ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

The regional engineers really haven't the faintest clue how to time lights for pedestrians. This much is plainly obvious.

But this is extreme....

How can we fail this hard at EASY things!

[Square]

I would send this link to ION and the Region of Waterloo! I remember being stuck here in June and wondered why, lol

[Canard]

Any time I’m lucky enough to see a train here while biking on the trail, this is what happens. It’s insane. It’s like the interrupt to the Region’s light system isn’t resetting into the cycle correctly.

[KevinT]

Here's something I've seen several times, and I was finally able to get it on video since I was a passenger. The actual train signals on University Ave are timed quite well other than triggering too early, but the traffic lights stay red for ages after the signals end. Aside from the inconvenience of having to wait for nothing, almost every time at least one driver goes through the red light. This time they stopped before actually crossing the tracks. If you look closely, there's a 20 second pedestrian signal across University Ave in the middle of the delay starting around 1:00, but the light still stays red long after it ends.

I've witnessed this several times too in the past few months but always from behind the wheel so I've never filmed it.  When I saw it it also locked out the pedestrian crossing, so even they weren't allowed to cross despite repeat frustrated button pushings.  I suspect this is one of those stupid cross-organizational issues where each side blames the other, with the rail guys saying "hey, our output to your box is just fine" and the traffic guys saying "no, our input from your box doesn't clear properly".  Just shake hands, send out one tech each, and solve it guys!

I called the region once to report it but after keeping me on the phone for several minutes to take down my name, address, phone number, pants size, and sexual preference; I had to explain the issue several times over and then the lady on the other end just consulted a chart and said "Oh yes, they're testing in that area today" and hung up on me.  Completely useless.

[Lens]

Question for those who train spot or who listen to the live feed on the scanner. Does the feed sound super chopped up and difficult to hear on your end? Is it worse on mobile? I was out and listening in yesterday on my phone and I could barely hear anything from some of the vehicles.

[KevinT]

Question for those who train spot or who listen to the live feed on the scanner. Does the feed sound super chopped up and difficult to hear on your end? Is it worse on mobile? I was out and listening in yesterday on my phone and I could barely hear anything from some of the vehicles.

Reportedly it's been bad for the past month or two.  I've been using a private feed that's pretty solid, but my friend is concerned about his upstream bandwidth so it's exclusive to just he and me.  :-(

[Canard]

Yes; it’s been awful for months. I mentioned it to him (the author of the site) but he said it’s that the radio transmissions are sometimes choppy. I don’t buy it but didn’t push it as it’s free and he did it out of kindness.

[Momo26]

Regarding the emergency vehicle situation, I could see a dicey situation where there are too many cars and a train on the side (moot point if the ambulance cannot mount the curb anywase) causing gridlock etc.

You'd think they've thought this all through though!

[jason897]

It's a great day for trainspotting! At least 502, 512, 513, and 514 are out this afternoon running along the whole line, and maybe 511. 508 was possibly out this morning. Nice weather too Could also be others but I had to go do stuff and didn't catch all of them up close.

[danbrotherston]

Regarding the emergency vehicle situation, I could see a dicey situation where there are too many cars and a train on the side (moot point if the ambulance cannot mount the curb anywase) causing gridlock etc.

You'd think they've thought this all through though!

Not sure what the train has to do with it, they can proceed, but in any case, when it comes to syncing with the train, my recollection is that ambulance (and other emergency services) dispatchers are going to be able to speak to the LRT control centre.

[Canard]

I was by the University crossing this evening and had a chance to watch the warning system in operation again.

It worked well, but as the poster with the video mentioned, they come down awfully early (before a train has even departed University of Waterloo station, heading SB). They raised promptly after the train passed (514, I believe), and the lights turned green after about ~5 seconds delay.

I think the problem must be with when a pedestrian crosswalk request is made - that just completely garbles the whole sequence and it has no idea how to recover. I've seen the condition exactly as described in the video, and from memory, I think it has always occurred when there's a large throng of people waiting to cross (meaning: someone's likely pushed the button). Foot traffic was absent in the area (except for the guy who decided to cross diagonally through the barriers, bells and lights flashing, because WTF, the rules don't apply to me!) so that's likely why the cycle operated perfectly.

[Square]

Question for those who train spot or who listen to the live feed on the scanner. Does the feed sound super chopped up and difficult to hear on your end? Is it worse on mobile? I was out and listening in yesterday on my phone and I could barely hear anything from some of the vehicles.

Yes, the live feed is useless!  I have a scanner and it's perfectly clear!   I also wrote the guy running it and he told me the same story as @Canard!   I don't get it tho, cause the GRT feed is very clear, but when I told him that, he said it was the radios on the LRT fault?!   Anyway, the radio feed probably won't be available soon, so I just gave up!

[Spokes]

What's the maximum number of LRVs that can be out on the tracks testing at once?

[jason897]

What's the maximum number of LRVs that can be out on the tracks testing at once?

There's plenty of space to test all of them at once, right? 

Unless the question is suppose we have an infinite number of LRVs, how many can be out on the line at once... that could be more complicated 

[ijmorlan]

What's the maximum number of LRVs that can be out on the tracks testing at once?

There's plenty of space to test all of them at once, right? 

Unless the question is suppose we have an infinite number of LRVs, how many can be out on the line at once... that could be more complicated 

14 is only 2 more than the planned maximum service level, so I’d be pretty surprised if they couldn’t have them all running.

As to the actual maximum, I understand a round trip is supposed to take about 90 minutes. If we assume 2 minute headway, which should be achievable, that would be 45 vehicles. Providing actual service on this frequency might be an issue at the ends of the line, where the time required to arrive, drop off and pick up passengers, depart, and reset the crossover for the next vehicle might push the 2 minute headway. Even some intermediate stops might act as bottlenecks. Also at some point the impact on traffic (both vehicles and pedestrian) at crossings and elsewhere starts to become excessive.

If we use 2-car trains, that would double to 90 vehicles, although the concerns with loading/unloading and with operating the interlockings at the ends of the line would be amplified somewhat. I suspect the pedestrian accesses to our stations are not all planned to support a crush load of 2-car trains every 2 minutes.

But this does illustrate the enormous capacity of LRT. My guess is that we could run 2-car trains every 4 minutes by just doing it. Past that and you would have to look at improving some stations and at least optimizing and possibly grade-separating some of the crossings.