For those who don't know, I was offered a volunteer role in the RFP process to review the proposals and provide comments and input from a "customer experience" perspective.
The confidentiality agreement I signed was pretty restrictive given the monetary value of the contract, so I can't really say anymore. I can't comment about the ins and outs of the review process, who the proponents are, what the proposals entailed, or anything like that. I didn't even know who the winner was for sure until today other than an educated guess as I wasn't privy to any of that.
Announcement:
• Video Link
Design book, also saw this as part of the RFP process:
http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/786015/s200-design-book.pdf
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A few key features you will see on the new LRVs:
- Glass partition wall between the driver's cab and the passenger carriage will make the LRV more permeable and allow passengers to look forward (or back) along the journey.
- All glass passenger doors
- Bench-style seating does away with the grooved bucket seats as seen on the Series 8 LRVs (last order), which were maligned by some
- End doors moved back from the operator's cab allows better passenger flow and helps alleviate some of the door-crowding problems
- Potentially less stanchions (poles) with some more innovative handhold options. Not sure if this will actually happen and may come out after the detailed design phase
- Leaning pads instead of fold-up seats in the priority seating areas and in the articulation bellows (middle of the train where it bends) allows for more capacity as well as an almost-seat when the wheelchair/stroller area is not occupied as well as in the articulation where no such feature was before.
- Digital displays for next stop/destination as well as possible "infotainment" displays that could display things such as: realtime line map with current train location, next stop/destination, date, time, weather, announcements
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