Background
The Canada Line is an 18-km fully automated and grade-separated rail transit system in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is the first Public-Private Partnership (P3) of its kind in North America. The public sector client awarded a 35-year design-build-finance-operate-maintain (DBFOM) contract to InTransitBC, the concessionaire that includes SNC-Lavalin. Subcontracts were awarded by the concessionaire to design and build the system, and to operate it for 30 years.
The Canada Line began revenue service by August 17, 2009, three and a half months ahead of schedule.
The need for a dedicated system to calculate operating payments and to allow operators to monitor system performance was identified early in the project. Operating payments are based on several inputs related to system availability and quality. These inputs are often interdependent and cover all aspects of operations. The Performance Monitoring System automatically processes more than 30,000 records per day through a complex set of algorithms to calculate system performance and payment for operating Canada Line.
Project Goal
Supplying a fully configurable, automated Performance Monitoring System for measuring, managing, and forecasting performance, as well as for revealing operational problems and bottlenecks based on data analytics.
Alianz Role
After reviewing all RFP proposals, SNC-Lavalin has awarded a fixed-price contract to Alianz Development Inc., as supplier of the Performance Monitoring System for Canada Line Rapid Transit Project in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Challenges
We faced the following major challenges:
- Need to learn fast all intricacies of Thales’s SelTrac® Automatic Train Control (ATC) system to be able to design and test monitoring system
- Principle requirements for managing very complex busines rules by end-user via configuration including changing of mathematical formulas for calculating payment for operations based on performance KPIs
- Contractual risks – time-sensitive, fix price contract with significant initial uncertainties related to application and system security, interfaces, and dependency on the third-party vendor
- Complex procedures for assuring quality of the Performance Monitoring System
- Extensive requirements for documenting every component of the Performance Monitoring System and corresponding testing procedures.
Major outcomes
The Performance Monitoring System has been delivered on time and on budget with a full-feature set implemented and without open defects. It was used as a primary managerial tool for detecting system deficiencies and validating correspondent fixes during the project life cycle. Because of this, the Performance Monitoring System has played a key role in the successful, on-budget delivery of the Canada Line project three and a half months ahead of schedule.
Subsequent project phases resulted in a self-managed, fully configurable solution that allowed Canada Line to optimize operations, prevent disruptions addressing systematic negative trends proactively, maximize performance from service availability and quality.
Timelines and Methodology
Alianz delivered all phases of the project leveraging proven hybrid software implementation methodology, with development of specifications, coding, and testing done in 2-week long iteration sprints while all documented deliverables and solution feature sets have been provided to client as milestone deliverables on a monthly basis for formal acceptance and milestone payments.
The core Performance Monitoring System as a platform was released in 2009. The latest platform update was delivered in Q1 2020.
Training
We have trained system administrators as well as system end-users in person over the course of the design and implementation and during the last milestone of each project phase. We have been keeping current all training materials and user manuals over the course of this multiyear project.
Support Contract
Ongoing since 2009
Environment and Technology
Microsoft Data Platform
Alianz
