Faulty track switch, error at station cause slight drop in Trillium Line trial running score

A Trillium Line train parked at South Keys Station on Thursday, May 16. (Leah Larocque/CTV News Ottawa)

A couple of issues on the Trillium Line LRT on Wednesday caused a slight drop in the line's trial running score this week, but the line is still sitting a full point above the score it needs to pass.

TransitNext, the line's builder, achieved a daily on-time performance score of 98.6 per cent on Wednesday, the 10th day of trial running, bringing the 14-day rolling average down to 99.5 per cent from 99.6 per cent. The target score after 14 days is 98.5 per cent, which the line has remained well above in the last week.

The slight drop comes after Tuesday's perfect performance, the fifth time the system has scored 100 per cent.

Richard Holder, director of engineering services, described two issues that affected the score. The first was a switch that did not move in place in time to accommodate a train. The system was stopped briefly, the transit operations control centre was able to move the switch remotely, and the issue did not happen again.

"The switches at either end of this particular passing track… they are switching regularly. Every time we have a vehicle exchange there, the switches are moving from tangent position to turnout position. We've had many, many days with no issues with the switches. Exactly why this particular switch went out of correspondence, we don't know," he said.

"It was an issue that occurred as a singular event. Once the intervention by the transit operations centre was successful, we have not had a reoccurrence. That switch has gone through dozens of movements since the issue occurred yesterday, but obviously we want to investigate and make sure that everything involved in the setup of the switches is functioning properly."

Line 2 has sections where only a single track is available, but it typically has around three trains running northbound and three running southbound at any given time. There are sections of double tracks where the trains pass each other, controlled by switches.

"So, this 'dance', this coordination that happens between the vehicles as they move up and down the line, that's controlled through our signalling system, which provides signalling similar to the signalling system you'd have in a traffic system. We have permissive signals that are green that allow an operator to move forward on the track or they have a non-permissive signal indicating that they should wait," Holder said.

The second issue was with a vehicle that got a fault report when it arrived at Bayview Station. The train went into safe mode as a speed sensor indicated a fault and a vehicle technician at the station fixed it. It was determined to be the result of a faulty connection on board the train.

Holder described the issues as normal things that arise during testing.

Transit Services general manager Renée Amilcar said she was pleased to see the issues resolved as quickly as possible.

"While it is important that issues do not occur, how we respond to them is equally important. Both TransitNext and OC Transpo remain focused on our collective goal on addressing issues now to ensure we can quickly respond to operational challenges in the future," she said. "Every time we overcome an issue in trial running, it gets us one step closer to delivering a system that will meet our expectations on day one."

There are four days of testing left. If the system achieves a rolling average of 98.5 per cent of departures being within 30 seconds of the scheduled departure time, TransitNext will pass the first phase of trial running and a seven-day testing scenario will begin to test staff's responses to simulated faults and issues.