Travellers who frequently use the LRT in Edmonton may have noticed a bit of a change Friday morning.
The departure boards, which notify riders of when the next train is coming, were back up and running. Edmonton Transit said the boards were going through live testing through the weekend and if all goes well, they will stay up for good.
The signs were taken out of operation last April when they started displaying incorrect information.
“It was variable and in some instances it was not even recognizing where the train was. Not that we didn’t know where the train was, but the information on the signs didn’t,” said Adam Laughlin, deputy city manager with Integrated Infrastructure Services.
Edmonton Transit said the glitch was part of the ongoing challenge with the new signalling system.
“It is the complexity associated with different types of software and making sure that one maps to the other,” Laughlin said. “It’s kind of the like the Commodore technology overlaid with the latest technology and it always comes with some challenges.”
The city said getting the boards up and running is a good sign when it comes to the overall progress of the Metro Line LRT, which still isn’t running at full capacity.
“This has been a complex project. We’re always working hard to address the issues that have been created with this,” Laughlin said.
“This is a positive step which helps us, or gives us good comfort, that we’re making progress on those other issues that we have. But at this time, we don’t have a date or a specific time frame for that.”
Issues with the signal system have plagued the Metro Line, which opened at a reduced capacity in September 2015.
READ MORE: Edmonton’s Metro Line LRT given go-ahead to run at full speed, with exception
Last August, city manager Linda Cochrane said although workers were “killing themselves” to fix the problems, no new deadline for when the line will be fully operational will be given.
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