Blatchford

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via https://twitter.com/CityofEdmonton/status/1058035975836913665
 
City begins evaluation of Thales’ signalling system
December 4, 2018

Time is up for Thales to complete work on the Metro Line signalling system and the City will now begin to evaluate their work.

Thales Canada Inc. committed to the December 4, 2018, deadline after the City issued them with a Notice of Default on May 1, 2018.

“It’s pencils down for Thales today,” said Adam Laughlin, Deputy City Manager, Integrated Infrastructure Services. “They may be confident in their work, but we have to do our own due diligence to determine if Thales has passed and has met their contractual obligations. It’s important to ensure that the City — and all Edmontonians — has the signalling system that we asked for and were promised.”

The City expects it will take a number of months to complete the evaluation, which will include a review of documentation and field testing. Most of the field testing will take place outside of service hours in order to minimize impacts to Edmonton Transit Service customers, motorists and pedestrians. The City anticipates there will be one and a half days of system-wide LRT closures each month to accommodate testing. These closures will take place on low-service days. Special events will also be a key consideration.

The Metro Line will continue to operate as is, with trains running between Century Park and NAIT stations on a 15-minute schedule. Capital Line trains will continue running between Century Park and Clareview stations on a 5-5-10 minute peak hour schedule.

The Metro Line began operating with restrictions on September 6, 2015, and has more than 19,000 riders per weekday.

For more information:
edmonton.ca/metroline

Media contact:
Lindsay Yarmon
Communications Advisor
780-496-8191
Click to expand...
https://edmonton.skyrisecities.com/forum/tel:(780) 496-8191
 
Sooo wait... pencils down, and the signaling still may not work properly? And it's going to take the City additional months to figure this out?

I really don't understand how any of this is acceptable to the City especially it's tax payers.
 
What a mess.... in the world of sensors for this, that and everything else what could possibly be so complicated (unless it was incompetent City trying to save a buck -- and end up costing them 10).
 
@archited That could well be it. Thales is no fly-by-night operation; perhaps trying to integrate two entirely different systems really was beyond anyone's capability to accomplish. But at some point then both parties really needed to step back, put ego aside, and say "we were wrong, this won't work, we need to replace both systems after all" and just get the work done rather than keep fighting each other.

Sunk cost fallacy leading to a death-march project.
 
I remember part of it was definitely risk created by ETS: they had promised reliable power supply on the trains, and it couldn't be delivered. I wonder if they rigged UPS for the systems in the end.

Sounds like scope creep too. Sign a fixed cost contract, then twist it to try to get more. Don't deliver on the government requirements.

But in the end 3 years is more than enough time to fix it.
 
Any public entity is terrible to work with. Whenever public relations firms consult with government, they have to shove limited audience and scope down their throats, because you can't market to everyone at once.

Same goes with contracts. Government anything is terrible for scope creep. While Thales probably should have given the advice of, 'use a different system' (and maybe they did and the city wouldn't hear it), I still place this firmly on the city mismanaging the contract. While Valley will likely be behind schedule, I doubt it will reek of this boondoggle.
 
Here's one experience that I can relate because it happened quite a while ago and the main players will have long ago retired. My company -- based in Edmonton -- was hired by a department within the Provincial Government to do a study of meeting rooms and meeting spaces for all Provincial Government departments that leased space within the downtown precinct in Edmonton. We set up a matrix chart and set about interviewing the heads of departments to assess their meeting needs -- frequency; ideal time frame; log of available space; etc. Some heads were accommodating, some resistant to the idea of being interviewed, and some were entirely unapproachable. We persisted and over a 3-month period were able to do a competent assessment of needs. It turns out that the existing facilities available for meeting far exceeded the demand for space and that if they would set up a coordinator to manage the space they could cut their lease footprint for meeting space in half -- we had clear documented conclusions for all of our efforts. When I presented it to the department head who authorized the study, he blew up. He said I hired you to justify an increase in expenditure for meeting spaces (he did not) and you come back to me telling me we need less not more space -- I can't present this. He tried to cut off payment for the final billing. I had my lawyer contact him threatening to make public the whole fiasco if I did not receive payment within 48 hours -- I did! Who knows what dealings went on with the City of Edmonton in relation to Thales. If a wet blanket is thrown over the whole affair then you can bet the City is at fault; if not, there will be more news to come.
 
Metro Line phase one extension information session
May 6, 2019

The City of Edmonton will hold an information session to showcase the final updated designs for the first phase of the Metro Line Northwest extension project, which will bring the line into the Blatchford community development with two new stops. Edmontonians are invited to attend the session and learn from the project team about the next steps for procurement and construction.

Date: Wednesday, May 8
Time: 4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Location: Alberta Aviation Museum,11410 Kingsway NW

Edmonton City Council has approved the $73-million municipal contribution and applied the federal and provincial funding commitments to the project budget, meaning it is now fully funded. Procurement will begin this year and will take approximately one year to select a contractor through a rigorous competitive process. Construction is expected to take another four to five years, with service set to begin in 2024-2025.

For more information:
edmonton.ca/metroNW
 
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