Edmonton Public Transit

[240glt]

Originally Posted by kcantor

^

soooooo...

we signed a contract in 2011 to be completed in october 2013.

we have continually set deadlines including yesterday's "line in the sand" for thales to complete "or else".

we have withheld $22 million of the total $55 million contract.

but we haven't actually told thales until today that they are considered to be in default and they now still have all of the remedies in the contract to resolve and/or dispute that position?

why didn't we do that last month? or last year? or two years ago? or three years ago?

I'm really curious if any of the civil work that was deficient under the main contract is having an impact on the signaling.

I did a controls job once where all the conduit, class II wiring and related civil work was done by subs to a GC, my contract (about a million bucks worth) was DTO. We started running into problems with the electrical install, power and wiring problems, and by the time we were setting our systems up the electrical contractor was already demobilizing, and would not correct any of their issues. The owner did not understand that we did not run the pipe or pull the wire, we were just to hook up the panels, program and commission. Unfortunately electrical contractors' deficiencies became our issues and it took a lot of time and money to fix.

I remember pages upon pages of deficiencies from the original project, did any of those get corrected I wonder ? We're only hearing the city's side of the story and while Thales cannot be without fault (It sounds to me like a classic example of a sales proposal that was not vetted by engineering) but the city made a fateful error by breaking out the signaling contract. Couple that with incompetent project management and a lack of communication on the city's end, I bet that's why we're here now.

My prediction is that the current setup will never work as intended, and at some point the signaling for the entire line will need to be redone

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by 240glt

My prediction is that the current setup will never work as intended, and at some point the signaling for the entire line will need to be redone

Or if what I've been hearing from within the integration industry, need to upgrade the whole signalling system.

[Coldrsx]

...heard that as well.

[Black Star]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Or if what I've been hearing from within the integration industry, need to upgrade the whole signalling system.

Might as well almost give this line a Mulligan and rework princess elizabeth ave intersection also.

[240glt]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Or if what I've been hearing from within the integration industry, need to upgrade the whole signalling system.

Yes that’s the most likely outcome will be. Integrating disparate systems has never been an ideal scenario

[Airboy]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Or if what I've been hearing from within the integration industry, need to upgrade the whole signalling system.

My wife was involved with integrating multiple software systems and when she heard what the city was doing she pretty much wrote it off as not doable.

At some point the controls contractor has a duty to say it can't be done. On the buildings side we get hammered if we miss deadlines or generally don't perform.

[ExcaliburKid]

Originally Posted by s4.audios

You're out of whack, the GondUHla is a great opportunity to add something fun and unique to the city. And they are taking it in the right direction IMO, focusing on it being an actual node of transportation with tourism just being the cherry on top.

Since some of our citizens seem to be giddy over stupid ideas lately, how about some of these?

Giant slides into the river valley, because childhood memories!
Dog sleds in the winter as alternative to public transit, because embrace our climate!
Ferris Wheels, because whimsy!
Unicycle rentals in trendy areas, because hipsters!
Pedway across the river, because climate controlled environment!
Monorail, because The Simpsons!

We as a city can't even get our current public transit right, why throw in something unwarranted like a gondola?

[240glt]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

Since some of our citizens seem to be giddy over stupid ideas lately, how about some of these?

Giant slides into the river valley, because childhood memories!
Dog sleds in the winter as alternative to public transit, because embrace our climate!
Ferris Wheels, because whimsy!
Unicycle rentals in trendy areas, because hipsters!
Pedway across the river, because climate controlled environment!
Monorail, because The Simpsons!

We as a city can't even get our current public transit right, why throw in something unwarranted like a gondola?

I'm really disappointed that my idea for a ferris wheel sauna gondola never got off the ground

As for the dog teams.. This winter I tried skijoring at Hermitage Park, it's quite a popular activity out there. My dog however was not impressed and would probably have preferred the heated indoor pedway

[s211]

Originally Posted by ExcaliburKid

Since some of our citizens seem to be giddy over stupid ideas lately, how about some of these?

Giant slides into the river valley, because childhood memories!
Dog sleds in the winter as alternative to public transit, because embrace our climate!
Ferris Wheels, because whimsy!
Unicycle rentals in trendy areas, because hipsters!
Pedway across the river, because climate controlled environment!
Monorail, because The Simpsons!

We as a city can't even get our current public transit right, why throw in something unwarranted like a gondola?

You've got my vote.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by Airboy

My wife was involved with integrating multiple software systems and when she heard what the city was doing she pretty much wrote it off as not doable.

At some point the controls contractor has a duty to say it can't be done. On the buildings side we get hammered if we miss deadlines or generally don't perform.

Eh, it might have been doable provided that the original system was a late 1970s design of industrial controls. Simple and robust. The problem is always in the hiccups along the ways, especially concerning access to certain key bits of the software that without, you're essentially counting on predicting and estimating signals coming out of a black box. Sure, you might have a couple thousand flops to the old system to do all this with and some machine learning, you can do an okay job with it but. . . . you're going to make mistakes.

[EdmTrekker]

Originally Posted by kcantor

^

soooooo...

we signed a contract in 2011 to be completed in october 2013.

we have continually set deadlines including yesterday's "line in the sand" for thales to complete "or else".

we have withheld $22 million of the total $55 million contract.

but we haven't actually told thales until today that they are considered to be in default and they now still have all of the remedies in the contract to resolve and/or dispute that position?

why didn't we do that last month? or last year? or two years ago? or three years ago?

Well ... pretty sure we all know the most likely answer to your question. In the first instance the Owner was or is now aware of its own shortcomings in the specs and or perf specs and documents including background info in the Bid package at time of closure. Insurers and courts will as you know, place a greater burden on the Owner that prepared the Bid documents. So then it’s a matter of deciding if any issues caused or contributed to delays on Contracors part including information that may have been or should have been known and issued with Bid documents or deliberately held back. To think the COE is faultless is a stretch given their Contracting and PM performance on other large problematic projects. Secondly, there is the issue of losing Thales as a bidder on any future work and the effects on bid prices on future projects. COE may not be seen as preferred client (depending on how this plays out). Another/other signal contractors will add risk money to future bids if they hear the COE has handled this matter in a harsh manner, particularly if fault is also allocated to the COE. There are also other issues that are frustrating the outcome of this matter but the Ones I mentioned are key. Not good any way you slice it.

[Rogie]

ETS has quietly announced that it will run one less train per hour in the evenings and weekends, and a major reduction in service across the river :

LRT Service Changes
After 7pm on weeknights and all day on weekends, all trains run every 20 minutes. Metro Line trains run between Central and NAIT stations only.

Source : https://www.edmonton.ca/ets/transit-news.aspx

[DKaz]

That kinda sucks, is it because of improvements because surely after about 40 years, they wouldn't finally reduce frequencies due to ridership. I should try not to work late...

[Xelebes]

Read the note at the LRT station that this was being done to accomodate the replacement of warning tiles at the stations.

[Coldrsx]

Corona will soon be closed for over a month to do platform renovations. Bay will see the same at the end of summer/fall.

[MichaelC]

Has Thales responded to the notice of default yet?

[DKaz]

Originally Posted by MichaelC

Has Thales responded to the notice of default yet?

Apparently not.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4195829/edmonton-metro-lrt-thales-deadline-signal-transit/

[240glt]

The contractor will never make a public statement about something like that

They’ll let the lawyers duke it out and eventually the outcome will become public record

[Hardhatdan]

Originally Posted by 240glt

The contractor will never make a public statement about something like that

They’ll let the lawyers duke it out and eventually the outcome will become public record

It will likely never become public record, almost all disputes are settled outside the courts.

[CMD UW]

Originally Posted by Hardhatdan

It will likely never become public record, almost all disputes are settled outside the courts.

Yuuup.