Glen
Senior Member
I think the real savings for the TTC could come from contracting out all the backend services like maintinence, service, construction, etc.
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- Thread starter gei
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I think the real savings for the TTC could come from contracting out all the backend services like maintinence, service, construction, etc.
Glen
Senior Member
For me, the real irony here is that this was the wrong service to pick a fight with (if you had to pick one). It is one of the most highly visible services provided by the city. This is a fight that should have started with the inside workers.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
Yea, thats crossed my mind. Doesn't the TTC currently perform maintenance on behalf of Bombardier to itself, or something? I don't know if that is the result of some screwy TTC decision (like getting the Ontario govt to build driverless trains from scratch, then putting drivers in them) or actually because the TTC can provide better value than private sector. Why else would Bombardier agree to such a weird system?
Northern Light
Superstar
Ttc
There is nothing screwy about the TTC doing maintenance in-house.
First off, Bombardier rarely does 'routine' maintenance for any transit authority.
Imagine sending a TTC subway car back to Thunder Bay for routine work?
How would you get it there? It would have to be moved to Greenwood and loaded on to a CN Flatbed Car (or trucked), it would take 2 days just to get into T-Bay; to do a few hours work; then 2 more days to send it back!
The cost of this arrangement would be patently absurd to everyone.
Even for most heavy maintenance the logistical hassles and lost time to movement of rolling stock would make this unattractive.
For that reason Bombardier doesn't maintain a lot of facilities to carry out routine maintenance.
It does have heavy-maintenance capabilities for rolling-stock rebuild etc. Because that's worth the hassles to carry out and still be profitable; though for larger transit authorities that have all the facilities on site already; it doesn't really make sense to ship the rolling stock out even for that type of work.
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I might point out as well, the TTC maintenance staff were very renowned for their work on the bus fleet. The TTC actually took buses from other transit authorities and rebuilt them for a profit, a few years back.
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Contracting out is not the be all/end all of savings. In general there maybe modest saving in wages and benefits, but these are often eroded by the new profit margin that has to be supported by the contract, as well as by higher turnover of staff and therefore greater training and OT costs.
That's not to say that government run services shouldn't be more efficient at times or threaten to turn to the private sector if their staff are gouging the taxpayer, but no one should be under the illusion that it normally leads to a windfall of better service at a lower cost.
What the public sector needs, more often, is dynamic management that can motivate their staff to buy into a vision for more efficiency/productivity through a mix of high expectations, good training and clearly explaining to staff how this can be a win/win proposition.
See the example above about the TTC and how David Gunn (a former TTC GM) could walk into a bus garage and command respect from the guys on the floor, in part cause he could take one apart himself........ and how he gave a speech in which he told workers how much he thought they were capable of, and how if they could deliver on an affordable bus rebuild, not only would he not contract out, but he would add jobs.
His staff turned around and did just that; it was during that era that the TTC fine tuned its paint job (same colours, fewer stripes) and figured out it could save real money per bus that way. Amazing what an inspirational leader can do, and not just in the private sector.
There is nothing screwy about the TTC doing maintenance in-house.
First off, Bombardier rarely does 'routine' maintenance for any transit authority.
Imagine sending a TTC subway car back to Thunder Bay for routine work?
How would you get it there? It would have to be moved to Greenwood and loaded on to a CN Flatbed Car (or trucked), it would take 2 days just to get into T-Bay; to do a few hours work; then 2 more days to send it back!
The cost of this arrangement would be patently absurd to everyone.
Even for most heavy maintenance the logistical hassles and lost time to movement of rolling stock would make this unattractive.
For that reason Bombardier doesn't maintain a lot of facilities to carry out routine maintenance.
It does have heavy-maintenance capabilities for rolling-stock rebuild etc. Because that's worth the hassles to carry out and still be profitable; though for larger transit authorities that have all the facilities on site already; it doesn't really make sense to ship the rolling stock out even for that type of work.
***
I might point out as well, the TTC maintenance staff were very renowned for their work on the bus fleet. The TTC actually took buses from other transit authorities and rebuilt them for a profit, a few years back.
***
Contracting out is not the be all/end all of savings. In general there maybe modest saving in wages and benefits, but these are often eroded by the new profit margin that has to be supported by the contract, as well as by higher turnover of staff and therefore greater training and OT costs.
That's not to say that government run services shouldn't be more efficient at times or threaten to turn to the private sector if their staff are gouging the taxpayer, but no one should be under the illusion that it normally leads to a windfall of better service at a lower cost.
What the public sector needs, more often, is dynamic management that can motivate their staff to buy into a vision for more efficiency/productivity through a mix of high expectations, good training and clearly explaining to staff how this can be a win/win proposition.
See the example above about the TTC and how David Gunn (a former TTC GM) could walk into a bus garage and command respect from the guys on the floor, in part cause he could take one apart himself........ and how he gave a speech in which he told workers how much he thought they were capable of, and how if they could deliver on an affordable bus rebuild, not only would he not contract out, but he would add jobs.
His staff turned around and did just that; it was during that era that the TTC fine tuned its paint job (same colours, fewer stripes) and figured out it could save real money per bus that way. Amazing what an inspirational leader can do, and not just in the private sector.
Eug
Senior Member
I don't see the benefit of contracting out most TTC repair work. However I definitely see the benefit of contracting out garbage collection.
kEiThZ
Superstar
Contracting out may not be that great for highly technical work like TTC maintenance. But I am sure it would work great for garbage collection, bus operation, some backoffice stuff, etc. While contracting out might not produce cost savings for every instance, the situation we have today where the city avoids contracting out as much as possible and then requires 'a living wage' for those it contracts out to means that we are probably spending hundreds of millions of dollars more than we should.
salvius
Active Member
An excellent point.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
The TTC currently has a maintenance contract with Bombardier for certain tasks, but Bombardier just ends up reimbursing the TTC for the cost of maintenance. That was one of the issues with the last TTC strike, somehow the maintenance personal thought that the TTC was privatizing their jobs, when in reality it was just an accounting gymnastic.
The idea would be to let a third party to operate the TTC's current facilities under a tendered contract for a period of time, not to ship everything back to Thunderbay. That's how most transit providers (i.e. Stockholm) do it.
That isn't well supported by reality. The nominal wage spread between the TTC and YRT, both of which are represented by the same exact union, is roughly 20%. When you consider the lower overtime costs of the YRT, minimal sickdays and more flexible work arrangements the actual savings are greater. In his book Urban Economics, Arthur O'Sullivan shows that competitive tendering and deregulation has been able to lower costs by 30%.
If I wanted to really piss people off, I would point out that the direct cause of these efficiencies was Mike Harris removing operating subsidies and forcing the TTC's hand. It's good that efficiencies were found, but one can't help but ask what the hell was going on during the good times. Its not like this is specific to the TTC either, public sector monopolies are awful at operating efficiently during boom times. Its ridiculous right now that while ridership is going up, the TTC is loosing progressively more and more money per rider.
casaguy
Senior Member
The eastern beaches this morning at Woodbine before the AWESOME thunder clouds rumbled in. Incredible how many selfish pigs would go to the beach and leave their trash on the ground during a strike.
^If you look carefully, you can see the trash strewn all over the sand.
All things considered, the city's doing a pretty good job though of trying to stay on top of it. I'm here most mornings and it always looks different.
^If you look carefully, you can see the trash strewn all over the sand.
All things considered, the city's doing a pretty good job though of trying to stay on top of it. I'm here most mornings and it always looks different.
salvius
Active Member
^ BAGS of trash? I'd really like to drop of some bags of garbage on the doorstep of these jerks.
Eug
Senior Member
I just took my garbage to one of those nineteen makeshift dump sites. Painless - in and out in 2 minutes. Better hurry guys, before your local site gets picketed.
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I dunno, its hard to tell from those pictures, but that doesn't seem entirely inconsistent with what I have seen along parts of the waterfront before. I can't actually see any evidence of malicious dumping (as in people taking their trash bags from home and leaving them there). Most of that trash just looks like bottles and food packaging, the type of stuff that gets left at the beach all the time. The main difference is that the public garbage bins were probably closed and there was no cleaning staff to pick up the rest for a few days. As regrettable as it is, this seems totally predictable.
adma
Superstar
No hypodermic needles? Boy, Toronto's a wimpy city...
lordmandeep
Banned
that would be illegal.
If they do that, send the cavalry and mow down these sons of bitches.
casaguy
Senior Member
I haven't seen that there either. I'm just surprised how many pigs would just leave their newly created garbage on the sand or wherever they happened to be.
Incidentally, there were managers/volunteers cleaning up there this morning and Ashbridges Bay Park was literally spotless. Much cleaner than when the striking workers were actually "working".