Re: Costs of Sydney’s driverless train conversion outweigh the benefits
  TP

I think two issues are being confused there Greg - automated trains and
staff featherbedding. Automated commuter trains are the preferred choice in
any city that is able to introduce them and there's a large and growing
number of complete GoA4 (crewless) systems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_train_systems#Grade-of-Automation_4_systems

The paper I posted a while ago pointed out that studies had found a
reduction in operating costs of some 50% compared with a system with
drivers (never mind comparing with Sydney with two crew on each train, that
would likely be more than 50% reduction). Sydney Trains is subsidised for
about 70% of its operating costs iirc. Sydney Metro is expected to at least
break even when it reaches a critical mass.

The situation in Vancouver sounds like gross maladministration where a
whole heap of people have succeeded in setting up a massive workplace
featherbed for themselves. The lack of political oversight (or
collaboration) in that would surely require some sort of probity
investigation. Besides control room and maintenance staff, Sydney metro has
an attendant at each station and additional roving staff, but nowhere near
the numbers required for a crewed system.

Tony P

On Wednesday, 17 August 2022 at 08:22:06 UTC+10gregsut...@...
wrote:

> From: dmalcolmjohnston=yaho...@...>

>

>

> A correction, in my haste I have made an error, the Expo and Millennium

> lines, had in 2019 over 900 employees.

>

> The Canada Line being a P-3, the number of employees are deemed

> proprietary and not released. In 2011 there was 180 unionized employees and

> i an trying to get a more current number but i do remember i was rather

> shocked by the number of people working on the SkyTrain light metro system.

>

> It is safe to say that well over 1,200 unionized workers work on all three

> driverless rapid transit lines.

>

> Another hint is that TransLink has almost 1,000 employees earning over

> CAD$100K, but that is it no breakdown of who works where.

>

> From my records, The Expo line has cost about 60% more to operate than

> Calgary's C-Train, with both lines being about the same length, but that

> was about decade ago.

>

> TransLink does not like to release reliable numbers so it is is difficult

> to get accurate figures, except by gleening local media for PR slip ups.

>

> Suffice to say, no one has copied Vancouver's transit planning, nor its

> exclusive use of driverless trains.

>

> Malcolm

>

>

>