Financial strain led to poorer decisions by RTG, inquiry hears
RTG and RTM executives testifed at final day of public hearings at LRT inquiry
Financial pressure on the companies building the 15-month-late Confederation Line led to poor decisions about putting the LRT line into revenue service, according to the current head of Rideau Transit Group.
The final day of four weeks of testimony at the Ottawa light rail transit public inquiry heard from RTG CEO Nicolas Truchon and Mario Guerra, the CEO of Rideau Transit Maintenance, who spoke about the strained relationship with not just the city, but within their own organization.
From an "exhaustive" list of minor deficiencies that existed when the LRT was supposedly finished on Aug. 30, 2019, to the fact the system wasn't "stress tested" in winter, Thursday's testimony confirmed what we've been hearing for the past month: while the Confederation Line was deemed safe, it was unlikely to provide the high level of reliable service called for in the contract.
Little leeway to say LRT not ready
Construction delays of more than a year required the RTG parent companies to pony up "quite significant financial support to see the job to revenue service," said Truchon, who stepped into the top job two years ago.
The last two milestones in the project, substantial completion and the handover of control to the city came with paydays worth more than $260 million. RTG wasn't getting paid, but its bills were piling up.
Truchon said in his experience, when a project like the Confederation Line is nearing completion, all the parties work "really hard to get the final conditions ticked off and it's handed over."
Commission co-lead counsel John Adair asked Truchon point blank: "Is it your view that, on the RTG side, that better decisions should have been made and would have been made were it not for the desire to achieve the financial component of [revenue service]?"
"Yes," Truchon replied.
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He also explained that the system being complete per the contract isn't necessarily the equivalent of it being ready for prime-time service. The LRT work has to meet certain conditions which are signed off on by a number of overseers, like the independent certifier. But there was little room for qualitative discussion on how the system would work in real life.
"At the end of the day, there's very little discretion," he said. "I think the question should be whether or not those conditions should have been a little more all-encompassing … There was little room for anybody to raise their hand and say, 'Well, I'm sorry, I don't think we're ready.'"
LRT not fully 'stress' tested: Guerra
Some inquiry witnesses have argued that a longer trial run period would not have uncovered some of the problems that arose later — in particular the derailments from last summer — but Guerra disagreed.
"We should have taken more time to ensure, in retrospect, that the system was severely tested or stressed to flush out any issues," he said.
"The more time you have to test and stress and communicate with all the parties on how to resolve issues, the better off the system is going to be when it's finally in revenue service starts."
That's especially true for a brand-new rail system like Ottawa's, he said. While trains had been out on the tracks in early 2019, testing of the full system — 15 double-car trains replicating a normal service schedule — didn't happen.
Guerra also dismissed the idea that the parallel bus service the city ran for a few weeks after the LRT was opened to the public on Sept. 14, 2019 was the equivalent of a soft launch. When customers are riding the trains is not the time to be trouble-shooting technical problems, he said.
"There is no ability to look at anything that might come up and, through discussions and workshops, ensure that it's dealt with before you go into full revenue service," he testified. "The bus service simply does not do anything to help that."
Rideau Transit family troubles
For years we've been talking about Rideau Transit Group as the consortium that built the Confederation Line, treating its related offshoots OLRT Constructors and Rideau Transit Maintenance on par with RTG. After all, they all have the same parent companies: SNC-Lavalin, ACS Infrastructure (or the related company Dragados Canada in the case of OLRTC) and Ellis Don.
But the inquiry heard how they are distinct financial entities with somewhat different goals that sometimes appear to pit one against the other. OLRTC, for example, was to pay fines — or liquidated damages — of tens of thousands of dollars a day to RTG for construction delays, although the parent consortium managed to get those waived.
And when RTG and the city decided between them to push the Confederation Line past the finish line with known defects, RTM was not consulted, even though it would be largely responsible for making the fixes later on.
The current CEO of RTG conceded the relationship with its maintenance arm was strained.
"In the case of the Confederation Line, because of all the issues that have taken place during construction, the delays, the transition into revenue service, it did put the parties into a polarized situation very early on, which is unfortunate," said Truchon.
Then there are the problems with Alstom. The train company was subcontracted by RTM to actually perform the maintenance work, but the inquiry has heard extensive testimony that Alstom — which didn't have a large North American presence before its Ottawa contract — struggled to find experienced workers.
Its staff shortages and lack of clear processes is well-documented. For example, Truchon said Friday that Alstom didn't have an overnight maintenance supervisor until after last year's derailment, although he said hiring one was being "discussed" before then.
And while Alstom may have been responsible for some issues with the light-rail service — a subject of many contractual disputes — it wasn't getting paid by RTM when the city held back its monthly $4-million cheques.
"The fact that you're not being paid is not a good motivator," said Guerra.
Relations had deteriorated to the point that RTM and Alstom signed a memorandum of understanding in May 2021 to try to commit to working together "in good faith."
But it was the two derailments in as many months that seemed to have provided the impetus for RTG, RTM and Alstom to improve their relationship with the city, and each other.
"I think we've broken a few silos as a result of … the derailment and are changing the way we approach the service delivery," Truchon told the commission. "And that has had significant impacts in terms of improving the relationship with our client."
Expert panel next
Four weeks of public testimony heard from 35 witnesses and saw hundreds of pages of evidence entered into the public realm, all of which can be found on the inquiry's website.
Justice William Hourigan, the commissioner mandated to investigate the technical and commercial issues that led to issues with the Confederation Line, will hear from a panel of experts at the end of the month.
His report is due at the end of August, but it's expected the provincial government will extend that deadline to the end of November.
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