus station on Line 2 — Limebank or Bayiew — and had to switch from one cab to the other to begin the next trip in the opposite direction.

"In that process of switching over, the CCTV system is not reinitializing itself, so what the operator has had to do is to do a complete vehicle shutdown and then reinitialize and then the CCTV system is coming back live. That is not the way it's supposed to function," Holder said.

He said a software patch is expected to remedy the issue, which he described as intermittent.

The cameras monitor areas where passengers board the train to allow operators to make sure there are no risks before departure, such as someone who could be trapped or in trouble.

In order to be considered "on time" for the purposes of trial running, the train must leave within 30 seconds of its scheduled departure time.

The delays experienced Monday, Holder said, would be minor in the event of revenue service.

"In the example of yesterday, it was very marginal delay beyond the 30 seconds. I think it was within a couple of minutes," he said. "If it's just within a few seconds or a minute, I think it's unlikely the passengers would notice."

Holder said this issue was different from one identified last week, which were related to on-board video recorders. That issue was resolved when the hardware in the affected vehicles was replaced.

So far, after eight days of trial running, TransitNext's rolling performance average is 99.6 per cent, above the 98.5 per cent threshold required to pass after 14 days of testing.