Transit geek

Maybe in anticipation of the Crosstown reaching the area?

Someone mentioned on another thread that TTC has been able to reconfigure its PRESTO readers to accept YRT and MiWay fares, effective August 26. That is definitely good news for anyone regularly crossing the border and is likely to increase ridership on these routes as paying fares will be much more convenient - no cash required anymore! Info on TTC's website This will be interesting to see how the Presto fare readers would behave after this date - maybe finally the remaining balance would be displayed. Very useful when you don't know whether your fare would get rejected due to a negative balance.

Could we rename the present post to mention deliveries and entering service, just as several other similar posts already exist?

In case you don't know it already, in Hong Kong (where I am working for the next year or two), there is a smart card known as the Octopus card, used in much the same way as my Presto card in Toronto. When I arrived home today, I found out my card had a negative balance, meaning I needed to reload it before I could use it again. Since I needed it tomorrow to travel from home, I needed to load money onto it. Back when the card was first introduced, the only way to load money was to do so in person at a transit station or a retail outlet, the nearest of which was over 2 kilometres from my home. The card has since evolved, and now it is possible to load it directly from a bank account. Since I opened one last month in advance to deposit my working pay (the first month of which came earlier this week), I was able to set it up instantly, though it required several steps. I first had to link my bank account to Octopus ePay, a digital wallet application, via the protocol known as electronic Direct Debit Authorization. It took me some effort to find the Octopus payee option via my bank's online banking interface, but I eventually did it. Next, I had to load my Octopus ePay account from it - once I did, I was instantly able to transfer some that balance to my physical Octopus card by using the NFC feature on my phone - something Metrolinx is still having trouble with it seems... And now, I have a positive balance on my card and can be assured I will be able to get to work tomorrow... if I don't get stuck amidst striking protesters...

If you are not already aware, when the distance between stops exceeds a particular distance (1 km) , the VISION computer will repeat the "Next stop" message about 200-300m away from the stop. This could be a good chance to program the message to say "Arriving at", just as was the case with the old SVASAS system.

Not till the TTC absolutely commits itself to e-buses. For those who don't already know, the 60 buses on order is only a pilot. If it fails, we could be seeing hybrids being ordered for another decade.

Tomorrow I'll be moving to Hong Kong for a two-year work placement as a contractor for a major bank there. I will be exposed to a vastly different living environment - longer working hours, more formal appearances, expensive housing, but lower public transport costs and cheaper food. Not to mention consistently hot, humid temperatures with more frequent rainstorms and flooding. At least there's a strong bus and rail fanbase there and always lots to see...

For me, it depends. I typically keep to the front so I can get a good view of the instrument panel (the seat behind the driver on a Nova LFS is perfect for that!) but sometimes I find a seat in the rear, especially if it's a new vehicle and I want to hear how it sounds and how noisy it is.

Frankly speaking, the Confederation Line is basically like the underground section of the Eglinton line, only longer and with higher capacity since it is the backbone of their transit network, comparable to our Yonge and Bloor lines. And, just in case you weren't aware, the ITCS technology is now known as Bombardier Innovia Metro, and the Mark III trains are even going to Saudi Arabia - albeit using conventional electric motors instead of LIM. Maybe we could look to Japan for inspiration; I know they got a couple of LIM lines operating in Osaka, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Kobe, Yokohama, and Sendai. They all have similar objectives: smaller trains, smaller tunnels.

That destination sign font looks very different from a Luminator/TwinVision, but similar to some signs in Europe and Asia. Does anyone have any idea who made it?

I came across a video of a Miami-Dade Transit bus ride showing the automated stop announcement system in action and discovered it behaved very similarly to TTC's VISION system - even the robo-voice was identical. I immediately recalled a photo on CPTDB showing a bus in Miami with LCD screens installed, and it didn't take long before I found a primitive representation on what we could be seeing on our screens in a matter of months... P.S. Not surprisingly, Clever Devices was behind MDT - deploying their system close to six years ago.

Not to worth mentioning three-door double deckers do exist, either of the kind in Berlin and London (UK) which has a doorway at the rear as well as the middle, or the kind recently in service in Singapore which has two adjacent, independent doorways in the middle. In either case, a second staircase is adjacent to the rear doorway.

Vancouver used to have a heritage streetcar until the line was modernized for the Olympic demonstration service in 2010. Since that ended, numerous plans to restore some kind of street railway service had been brought up, but all got stalled. The city is now looking to expand its successful elevated SkyTrain network instead.

I clocked a TTC operator yesterday hitting 80 km/h between stops and braking hard upon approach - on a LFSh. Which makes me think (if it hasn't been brought up yet) why can't there be devices to track fuel consumption on these vehicles? The TTC could then use this data to perhaps use those to reward safe and efficient operators, in line with their Green initiatives.

Or maybe they are funding the buses with their own money. It is likely the electric bus program was funded in the same way as electric car rebates - the cap and trade program - and got slashed alongside it, albeit much quieter than the Tesla affair.