Opinion: Platform doors needed to improve SkyTrain safety and reliability

Opinion: Platform screen doors needed to improve SkyTrain safety and reliability

SkyTrain Commercial-Broadway Station (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive) and an artistic rendering of platform screen doors on the London Underground (Transport for London).

Over the last three weeks, at least eight incidents on Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain have resulted in highly disruptive shutdowns of major segments of the rail rapid transit network.

Some of these incidents lasted for as long as nearly six hours during the middle of the day, with every incident necessitating a shuttle bus bridge service to mitigate the severe impacts.

The first of these incidents was a four-hour Expo Line disruption due to a medical emergency on the evening of January 25 within the area between Joyce-Collingwood and Metrotown stations. About 12 hours later, there was a two-hour-long Expo Line disruption due to a police incident for a track intrusion on the morning of January 26 between Main Street-Science World and Stadium-Chinatown stations.

Both of these incidents occurred during the busy weekday peak periods.

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On January 28, starting in the late afternoon, there was a two-hour Expo Line disruption due to a medical emergency between Edmonds and New Westminster stations. Within the same area on January 30, there was a four-hour disruption due to a medical emergency that spanned from the morning peak period to early afternoon.

On February 5, in the late afternoon over two hours, Sapperton Station on the Expo Line was closed due to an incident that occurred immediately outside of the station — a pedestrian fatality from a collision with a train on the freight railway.

Just two days later, on February 7, a track intrusion alarm between King George and Surrey Central stations on the Expo Line led to a disruption of service for over an hour during the morning peak period.

And on February 12, major Canada Line service disruptions occurred between Waterfront and Olympic Village stations for well over two hours during the evening rush hour due to a medical emergency.

skytrain joyce collingwood station service disruptions

SkyTrain Expo Line service disruptions, as seen at Joyce-Collingwood Station on the evening of January 25, 2024. (Amir Ali/Daily Hive)

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SkyTrain Expo Line service disruptions, as seen at Joyce-Collingwood Station on the evening of January 25, 2024. (Amir Ali/Daily Hive)

The lineup of commuters at SkyTrain King George Station due to service disruptions on February 7, 2024. (Daily Hive)

As of the time of writing, the most recent shutdown of service occurred on February 16 from about 10 am to approximately 4 pm when a police incident due to a track intrusion led to a disruption of service between Lougheed Town Centre Station and Columbia Station on the Expo Line.

It goes without saying that some of these incidents have had very tragic outcomes for those directly involved, and it represents yet another example of the region’s untamed mental health crisis spilling out into a very public space.

There is also a mental health toll on passengers who witness an incident onboard a train or while waiting on the platform, as well as impacts on the well-being of first responders, SkyTrain attendants, and maintenance workers.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that platform screen doors are needed on the SkyTrain system for obvious safety reasons, as such equipment would drastically reduce a proportion of these types of incidents, including accidental falls, side-sweeping train collisions from standing too close to the platform edge, or deliberate incidents including self-harm.

Not entirely dissimilar to the protective exterior set of elevator doors to prevent people from falling into an elevator shaft, platform screen doors on train systems are a physical barrier along the edge of a station platform to separate passengers from the train tracks. When a train arrives at a station, the door spacings on the train cars align with the sliding glass doors of the platform screen door system.

Platform screen doors have essentially been a default feature on many subway systems built in Asia and Europe in recent decades, and many older systems have also seen major modifications made to their stations to install the equipment.

Platform screen doors on the Hong Kong MTR subway. (TungCheung/Shutterstock)

Platform screen doors on the Tokyo subway. (DerekTeo/Shutterstock)

Not only are platform screen doors an immense safety measure, but the equipment would also greatly add to the reliability and resiliency of the SkyTrain system for a region that is increasingly becoming more reliant on public transit. The region is experiencing immense population growth now and expects to continue seeing it well into the future, resulting in the SkyTrain emerging out of the pandemic as one of the busiest subway systems in Canada and the United States, with a higher proportion of the region’s residents expected to be living within high-density, transit-oriented development, especially near SkyTrain stations.

If many more residents and visitors are to rely on this arterial regional transportation service in the decades to come, there should be greater attention on the system’s safeguards to better ensure the continuity of service.

Major investments are needed to not only increase SkyTrain’s capacity and network coverage through the extensions of existing and new lines, but also to expand its supporting infrastructure, including the installation of platform screen doors.

Platform screen doors would remove a major variable in service reliability, in the same way that the driverless automation of SkyTrain has removed human operator error as a factor, and in how the full grade-separation of SkyTrain has removed train collisions with vehicles and passengers at street level as a variable in the reliability equation.

The installation of platform screen doors would not only help prevent highly disruptive incidents that can take hours to resolve but would also reduce the frequency of minor track intrusion incidents that are the result of garbage, birds, tree branches, personal belongings, or even false alarms triggering track intrusion detection systems found along the length of each station platform.

The older Expo Line uses a system of weight-sensing pressure plates for its track intrusion detection system, while the newer Millennium Line and Canada Line systems use an invisible web of infrared beams, including an invisible fence of beams along the edge of the platform, and beams on the floor of the tracks. Platform screen doors would reduce, if not completely replace, the current primary use of track intrusion alarm systems.

Minor track intrusion incidents account for the vast majority of the roughly 6,000 track intrusion alarms triggered on SkyTrain annually — an average of about 16 per day — and such alarms can generally add minutes to the travel times for passengers. If a SkyTrain attendant is already at a station and can quickly deem an alarm to be a minor track intrusion, the situation is sometimes cleared within seconds.

Platform screen doors on the Copenhagen Metro. (A. Aleksandravicius/Shutterstock)

Platform screen doors on the Paris Metro. (Beton.7/Shutterstock)

Comparative to other similar metro systems, SkyTrain is fairly reliable. According to TransLink’s latest statistics for the third quarter of 2023, SkyTrain delivered 99.4% of its scheduled service with 95.2% on-time performance. But the recent frequency of major incidents resulting in hours-long service disruptions — including three severe incidents across just 72 hours last month — has shaken some of the public confidence in the system.

TransLink’s primary measure of mitigating service impacts through the deployment of shuttle bus bridge services between the impacted SkyTrain stations also has its limits, especially with growing ridership and peak period demand. The practice of herding thousands of stranded passengers at the stations onto shuttle buses due to cascading systemwide disruptions comes nowhere close to meeting the capacity of the trains, and it may also mean regularly scheduled bus services are disrupted elsewhere.

In contrast, according to a November 2023 report, the New York City subway has an overall on-time performance of just 84%, with one line hovering at just 70%. Toronto Transit Commission’s (TTC) subway system is aiming to meet an on-time performance standard of 90% for Line 1 and Line 2.

But the Hong Kong MTR subway — a global benchmark of reliability — has an astounding on-time performance of 99.9%. During the first few months of its operations last year, the brand new first segment of Montreal’s SkyTrain-like REM system also had an on-time performance of 99.9%. One major feature both Hong Kong and Montreal’s new systems have in common is platform screen doors, which remove the major service reliability variable of track intrusions.

With all that said, it should also be noted that different public transit authorities have varying standards for what they consider to be “on time.”

When it comes to the use of platform screen doors on Montreal’s REM, this is actually a first for a major system in North America. One of the next major applications of platform screen doors will be on Toronto’s Ontario Line, which is expected to open in 2031.

Installation process for platform screen doors on Montreal’s new REM train system. (Alstom)

While it is far easier and substantially less expensive to install platform screen doors onto a brand new train system from the get-go, the equipment can also be added to existing systems based on the precedents set on other systems around the world, but it is not simple nor cheap, including in SkyTrain’s context and condition.

In an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized in September 2023, Sany Zein, the president and general manager of TransLink subsidiary BC Rapid Transit Company, said the different door spacing issues of the four different generations of trains on the Expo and Millennium lines will still be a problem to overcome for platform screen doors. While TransLink is shedding 150 cars of the original Mark I fleet later this decade, the future new generation of 205 Mark V cars will have different door spacings from other existing models in use.

However, door spacings are less of an issue on the Canada Line, given its current use of a uniform train fleet.

Zein also noted that underground stations come with their own complications, specifically air circulation and ventilation considerations to clear any smoke.

“If we introduce even a half-height platform screen door, it changes air circulation, how we do maintenance, and how we access the far side of the platform. How do we evacuate in a situation, such as in the case of power failure? All of these things, we have to think about, so it’s not easy. But we’re looking at it,” said Zein.

He also notes that it is possible that the precise placement of platform screen doors could impact the capacity of passengers who can wait for a train on a platform.

“We do get the more serious incidents of self-harm or other things that trigger the intrusion alarm, so platform screen doors are part of the solution,” continued Zein.

rem montreal opening weekend july 2023 rm transit

Platform screen doors on Montreal’s REM. (Reece Martin)

TransLink launched a Trackway Intrusion Engineering Study in 2023, which includes an analysis on the feasibility of platform screen doors. The study is expected to be completed in 2025.

The purpose of the study is to examine the current state of the track intrusion system and research how peer systems around the world limit track intrusion, including looking at technologies, processes, and policies. The outcome of the study will provide recommendations to limit track intrusions and identify potential ways to best maintain the current track intrusion systems.

“Toronto and Montreal have both put serious energy into studying them and figuring out how they would work. Vancouver was first to automated trains and it would be a little disappointing to be so far behind on this,” Reece Martin, a transportation planner best known for his RMTransit YouTube channel, told Daily Hive Urbanized.

In addition to installing platform screen doors on the new Ontario Line from the get-go, the platform screen doors will be an added future feature for Bloor-Yonge Station as part of the interchange hub’s $1.5 billion upgrade to completely overhaul its capacity, accessibility, and amenities. Site preparation work will begin this year, ahead of the start of major construction activities in 2025.

In January 2023, the TTC’s new 15-year capital plan through 2037 included a program to install platform screen doors for every subway station at an estimated cost of $2.9 billion. This project is currently unfunded.

However, in December 2021, a decision was made by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) to cancel its years-long plan to install platform screen doors at 13 old subway stations on the Montreal Metro. Quebec’s provincial government had committed to funding the total $200 million cost of installing the platform screen doors — an estimated cost of between $10 million and $15 million per station.

Platform screen doors are also coming to some of New York City’s old subway stations as part of a pilot project for a wider system overhaul. This follows a highly prominent incident in 2022 when a woman was killed after being intentionally pushed into the path of an oncoming train. The estimated cost for installing platform screen doors on the first three subway stations is about US$250 million, including at a busy station at Times Square.

Transport For London also has plans to progressively install platform screen doors for many of its old London Underground stations.

It is clear that platform screen doors are a highly optimal feature for a modern subway system, with the equipment providing passengers with a sense of added safety and security and improving overall rider satisfaction. Furthermore, it could help protect passengers from the elements and reduce noise from passing trains.

But the installation of platform screen doors will almost certainly require funding support from the provincial government, which would have to provide the same impetus as it did for installing fare gates well over a decade ago.

Artistic rendering of the trains and platform screen doors of Toronto’s new Ontario Line. (Metrolinx)

platform screen doors london underground

Artistic rendering of platform screen doors installed onto the platforms of an existing London Underground station. (Transport For London)

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