According to Verster, the proposed system would still be somewhat different from German S-Bahn or French RER systems, but it would share most of their essential characteristics. GO RER lines would be more like a subway, rather than the limited commuter services they are today.
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Union Station has nine access tracks from the west, and room for nine tracks from the east—more track capacity than all of the Paris RER lines combined (they move more than 13 times as many people as GO). Modernizing Union would provide all the capacity that could foreseeably be required, without the need for major new infrastructure.
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Additionally, he discussed plans to raise platforms to be level with the train doors, citing a statistic that level boarding results in a 90 percent decrease in boarding-related safety incidents. Level platforms also dramatically speed loading and unloading along the whole line. With level boarding, “you have much more operation flexibility and much speedier dwell times at stations. When you reduce dwell time, you speed up the whole journey. And 30 seconds at a station and ten station stops means five minutes on a journey, which is worth gold.”
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In effect, GO RER would mimic overseas regional rail systems, with trains running from one side of the region to the other through downtown along dedicated track paths, which Verster says would “greatly add to our capacity through the corridor.” This problem, and possible solutions, was
discussed in greater detail in an earlier article.
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If GO RER is to be a real part of the city’s rapid transit system, as Verster clearly aspires, governments must make the operating funding available to enable a free transfer from a TTC bus to RER, just as it is from TTC bus to subway.
Verster explained that GO RER will be developed as a public-private design-build-finance-operate-maintain partnership, rather than Metrolinx developing the expertise in-house. The private partner consortium that will be building and operating the RER system will make many of the key decisions, particularly on technology and the trains themselves. “We are turning to the market and we’re being very flexible in terms of what the market can offer us on RER,” he said, “to build a network, to build a fleet, and to build a service formula that require our timetable commitments.”
One of the key questions for RER is the trains themselves. Today, GO operates an exclusive fleet of diesel-locomotive-hauled bilevel cars. Most international regional rail operations use electric multiple units (EMUs), owing to their rapid acceleration and braking, which shortens journeys and enables trains to run more closely together. Verster explained that EMUs also offer far more flexibility in terms of shortening trains to match capacity to demand in off-peak periods. There are significant performance differences between EMUs and the current bilevel trains, even if the latter are hauled by electric locomotives. Mixing trains that have different performance adds complexity to signalling and infrastructure planning. Infrastructure designed for vehicles with limited performance (freight trains are also a problem in this regard) is considerably more expensive than infrastructure designed exclusively for high-performance EMUs. However, as Verster explained, it would likely be cost-prohibitive to entirely replace GO’s enormous fleet of 1,000 bilevel cars. He did leave open the possibility of a different approach, since the final decision on the fleet composition will be in the hands of Metrolinx’s private partner.
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Now that platforms are being raised to match the bilevel floors, will GO RER use unique, custom EMUs to match these floor levels? Will some of the platforms be further raised when they arrive? Or will non-level boarding be accepted on the EMUs, at least temporarily? How will the signalling and infrastructure be built to handle very different types of trains without unduly reducing capacity or adding to construction cost? Will a modern international-standard signalling system, like
ERTMS, be acquired, given that traditional North American mainline signalling systems are not particularly well-adapted for rapid transit operation? Most important, however, is a question that can only be answered by governments: can a fare structure be developed so that transferring from bus to RER is as simple and costless as transferring from TTC bus to subway is today, so that the RER can truly become a rapid transit backbone for the region?
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