Comments on: How the Caisseâ€™s Light Rail System will Crumble under its own Weight

By: Zweisystem

Zweisystem — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 15:11:24 +0000

Vancouver’s SkyTrain is actually a classic light metro and not light rail. One of the classic definitions of LRT is that it must be able to operate in mixed traffic (on-street) and with Vancouver’s SkyTrain being automatic and driverless, it cannot operate in mixed traffic.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Sun, 09 Oct 2016 04:30:09 +0000

@Calvin
Half the peak ridership is during one hour. So the 25,100 people will mean 12550 people during the peak hour. This doesn’t include the St-Jerome line anymore, it doesn’t include additional ridership from the DM line, and doesn’t consider the Blue Line, and doesn’t allow the Mascouche line to increase ridership to the its planned levels, or it’s potential levels.

The 3 minute frequencies that this project was initially proposed with is not enough. Once you move to 90 seconds it’s better — but we still have the problem that between Deux-Montagnes and Roxboro, capacity won’t increase (and that seating will significantly reduce), and that we are forcing a bunch of transfers on the users of the various other lines.

By: Calvin

Calvin — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 22:39:16 +0000

Hi,
http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201509/11/01-4899508-train-de-deux-montagnes-un-confort-ameliore-dans-deux-ou-trois-ans.php
Here they are saying that the Deux-Montagnes trains carry 15,000 passengers (around 50% of the daily total) during the morning peak hours (6 to 9 AM I suppose).

Doing the same math on the Vaudreuil (15800 pass per day) and Mascouche (6400 per day) lines you end up with 25,100 passengers during peak hours from the A40 station to Gare Centrale. Incorrectly assuming that 100% of the passengers of these lines would use the REM.
It appears that there is no more plans for a Saint-Jerome line connection.

With one train every 3 minutes (during rush hours) the REM could carry 36,000 passengers in 3 hours.
Concerning the A40 station, empty REM trains would be inserted between the ones coming from the west to facilitate transfer.

By: Gordytransit

Gordytransit — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 14:40:42 +0000

Why is it that we in Montreal have to change our transit differently to every other city of the same size. Why not look at other cites that are the same size or larger like Toronto and New Jersey and even European cities. They all use the existing network rails to extend the capacity. Take for example Paris, with the extensive RER network within the city, it is not built with metro style infrastructure but with ‘heavy’ rail and double deck stock. Extending what exists is always cheaper than building new. Even if new heavy rail has to laid for missing segments I would think it would still be cheaper than replacing what exists.
As for the new Champlain bridge the REM could be built there with transfer a Central station, but make the trains longer.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 15:37:54 +0000

@TransitGuy
You make a lot of assumptions, and the back-of-the-envelope calculation is probably what the Caisse guys did for their ‘ridership study’ that they won’t publish. The problem is two-fold:

– You underestimate the peakiness of the required capacity.
One way to model it is to look at the distribution of trains in the schedule — presumably over the last twenty years, the AMT has adjusted the schedule to fit exactly the requirements it needs. And in a way, the distribution may be even more peaky, because there’s a mininum frequency that trains can run with at this point (i.e. trains during the peak-peak may be fuller then otherwise).

– You compare today’s actual ridership on the one hand with crush-capacity on the other.
By calling my graphic a ‘ridership-graphic’ rather than a ‘capacity-graphic’, you show your confusion. By confusing ridership and capacity, you basically assume that today’s train system has more than 50% extra capacity when trains are at actually at crush load during the peak time. You cannot simply plan that way, you cannot assume you can somehow distribute everybody who physically takes the train today and distribute them over several hours at crush-load in the future. And then ignore ridership growth on top of that (consider that when the Deux-Montagnes line was rebuilt, it quintupled within a couple of years).

The comparison of today’s capacities to future capacities is much more appropriate, even if it is a bit of a simplification.

Regarding the Vaudreuil-Hudson line, yes it’s unclear how many people will switch. Right now the VH line has about 16,000 trips, the REM plan assumes 10K on the west island branch and and 10K for the airport. The west island ridership seems like quite an under-estimate, because just the 470 bus by itself has around 10K people coming from fairview.

Regarding the Mascouche line, it will have 11K trips in a couple of years. It could quadruple that if it was upgraded to serve people in Montreal North and East. The current REM capacity plan essentially relies on the Mascouche line staying crippled.

By: TransitGuy

TransitGuy — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 14:54:20 +0000

Interesting ridership graphic. But I am having trouble with the data. Looking at the AMT 2015 annual report I get:

-30,400 passengers/day on Deux Montagnes
-15,800 passengers/day on Vaudreuil-Hudson
-13,200 passengers/day on Saint-Jerome
-6,400 passengers/day on Mascouche

-65,800 passengers/day Total

So if we assume 85% of trips are during the peak period and in the peak direction we get: 55,930. Then we assume 55%-45% AM/PM trip distribution we have: 27,965 passengers/3h morning peak. Then we assume 45% of those trips are in the peak hour we have 12,584 passengers/h in the peak direction (pphpd).

I agree with the 12,000 pphpd capacity, but I would bet a maximum 85% transfer from all lines but Deux-Montanges could be achieved. That would mean it would run at capacity. Of course that also means we can truncate Saint-Jerome at Canora and disband Vaudreuil-Hudson.

Even though it is so close I think the REM would cannibalize at most 50% of the Vaudreuil-Hudson ridership since off-island commuters avoid bridges and Dorval, Lachine, Montreal-Ouest have no good access to REM and a number of commuter like the train. Which means some capacity remains.

I share the concern with what happens when a Mascouche line train terminates at A-40, this will not be pretty.

My 2 cents.

By: ant6n

ant6n — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 03:42:46 +0000

MR-90 train has 80-92 seats, and allows 126 standing passengers. Let’s call it an even 200. Multiply by 10 cars, and you get 2000 people per train.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR-90

The 7500 pphd is through the tunnel. Trains arrive as often as every 15 minutes, so 4tph. That number isn’t sustained for every long. Not also that those trains don’t all come from Deux Montagnes, some may come from Bois Franc. But the point is capacity through the tunnel. The source code for the the graph generation is linked near the graph (it’s in python).

By: Australopitek

Australopitek — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 00:29:31 +0000

Hi, it’s good to have another view of this project, but where do you get a 2000 per train on DM line and 7000 pph? I see something more like 1200 per train, so 4800 pph (ok the line is fully loaded) according to La Presse (answers from AMT Ceo).
http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201509/11/01-4899508-train-de-deux-montagnes-un-confort-ameliore-dans-deux-ou-trois-ans.php

By: ant6n

ant6n — Tue, 31 May 2016 14:06:17 +0000

@kclo3
I think you have the right idea. Although I tend to think that the northern branches (West Island, Deux-Montagnes, Mascouche … and eventually St-Jerome line?) should all run on fixed 4tph schedules eventually, interleaving to 20-24 tph if we include an occasional regional or long distance train through the tunnel. Matching the West-Island train to the Brossard train at this level would result in 4 tph in Brossard, which is a bit low. Maybe matching two lines would make more sense, that would give 8tph in Brossard.

In any case, keeping the existing system and trying to make it lighter is the way to go. Note that FRA compliant EMU trains are not so bad in terms of weight, and are decent to great in performance (M7, M8, silverliner 5, arrow iii). If we created, say, 70-80m articulated train sets from these trains, they’d be even lighter and better with performance, without having to worry about fighting regulations. Trains like this could run _everywhere_, in 1, 2 or 3 train consists.

By: kclo3

kclo3 — Tue, 31 May 2016 07:21:01 +0000

I think the project would be a lot more viable if the Caisse rationalized the scope and focused solely on the West Island and Brossard spurs, which (I think) represent the primary constituencies of the improvements. (Technoparc could be adequately served from the West Island branch, and Alon Levy's principle of improving mainline rail-airport connections first applies as much to Dorval; VH frequency improvements are needed on their own merit.) While the through-running would be revolutionary, the Caisse is committing the classic mistake of improperly pairing 3 branches with 1; the 3 combined create a ridership demand imbalance relative to Brossard, which, in stark contrast to the overburdened northern branches, probably has little demand for 90-second or even 3 minute headways. Keep the nominal "light rail" moniker if they must, but opt instead for articulated 4-car mainline-capable sets like the Stadler FLIRT with AC electrification and run it it as a tram-train, with compatible CBTC signalling. The resulting 1:1 branch pairing keeps operation simple for the Caisse, doesn't overburden Mt. Royal capacity and tunnel egress outright, lets DM keep its necessary 2000-person trainsets, doesn't cut off Mascouche access right when it needs to grow ridership and infill stations, and ultimately saves enormously on cost (especially pointless platform reconfiguration and electric conversion), which could be spent on a host of miscellaneous AMT/STM improvements. Organization before electronics before concrete. Ultimately the project, if properly implemented under mainline RER/S-Bahn standards, could serve as a pilot for reforming the entire AMT network with electrification and all-day frequency.