Thanks for another thoughtful article Reece. One small clarification about Montreal: I believe the Montreal metro is automated, just still manned by a single person. I think this has been the case for quite some time and precedes even the newest rolling stock. Here's some info from the STM website: https://www.stm.info/en/about/discover_the_stm_its_history/trains-and-tunnels
Is your intent to argue that the Montreal metro should embrace fully unmanned automatic operation?
Yes, I think Montreal should absolutely be embracing fully driverless operations. The reason I pick on the blue line specifically is because it's already going through a major upgrade program and so the marginal cost of taking it to full driverless is fairly small, especially relative to the massive cost of the expansions and upgrades. The lines on the Montreal Metro have a lot in common with Paris line 14 and honestly, there's no good reason not to have them all fully automated to help improve service levels because service levels right now, especially off-peak, are quite bad by Canadian standards, often like every 7 to 10 minutes.
Gravely concerned about the massive job loss aspect of automation. Seems probleamtic to argue for this when AI is already going to destroy our economy; we need to protect all the good jobs that we can. Unionized train driver is one of them.
I do not think the evidence supports the idea that we need to be immediately concerned about major job losses from AI, there has been a lot of talk about this in various sectors in recent years and it has not really materialized - mostly an excuse for layoffs for other reasons that lets a company spin it as a positive.
Automating train operation makes train service better, fighting automation is thus fighting that improvement to maintain a job that involves sitting and pressing a button most of the time. The alternative? Better service expands transit modeshare and grows the use of transit which increases the need for attendants and customer service - which is already needed as noted in automated systems!
"Canada is very willing to spend capital dollars on new lines and upgrades in our cities, but is stingy with operating funding that actually runs trains and buses and gets bums in seats."
Interesting. That statement applies 100% to California. In San Diego, ballot measures repeatedly give 5x as much money towards transit capital as they do towards transit operations.
Is Canada's transit capital-to-operations split just as lopsided? If so, how does transit in Toronto, Calgary, etc. run much more frequently than in LA or SF?
I don't know what the exact ratio is, but it's clearly lopsided because massive investments are happening in capital, and I wouldn't say similarly massive investments are happening in operations, though things like fare integration do represent an operational subsidy. The reason I think that so much more transit can be operated is both because of a higher baseline ridership, which means more support in terms of fare revenue, which covers a huge portion of the biggest systems' operations, but also the fact that transit operations here are very efficient.
Obligatory mention of the fact that the Scarborough RT used the same trains as the SkyTrain originally, but modified so they have a driver due to the concerns of the TTC union (or so the story goes, looking I find some accounts that blame safety concerns, some go for both union and safety).
Which was a real mistake, but the Scar. RT actually still maintained a very high level of reliability because the operator was largely acting in a supervisory role, if I understand correctly.
Thanks for another thoughtful article Reece. One small clarification about Montreal: I believe the Montreal metro is automated, just still manned by a single person. I think this has been the case for quite some time and precedes even the newest rolling stock. Here's some info from the STM website: https://www.stm.info/en/about/discover_the_stm_its_history/trains-and-tunnels
Is your intent to argue that the Montreal metro should embrace fully unmanned automatic operation?
Yes, I think Montreal should absolutely be embracing fully driverless operations. The reason I pick on the blue line specifically is because it's already going through a major upgrade program and so the marginal cost of taking it to full driverless is fairly small, especially relative to the massive cost of the expansions and upgrades. The lines on the Montreal Metro have a lot in common with Paris line 14 and honestly, there's no good reason not to have them all fully automated to help improve service levels because service levels right now, especially off-peak, are quite bad by Canadian standards, often like every 7 to 10 minutes.
Gravely concerned about the massive job loss aspect of automation. Seems probleamtic to argue for this when AI is already going to destroy our economy; we need to protect all the good jobs that we can. Unionized train driver is one of them.
I do not think the evidence supports the idea that we need to be immediately concerned about major job losses from AI, there has been a lot of talk about this in various sectors in recent years and it has not really materialized - mostly an excuse for layoffs for other reasons that lets a company spin it as a positive.
Automating train operation makes train service better, fighting automation is thus fighting that improvement to maintain a job that involves sitting and pressing a button most of the time. The alternative? Better service expands transit modeshare and grows the use of transit which increases the need for attendants and customer service - which is already needed as noted in automated systems!
"Canada is very willing to spend capital dollars on new lines and upgrades in our cities, but is stingy with operating funding that actually runs trains and buses and gets bums in seats."
Interesting. That statement applies 100% to California. In San Diego, ballot measures repeatedly give 5x as much money towards transit capital as they do towards transit operations.
Is Canada's transit capital-to-operations split just as lopsided? If so, how does transit in Toronto, Calgary, etc. run much more frequently than in LA or SF?
I don't know what the exact ratio is, but it's clearly lopsided because massive investments are happening in capital, and I wouldn't say similarly massive investments are happening in operations, though things like fare integration do represent an operational subsidy. The reason I think that so much more transit can be operated is both because of a higher baseline ridership, which means more support in terms of fare revenue, which covers a huge portion of the biggest systems' operations, but also the fact that transit operations here are very efficient.
Obligatory mention of the fact that the Scarborough RT used the same trains as the SkyTrain originally, but modified so they have a driver due to the concerns of the TTC union (or so the story goes, looking I find some accounts that blame safety concerns, some go for both union and safety).
Which was a real mistake, but the Scar. RT actually still maintained a very high level of reliability because the operator was largely acting in a supervisory role, if I understand correctly.
The safety concerns are usually raised by the unions as a spurious complaint