June 23, 2011: Ottawa city council has approved a $59-million plan to speed up O-Train service in the city. The city agreed on Wednesday to buy six new diesel trains and build a new track along the north-south line. The city says the change will lower wait times on train platforms from 15 minutes between trains to eight minutes. Council said it would also investigate the feasibility of extending the line southward, as far as Riverside South.
May 24, 2011: Alain Mercier, General Manager of Ottawa's OC Transpo, recently outlined a C$59m expansion plan for the diesel O-Train service which includes the purchase of six new DMUs. The current fleet of three Bombardier Talent vehicles have been serving the 8 km, five-station line from Bayview Transitway to Greenboro since October 2001.
Mercier said new sidings would be built to cut the current headway from 15 min to 8 min. In addition, the three existing DMUs would be refurbished.
Current ridership is around 12 000 trips/day, nearly double the target when O-Train service started as a four-year demonstration project. Mercier gave no details on how the expansion, which could be completed in three years, would be financed but he said fewer new buses would be needed.
The full report will be released on June 14.
Hot off the press: Next Wednesday (June 15 2011) the transit commission will be considering a proposal to nearly double the O-Train frequency (see bottom link below). The O-Train will celebrate its tenth anniversary in October 2011.
ReplyDeleteThe O-Train operates along a single-track rail line. There are currently two trains operating on the line with a third trainset as a spare, but the service requires three operators ("fall-back" operation) due to the very short layover times at the ends of the route. The trains leave the ends of the line at Greenboro and Bayview at the same time every 15 minutes and meet at Carleton University where there is a passing siding.
http://www.octranspo1.com/routes/?month=6&day=10&year=2011&selectRoute=O-Train&action=Search
I think the ridership had been around 10,000 per weekday a couple of years ago, which equates to about 2 million passengers per year out of a total OC Transpo ridership of about 100 million. The report quotes a weekday ridership of 12,000 which is most likely due to the introduction of a universal student pass at Carleton University last year. Since Carleton U. is the main beneficiary of the line, ridership is generally light on weekends and during the summer.
The proposal would add two more sidings which would allow headways to improve from 15 to 8 minutes, at the expense of an additional minute of travel time from end to end on the line. See:
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/tc/2011/06-15/06-ACS2011-ICS-TRA-0013%20Otrain%20business%20case.htm
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Colin R. Leech, P.Eng./ing.
Senior Engineer, Transit Priority
Ingénieur principal, Priorité au T.C.
City of Ottawa/Ville d'Ottawa
613-842-3636 ext./poste 2793
Colin.Leech@Ottawa.ca
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