The maker of Toronto’s new Rocket subway has pledged to fix its malfunctioning doors by the end of February.
At a special high-level meeting at TTC headquarters on Friday, Bombardier president Raymond Bachant told commission CEO Andy Byford that the company has a solution to the door problem, which has been delaying service on the Yonge-University-Spadina line since the first trains were delivered last year.
“It was a very positive, productive meeting,” said TTC spokesperson Brad Ross. “They do have a solution and have committed to expediting it.”
According Ross, the fix involves changes to the trains’ software that would make the doors less sensitive. Currently, any minor interference can cause the doors to not close properly. If they fail to close three consecutive times, the train has to be taken out of service to reboot the system.
The glitch is a major factor in trains on the Yonge-University-Spadina line falling short of their 96% on-time target, and Byford has called the Rocket’s performance “unacceptable.” The transit chief called Friday’s meeting with Bombardier to sort out the problem.
The TTC has received 27 of the 70 Rockets on order from the Montreal-based company. The software fix will be built into the remainder of the order, while the trains that have already been delivered will be repaired on-site.
A separate issue with the trains will take longer to resolve, however.
The doors to the drivers’ cabs are also showing signs of trouble, and sometimes fail to open or close. The problem isn’t as serious as the glitch with the passenger doors, but it can delay trains from being put in service because the subway can’t move until the cab door is shut.
“The fix for that currently is avoid using the cab door, and just go through the passenger door,” said Ross. “That’s the directive to the operations staff… But sometimes you have to use the cab door.”
Ross says Bombardier has pledged to fix the cab door problem by the summer of 2013.
Byford and Bachant also discussed retrofitting the trains with more handholds, which would be located under the cars’ air conditioning units.
