Things are so bad — and so embarrassing — at the TTC that CEO Andy Byford (right) has called a top-level meeting here in Toronto with the boss of Bombardier, the company that manufactured the new so-called rocket trains. Turns out they are far from rockets and the evidence has been building for quite a while. Primarily, they suffer from what appears to be GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) programming in the software operating the doors. Quite frequently, the doors have trouble closing. News reports last summer lovingly heralded the new trains as state-of-the-art machines that would deliver a much-needed upgrade to Toronto’s 60-year-old Yonge line. Byford has described the vehicles’ performance as “unacceptable” and effectively summoned the CEO of the subways’ manufacturer, Bombardier, to impress upon the company “the need for substantial improvement in the performance” of the trains. A delegation from the Montreal-based company, including CEO Pierre Beaudoin (left) is expected in Toronto on Friday. The TTC’s latest monthly scorecard shows that trains on the Yonge-University-Spadina line where the Rockets are deployed are on schedule only 92.7 per cent of the time, well below the commission’s reliability target of 96 per cent.
