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Grand River Transit - Printable Version

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RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 06-20-2022

(06-20-2022, 12:22 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(06-20-2022, 11:06 AM)timc Wrote: Money kind of does come from nowhere. It is created when banks lend money.

The suggestion could be that people will just borrow more money to pay for the things they want as well as gas. Which is probably true for a lot of folks. But that's going to hurt even more the higher interest rates go.

*sigh*...

We can make this an economic philosophy debate if you want.

Money is nothing more than a representation of resources and human capital (as represented VERY imperfectly by GDP). Banks printing more money might make the system more liquid, but it does not by itself increase the GDP (supply of resources of human capital). Printing money while what money represents doesn't increase is fundamentally inflation.

Yes. Also, “banks” do not “print” money; only the Bank of Canada (in Canada) does. Regular banks can only lend out deposits. The Bank of Canada can buy assets (usually government bonds, but in principle could be anything) and loan money; and to do so, it can use “new” money that it didn’t get from anywhere but rather it just created.

Of course, nowadays “printing” money doesn’t mean firing up the printing presses; instead it just means telling the computer that there is more money.


RE: Grand River Transit - taylortbb - 06-20-2022

(06-20-2022, 01:37 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Yes. Also, “banks” do not “print” money; only the Bank of Canada (in Canada) does. Regular banks can only lend out deposits. 

"Printing money" isn't a firmly defined economics terms, so I can't say you're right or wrong as it depends on what exactly you mean. But through fractional reserve banking we do consider other banks to create money, see https://www.managementstudyguide.com/how-fractional-reserve-banking-creates-money.htm .

There's multiple formal definitions of the money supply, see M0, MB, M1, etc at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply#Empirical_measures_in_the_United_States_Federal_Reserve_System . Some of them would only measure money created by the central bank, others measure money created by commercial banks.


RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 06-20-2022

(06-20-2022, 02:42 PM)taylortbb Wrote:
(06-20-2022, 01:37 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Yes. Also, “banks” do not “print” money; only the Bank of Canada (in Canada) does. Regular banks can only lend out deposits. 

"Printing money" isn't a firmly defined economics terms, so I can't say you're right or wrong as it depends on what exactly you mean. But through fractional reserve banking we do consider other banks to create money, see https://www.managementstudyguide.com/how-fractional-reserve-banking-creates-money.htm .

There's multiple formal definitions of the money supply, see M0, MB, M1, etc at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply#Empirical_measures_in_the_United_States_Federal_Reserve_System . Some of them would only measure money created by the central bank, others measure money created by commercial banks.

Yes, they do create it in a sense; but they don’t create it out of nowhere. They lend money that was deposited with them, which has the effect of allowing 2 people to consider themselves to have the money: the depositor, and the borrower. In fact, they can’t even lend all their deposits, thanks to the cash reserve ratio. The money lent by a bank is limited by the money they have available, just as the money you can lend a friend to pay a restaurant bill is limited by your cash on hand. Anybody could set themselves up as a bank, by offering to pay interest on deposits and also offering to loan money; but long experience has taught us that this activity must be regulated quite strictly, so in practice only organizations of significant size can actually do so (legally).

By contrast, the only thing preventing the Bank of Canada from buying every current real estate listing in the country for double its current asking price, and also offering to buy every Government of Canada bond in existence for face value, while simultaneously funding every transit project ever proposed, is that doing so would be a grossly irresponsible exercise of the Bank’s power to create money out of nowhere.


RE: Grand River Transit - Bytor - 06-29-2022

https://kitchener.citynews.ca/local-news/grts-first-electric-buses-set-to-arrive-in-2023-5530648

Nova Bus has been selected to supply Grand River Transit's first electric buses.

The first buses are expected to arrive in spring 2023. GRT has ordered an initial six buses. Five additional electric buses are scheduled to follow in 2024.


RE: Grand River Transit - ac3r - 07-06-2022

The new Route 79 Breslau starts service on July 11.

Route 79 is a new on-demand transit service in the town of Breslau and the surrounding area, including YKF, with connections to Routes 34 and 204. Try it free until Sept. 2.

https://twitter.com/GRT_ROW/status/1544734420355129345?t=iSEbKwGTi_6fJ94J4cSjxQ&s=19


RE: Grand River Transit - KevinL - 07-08-2022

Safe to say GRT uses Rogers, all realtime data is down concurrent with their outage.


RE: Grand River Transit - Bytor - 07-08-2022

Anybody who used to be served by Atria Networks, which was the fibre provider spun off from the hydro companies and later bought by Rogers, will be down, and that includes most local municipal governments.

Also, INTERACT, for whatever unknown reason does not have a properly multi-homed network as one would expect of a major financial services provider, is down because of the Rogers network as well. This means that business using Bell services don't have INTERAC payment options right now.


RE: Grand River Transit - danbrotherston - 07-08-2022

(07-08-2022, 12:07 PM)Bytor Wrote: Anybody who used to be served by Atria Networks, which was the fibre provider spun off from the hydro companies and later bought by Rogers, will be down, and that includes most local municipal governments.

Also, INTERACT, for whatever unknown reason does not have a properly multi-homed network as one would expect of a major financial services provider, is down because of the Rogers network as well. This means that business using Bell services don't have INTERAC payment options right now.

Interac is down...NATIONALLY?!

That's INSANE! That's going to mean economic damage possibly into the billions.

Holy crap!

I mean, that's bad on Interac for sure...but it's bad for Canada in general...this is the kind of event that will chip a few basis points off GDP.


RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 07-08-2022

(07-08-2022, 11:05 AM)KevinL Wrote: Safe to say GRT uses Rogers, all realtime data is down concurrent with their outage.

I’m especially disappointed about the LRT platform signs. I know for a fact that they have data wires running all along the system — couldn’t the signs be run from that? Or is the problem that those signs depend on outsourced systems which are on the other end of a Rogers link?


RE: Grand River Transit - tomh009 - 07-09-2022

(07-08-2022, 02:21 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(07-08-2022, 11:05 AM)KevinL Wrote: Safe to say GRT uses Rogers, all realtime data is down concurrent with their outage.

I’m especially disappointed about the LRT platform signs. I know for a fact that they have data wires running all along the system — couldn’t the signs be run from that? Or is the problem that those signs depend on outsourced systems which are on the other end of a Rogers link?

I expect that those signs communicate over the mobile network. And if it's Rogers, it would have been down yesterday.


RE: Grand River Transit - ijmorlan - 07-09-2022

(07-09-2022, 02:51 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I expect that those signs communicate over the mobile network. And if it's Rogers, it would have been down yesterday.

Right, that’s my question: with the amount of wiring installed for the LRT, couldn’t the platform signs have communicated with the OMSF by direct wired connections?

I agree that for bus stops, using the mobile network makes more sense. We’re not going to run purpose-specific wires all over the city just to reach the bus stops. But the LRT system already has wires running everywhere.

Does anybody know what the state of the LRT ticket machines and tap-in stations was?


RE: Grand River Transit - ac3r - 07-09-2022

I don't tap for the LRT since I have a corporate pass (, am I supposed to? Either way, I figure I'm always paid regardless), but on the bus yesterday they just let me on for "free".


RE: Grand River Transit - Bytor - 07-09-2022

(07-09-2022, 05:05 PM)ac3r Wrote: I don't tap for the LRT since I have a corporate pass (, am I supposed to? Either way, I figure I'm always paid regardless), but on the bus yesterday they just let me on for "free".

The bus would not have been affected since the fare boxes are not real-time, but given that nobody could top off their cards maybe they were just told to let everybody on?


RE: Grand River Transit - Bytor - 07-09-2022

(07-09-2022, 02:51 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(07-08-2022, 02:21 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: I’m especially disappointed about the LRT platform signs. I know for a fact that they have data wires running all along the system — couldn’t the signs be run from that? Or is the problem that those signs depend on outsourced systems which are on the other end of a Rogers link?

I expect that those signs communicate over the mobile network. And if it's Rogers, it would have been down yesterday.

No. All the stations have fibre link to somewhere The cabinets have redundant routers and switches in them with at least two fibre ports from what I have seen when they have been opened up, but they were rather messy from a cable-management perspective.

From what I am told, all the announcements are "played" from the OMSF and work like a VoIP phone system where you have a shop floor speaker that has an extension and you dial that and then speak the announcement into your phone handset, but done with prerecorded sounds.

The signs are controlled from the OMSF, too, and I would *hope* that the station network and OMSF are single, self-contained network independent of the Region's network as it needs to keep signalling data flowing and that the signs and speakers would work along that same network, and I would expect real-time info to keep getting displayed for the trams on the ION station marquee displays.

I have no knowledge abut the actual network topology, though, I can only make educated guesses from experience and what I have seen in those cabinets while open.


RE: Grand River Transit - taylortbb - 07-09-2022

I believe the signs at the LRT stations are off-the-shelf INIT models, just like GRT uses for their bus stops. The last time I looked at the INIT specs (admittedly several years ago) the sign model used for the LRT stations didn't have a wired version, it was made with an integrated cell modem. I actually believe the cell service was provided through INIT as a part of a service contract.

So although there is definitely wiring to every station, if you're using an INIT real-time schedule system, you're going to be constrained by what models of display they offer (unless you want to spend a lot of money on a custom solution). I'm not surprised the premium for something wired and custom exceeds the costs of some cell data.