ST Rider Experience Meeting 9/4

I was going to Uwajimaya on September 4th for a routine shopping trip. I got off a 14 bus at Union Station, when right in front of me was a sign for a Sound Transit board meeting. So I went inside to see it. I thought it was the full board meeting (and the signs didn't say otherwise), but afterward I found out it was the Rider Experience and Operations Committee Meeting. The meeting was halfway through and I didn't stay till the end, but I did see two presentations, one on Link reliability and the other on next generation of trains. Here's the livestream, and the meeting page with documents links (but not the reports below).

Improving Link Reliability

This presentation starts at 57:35 in the livestream. Staff gave a quarterly report on unplanned Link disruptions and steps to improve resiliency. 2024 had 38 hours per month of unplanned disruptions, or what we experience as outages or single-tracking. 2025 so far has had less than half that per month, with July having 14 hours in July (98% uptime). This doesn't include planned maintenance periods, where single-tracking or closures also occur.

Disruptions tend to spike in the 2-3 months before and after a new extension opens. This happened with Lynnwood Link, the 2 Line Starter Line, and the Downtown Redmond extension.

The biggest culprits are power loss, signals, and train vehicle issues. Especially problems with the trains' brakes, and stray current in the rails causing false alarms. These alarms require trains to be stopped for around half an hour even if there's not a real problem, like an apartment building evacuation where residents have to wait outside until the fire department confirms there's no fire. Over the summer ST overhauled 95% of the brake settings, and the vast majority of brake outages disappeared. It revised the rail to ground setting" to eliminate the false alarms, and it prioritized rail maintenance projects based on where rail has worn the most. Power outages involve coordination with the electric utility: sometimes it's just line power or a station; other times it's a larger power outage in the neighborhood where the station is.

To prevent disruptions or minimize them when they occur, ST is hiring specialists to triage issues, training field technicians in rapid response, enhancing maintenance instructions, and developing preventative maintenance analytics.

A resiliency report last March identified 80 recommendations to improve reliability. (Chart at 1:11:23 in the video.) 10% of those have been completed. Another 40% will be completed in time for the World Cup. The rest will be completed in the next 4-5 years. The work areas, from most to fewest recommendations, are: communications network, traction power, maintenance, signals, tunnel power disruption, rail, operations, EVS and fire alarm, governance, light rail vehicles, climate, and OMF (maintenance bases).

Series 3 Trains

This presentation starts at 1:22:31. The original Link trains are Series 1" by manufacturer Kinki Sharyo. Series 2 is the Siemens set, the ones with the neon-like light strips in the doors. Series 3 is the next generation to be delivered in the 2030s. ST is putting together a high-level vision of what it wants the future trains to be like. It's working with several qualified car builders who may bid on it to ensure the vision is feasible. Ryan Packard at the Urbanist has more details and renderings of the train concepts.

The biggest difference in the vision is doubling the length of the cars, so instead of four double-size cars (95 feet per car), future trains will have two quad-sized cars (190 feet). STB has been asking ST for over a decade to order ST2 and ST3 trains with open gangways to increase capacity for free", and this step goes halfway toward it. The new train size is estimated to increase capacity 8% (range 5-12%), and to decrease capital cost 10%, a win-win. These trains won't fit in existing maintenance bases, so two new bases OMFS (South) and OMFN (North) will be built for them.

ST is also redesigning the procurement strategy. The train specs will distinguish between necessary" and desirable" requirements. ST will offer incentives in milestones, and share some cost risks with the manufacturer through price indices". (I don't know what the last part means. If you know, please explain in the comments.) ST will set a longer timeline for train design and testing, and order prototype vehicles to evaluate them. Series 3 trains will be future-proofed for CBTC (advanced train control techology)". Would this make them forward-compatible for automated line use? (Again, if you know, please explain in the comments.) The purchase contract will include long-term parts and service to address the total cost of ownership".

ST intends to publish a request for proposals this year, and get back detailed proposals by the end of next year. The first cars would start revenue service in fall 2033. The manufacturer would deliver approximately 18 cars per year, for a minimum of 70 cars and options for 80 more (so 150 cars total).

There's also an estimate of railcar cost increases since ST's last estimate. Covid-related costs add 30% to the total. The tariffs this year may add 20%. Scaling up the order from the previously-estimated 118 cars to 150 cars may add 20%. (This is doubtless because ST found it needs more cars for reliable operations than it anticipated.) This adds up to a total potential cost increase of 30-70%.

The livestream also has three other presentations and four action motions, as listed in the agenda.