The Great Canadian Transit Thread - Page 680

SFUVancouver · #**13581** Posted **Feb 15, 2020, 9:47 PM**

I just don't understand how rapid transit is so tough in Ontario. SkyTrain - Bombardier and Rotem rolling stock - have never had these sorts of issues. What gives? Seriously? The SkyTrain Evergreen Line was plug-and-play and worked right from day one, even as it required a wholesale reorganization of the Millennium Line. The Canada Line opened ahead of schedule and is almost a decade ahead of schedule for ridership.

ClaytonA · #**13582** Posted **Feb 15, 2020, 10:01 PM**

Despite it's fundamental flaws one could use Redfin's transit score as a proxy for network connectivity or transit accessibility.
Flaws; https://humantransit.org/2017/03/the-trouble-with-transit-score.html

At least according to this metric, rail hasn't meant much better transit accessibility, given caveats/flaws above, in larger cities as much as just having more transit supportive population density and presumably municipal resources.

Interesting how high the transit scores are for Halifax, Victoria, and Winnipeg given Redfin's scoring methodology (2x for rail, 1.5x ferry/cable car/etc). I think part of Victoria's could be that Redfin doesn't have transit scores for much of the Capital Regional District, just 55% of the cma population (Saanich and City of Victoria proper) boosting it's score.

MalcolmTucker · #**13583** Posted **Feb 15, 2020, 11:43 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I wish Canadian transit authorities moved faster on bus electrification. The business case is already there. And costs are dropping. They need to start budgeting for the infrastructure upgrades they need and move to procuring only electric buses. I'd argue they can fully electrify by 2030. But even 2035 seems more reasonable than their current tepid 2040 goals. Just plan to go to 100% BEB purchases by 2025.

Full electrification should also reduce pressure on fares and make operating costs more predictable and manageable.

The charging infrastructure is quite expensive because of the sheer amount of electricity. If you’re designing for 4 hour charges for 200 buses the peak load would be 20 megawatt hours without talking about efficiency losses. When you’re not building a new bus barn on an bare bit of land you have brand new supply infrastructure to get to the fence electricity to the fence, plus all the rest.

I’m sure we will get there but we are only now starting to have high capacity charging not be bespoke hardware or only one available supplier. 5 years from now the costs will be way lower. There are benefits from waiting and using the less money to complete the project faster due to price drops later.

J.OT13 · #**13584** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 3:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

It has happened elsewhere for sure, but most of these issues just seem to be the fault of terrible planning decisions made by the city.

The wire snags just happen every now and then unfortunately though. It happened in Calgary two years ago and took the entire Red Line (60% of our ridership) offline for hours during rush hour, and rendered the southbound tracks from Tuscany to Dalhousie (4 km ish) inoperable for days.

The reduction in trains just seems lazy and incomprehensibly short sighted to me though. Have they stated if they're going to do anything about it?

In Ottawa, they were able to fix the snagged overhead wide overnight and return to regular service the next morning. That wire though was part of a "rigid rail" (used in all of our tunnels), which is basically an overhead rail with a groove to fit in the wire. That likely makes it much easier to replace.

Have they been doing anything to address the problems? RTM agreed to hire JBA Corporation in late January, a British rail specialist tasked with diagnosing and proposing fixes for the problem plagued Confederation Line. Things started to improve quickly in February until full service was back up last week, but all went to shit again on Friday when (yet to be unidentified) debri between Tunney's and Bayview damaged transponders (part of the automated operating system) were damaged. That day, service plunged to 8 trains for rush hour.

Alstom has also vowed (as they've done time and time again) to send experts to fix the trains.

milomilo · #**13585** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 6:38 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The charging infrastructure is quite expensive because of the sheer amount of electricity. If you’re designing for 4 hour charges for 200 buses the peak load would be 20 megawatt hours without talking about efficiency losses. When you’re not building a new bus barn on an bare bit of land you have brand new supply infrastructure to get to the fence electricity to the fence, plus all the rest.

I’m sure we will get there but we are only now starting to have high capacity charging not be bespoke hardware or only one available supplier. 5 years from now the costs will be way lower. There are benefits from waiting and using the less money to complete the project faster due to price drops later.

Harder than building a CNG facility (very close to a power plant), as Calgary did? I'm with you though, it would seem that technology is progressing so quickly right now that you wouldn't want to go all in to fast, when waiting a few years will buy you something cheaper and better.

Truenorth00 · #**13586** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 8:09 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The charging infrastructure is quite expensive because of the sheer amount of electricity. If you’re designing for 4 hour charges for 200 buses the peak load would be 20 megawatt hours without talking about efficiency losses. When you’re not building a new bus barn on an bare bit of land you have brand new supply infrastructure to get to the fence electricity to the fence, plus all the rest.

I’m sure we will get there but we are only now starting to have high capacity charging not be bespoke hardware or only one available supplier. 5 years from now the costs will be way lower. There are benefits from waiting and using the less money to complete the project faster due to price drops later.

I understand there are challenges. Which is why I said they should at least start planning and completing at least those infrastructure works over the next 5 years. I wish the feds would at least fund that. The federal strategy is so boneheaded, unstrategic and directionless. Funding a few billion dollars to upgrade the grids, put in grid storage and install chargers at every bus depot would allow the transit companies to move forward on electrification as a normal part of their fleet renewal plans.

As for the charging loads and power capacity, this comes down to fleet management/planning and some grid storage at the depots. Most of the buses can be charged overnight at the depots. So fleet planning has to account for sufficient capacity to get through a peak bank and get enough charge in time to get through the next peak bank. This can be a trade-off between bigger batteries on each bus and the depot's grid storage.

Reecemartin · #**13587** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 9:32 PM**

[Deleted]

MalcolmTucker · #**13588** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 10:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I understand there are challenges. Which is why I said they should at least start planning and completing at least those infrastructure works over the next 5 years. I wish the feds would at least fund that. The federal strategy is so boneheaded, unstrategic and directionless. Funding a few billion dollars to upgrade the grids, put in grid storage and install chargers at every bus depot would allow the transit companies to move forward on electrification as a normal part of their fleet renewal plans.

As for the charging loads and power capacity, this comes down to fleet management/planning and some grid storage at the depots. Most of the buses can be charged overnight at the depots. So fleet planning has to account for sufficient capacity to get through a peak bank and get enough charge in time to get through the next peak bank. This can be a trade-off between bigger batteries on each bus and the depot's grid storage.

Oh, you charge at night. No problem with loads at night. It is just a throughput problem.

Truenorth00 · #**13589** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 10:36 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Oh, you charge at night. No problem with loads at night. It is just a throughput problem.

A lot less of a problem with loads at night.

Assume 200 buses when 200 kWh for full charge. Over 4 hrs that is 10 MW. Over 10 hrs that is 4 MW. That is probably far more manageable to the local grid.

The Eglinton Crosstown was supposed to have a nat gas peaker/backup plant. They replaced it with a 10 MW/30 MWh battery:

https://blog.metrolinx.com/2019/07/31/ne...-powering-up-the-eglinton-crosstown-lrt/

I see no reason we can't deploy similar facilities at bus depots all over the country. It's an infrastructure problem.

MalcolmTucker · #**13590** Posted **Feb 16, 2020, 11:53 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

A lot less of a problem with loads at night.

Assume 200 buses when 200 kWh for full charge. Over 4 hrs that is 10 MW. Over 10 hrs that is 4 MW. That is probably far more manageable to the local grid.

The Eglinton Crosstown was supposed to have a nat gas peaker/backup plant. They replaced it with a 10 MW/30 MWh battery:

https://blog.metrolinx.com/2019/07/31/ne...-powering-up-the-eglinton-crosstown-lrt/

I see no reason we can't deploy similar facilities at bus depots all over the country. It's an infrastructure problem.

The problem is right now that infrastructure is expensive and the buses are expensive. And yeah - way easier to just run a high capacity line to the site. You just need to plan. No reason to have two sets of efficiency losses when you can have one and when you need the power at night.

Waiting when you can do two or four times as much for the same price is worth it and even though it is later you end up with an overall better result.

Truenorth00 · #**13591** Posted **Feb 17, 2020, 12:31 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

The problem is right now that infrastructure is expensive and the buses are expensive. And yeah - way easier to just run a high capacity line to the site. You just need to plan. No reason to have two sets of efficiency losses when you can have one and when you need the power at night.

Waiting when you can do two or four times as much for the same price is worth it and even though it is later you end up with an overall better result.

This is why I'm suggesting they at least start putting the infrastructure in place. Do the grid mods. Put in the transformers, pads down for the battery packs, install points for overhead chargers, wire up the garages, etc. Even for transit services that want to go to 100% electric bus replacement in 2025, there's a whole bunch of infrastructure work to be down that nobody is really doing. They can do that over the next couple of years in anticipation of prices coming down.

As for the prices themselves, we're already at $156/kWh at the pack level according to Bloomberg with a view to dropping to $94/kWh in 2024 and $65/kWh by 2030. We're at the point of diminishing returns since it's a percentage learning curve. Battery Electric Buses are already cheaper to operate on lifecycle operating costs. Waiting for prices to drop $50/kWh on a 200 kWh battery is really not enough to offset 4 years of diesel running costs. But at least, the transit authorities, the feds and the provinces could get moving on the infrastructure piece to enable a 100% BEB replacement plan in a few years.

MalcolmTucker · #**13592** Posted **Feb 17, 2020, 2:24 AM**

It depends on how your particular transit agency buys buses. It can be hard to access capital to make changes like this, even if it saves money on a life cycle basis. Governments are really bad at making choices like this.

Truenorth00 · #**13593** Posted **Feb 17, 2020, 2:57 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

It depends on how your particular transit agency buys buses. It can be hard to access capital to make changes like this, even if it saves money on a life cycle basis. Governments are really bad at making choices like this.

Agreed. Which is why I'm particularly critical of the feds and some of the provinces for paying for buses over infrastructure. Transit authorities will buy buses if they have to. They'll even raise fares to do it. But they won't raise fares to address long term infrastructure deficits. This is something federal and provincial dollars can do.