After years of back-and-forth issues with the Metro LRT Line, builder Thales has been terminated by the City of Edmonton.
“This is the end of the line for Thales,” Mayor Don Iveson said Tuesday.
“Thales has consistently let Edmontonians down in delivering on their contractual obligations. They are more than five years late completing their signalling system and they have failed to deliver on their commitments to finish their work by Dec. 4 of last year.”
READ MORE: Edmonton LRT system-wide closure on Jan. 27 for Thales signal testing
Iveson said there is plenty of evidence to support the city’s decision, which was unanimously backed by council.
“We are not the first city to experience significant reliability issues with Thales. Their shortcomings are well documented from New York to Singapore to Hong Kong,” the mayor said.
Iveson said the city has given the company plenty of time and resources to complete their work.
“Enough is enough and it’s time to find a resolution on the Metro Line without Thales,” he said.
“This isn’t about picking a scapegoat, as Thales has characterized it, this is about accountability and standing up for Edmontonians.”
Watch below: Adam Laughlin, with the City of Edmonton, said the city intends to recover all costs associated with the Thales signalling system.
Thales said it received written notice of termination on Thursday, April 4, and within a few hours the city escorted Thales staff from the work site.
“Thales is extremely disappointed in the city’s commitment to the failure of this project and its abandonment of the objectives to achieve a better LRT service for Edmontonians,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.
“Thales regrets this decision and will vigorously pursue appropriate remedies with all means available to us.”
Thales Canada customer service vice president Dave Beckley insisted the system is safe, adding an independent safety contractor hired by the city said the same thing.
“The city may say the CBTC system is unsafe and unreliable. This is not true,” Beckley said. He said the company never walked away, despite years of challenges.
Watch Below: Thales may be officially gone but questions remain about the future of the Metro LRT Line. A former city councillor gives his perspective to Vinesh Pratap.
The Thales Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) system was designed to work alongside the existing 1970s-era system.
The problem-plagued Metro Line has experienced several issues since it opened to riders in September 2015, including crossing arms coming down on green lights and trains heading in opposite directions on the same set of tracks.
Last year, the city issued a notice of default to Thales. A new timetable was established to fix all of the remaining issues with the system, with a date of Dec. 4, 2018 to finally hand the system over to the city to operate.
“Between May and December, our staff did whatever it took to help Thales get their work done. At midnight, on weekends, our engineers were always beside theirs,” city manager Linda Cochrane said. “Edmontonians helped do this work as well. Numerous tests were conducted. There was also system-wide closures of the LRT which affected all Edmontonians.”
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READ MORE: 1 week from deadline, Thales says Metro Line LRT signalling system ‘ready to go’
Over the past few months, the city has conducted testing of the signal system.
“The signalling system they provided on Dec. 4 was not ready and it was not reliable,” Cochrane said. “It couldn’t keep trains on schedule despite a lot of manual intervention from our own staff. It delayed trains at stations, it caused trains to stop suddenly. These sorts of issues shouldn’t be showing up in a signalling system that is supposed to be complete and ready.”
“Instead of working with Thales to deliver a successful service to LRT riders, and after years of unprecedented interference in this project, the city spent months conducting its own testing in a manner contrary to industry standards, while contemplating a fundamental change to the Metro Line signalling scheme,” Thales said.
Watch below: Dave Beckley with Thales Canada talks about the city of Edmonton terminating its Metro LRT Line contract
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Thales ‘extremely disappointed’ with City of Edmonton’s decision to terminate Metro Line LRT contract -
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Thales ‘not aware’ of what might have motivated city to terminate Metro Line LRT contract -
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Thales weighs in on safety of Metro LRT Line signalling system -
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‘Network flood’ led to serious issues on Metro LRT Line in February -
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Thales seeking compensation after Metro Line contract terminated
Thales said it stands by its declaration of practical completion of this project in December.
“Three and a half years of Metro Line operations and the results of the thousands of hours of testing on the system have demonstrated that the system is ready for full CBTC service on both the Metro and Capital Lines. The delivered Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) system is highly integrated into the entire railway, a key component of the safe transport of nearly 35,000 Edmontonians every day,” the company said.
READ MORE: Last week’s Metro LRT Line signalling issue ‘extremely rare’: Thales
Thales said the actions of the City of Edmonton are completely unwarranted, starting over will cause disruption to LRT riders for years to come, and result in the waste of millions of dollars. The city said the Metro Line will continue operating safely under the current signalling system as it pursues a replacement.
“Our relationship with Thales is over but our commitment to building and operating a reliable LRT system for a city of more than a million people remains unchanged,” Cochrane said.
Since the Metro Line project began in 2011, Thales said the city has requested several “significant” changes to the system, including the addition of Automated Train Operations and the introduction of a “special” train service to NAIT— additions Thales said “were out of scope of the original contract.”
Thales is an international company that has designed transit systems around the globe. When asked what went wrong in Edmonton, Beckley said it’s a “very unique situation.”
“Every railway in the world is different, especially the urban railways. We’re not talking about an ‘off-the-shelf system’ here.”
“Every job I’ve ever worked on has had surprises — some of them big surprises,” Beckley said.
“We’ve had moments where, ‘okay, what are we going to do here?’ And we’ve worked through them with the strong and solid support of our customers, and unfortunately this has not been the case here and that has made Edmonton different.”
Thales said for the past two years, it “made extraordinary efforts with the city of Edmonton to work towards the successful delivery of this project, including multiple meetings with senior city administration to help guide the project.”
READ MORE: City emails reveal frustration, concern after Edmonton LRT trains end up on wrong track
“Despite these extraordinary efforts, Thales continued to witness a fundamental lack of leadership from the city of Edmonton on this project,” Beckley said.
“Thales will not be a scapegoat for the city’s lack of experience and understanding of CBTC systems. It is this type of challenging work environment that contributed to the failure of this infrastructure project, shortchanging Edmontonians and ultimately eroding trust in the LRT.”
Thales said the city is now fully responsible for the maintenance, operation and training of the CBTC system and any changes to the CBTC system by the city may invalidate Thales’ safety certificates.
READ MORE: Thales says Metro LRT signalling system is ready to run
The city has previously said as a contingency, it has developed a backup plan in case officials aren’t satisfied with the Thales system. It would be based on the old signal technology used on the Capital LRT Line.
Beckley said all work has stopped and its dispute with the city is heading to arbitration. The city said it proposed to Thales keeping the termination confidential so the two sides could attempt to reach a settlement.
Watch below: Thales and the City of Edmonton address the termination of the Metro Line LRT contract
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City of Edmonton explains why contract with Thales was terminated -
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City of Edmonton made ‘every effort’ to find resolution in Metro Line signalling system -
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Thales seeking compensation after Metro Line contract terminated -
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‘Network flood’ led to serious issues on Metro LRT Line in February -
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Thales weighs in on safety of Metro LRT Line signalling system -
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Thales ‘not aware’ of what might have motivated city to terminate Metro Line LRT contract -
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Thales ‘extremely disappointed’ with City of Edmonton’s decision to terminate Metro Line LRT contract
— With files from Slav Kornik
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