As Waterloo Region gets ready to welcome light rail transit, the eyes and ears behind the scenes are also preparing for its launch.
Keolis Grand River is the company that performs the daily operations of the routes.
“This is the mind of the LRT,” says General Manager Ian Cushion. “We’re able to see and control everything that’s going on.”
Located on Dutton Drive in Waterloo, the station features a display of CCTV cameras that operations staff closely monitor to ensure trains arrive on time.
“We’re in constant contact with the operators of the vehicles,” Cushion says. “We can see where the vehicles are, and we can see what’s happening at all of the station platforms.”
Like the trains themselves, operations at Keolis have picked up speed. In 2016, there were four staff members—now, a hundred people are employed.
The control centre is also the place where decisions are made in cases of emergency.
“The first thing that will happen, is the operator will call through to the regulator here, and call through ‘emergency, emergency, emergency’,” Cushions says. “And that means the room would go silent, and listen to the information.”
Staff will then communicate with emergency services if needed. In the past couple of weeks, there have been four collisions between vehicles and light rail trains.
Bombardier staff maintain and fix the trains below the control room.
“Over the last year or so, upwards of fifty people from Bombardier have been putting the finishing touches to these vehicles to make sure they’re ready for Friday’s launch,” Cushion says.
The ION is set to launch on Friday.
