GO Transit has given its customers almost $4 million worth of refunds for delayed trains over the past three years, the Star has learned.
And while the transit agency cut down on the amount it paid out in 2016 compared to the year before, GO issued about $300,000 more in rebates last year than it did in 2014.
The numbers were provided by Metrolinx, the provincial agency that oversees GO Transit.
According to Metrolinx Chief Operating Officer Greg Percy, it’s uncommon for transit agencies to offer a money-back guarantee, and the agency likely wouldn’t have proposed the idea if the government of former premier Dalton McGuinty hadn’t imposed it on the organization.
But he asserted that since its adoption in late 2012, the service guarantee policy has become an important part of the mandate of the agency, which carries more than 215,000 rail passengers every weekday.
“It does keep us to a high bar, and it is part of servicing our passenger charter, which we take extremely seriously,” Percy said.
He stated that Metrolinx is always working to reduce delays, by taking steps like upgrading its signals and switches and buying new vehicles. “I’m never happy with our on-time performance,” he said. “It’s like chasing a carrot. We’re always trying to improve.”
Michael Harris, the MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga and the Ontario PC party’s transportation critic, said he doesn’t oppose the refund policy, but he believes the number of delays is unacceptable.
“I think taxpayers are going to have difficulty accepting that they’re actually being hit, having to pay for millions of dollars a year in what may be avoidable late fees for failure to deliver on really GO’s basic responsibility,” he said.
Under the policy customers are entitled to a credit equal to their fare if their train is delayed by 15 minutes or more for reasons within GO’s control, such as equipment problems, construction, or train traffic.
Factors that GO considers outside its control include police investigations, trespassing incidents, pedestrian collisions, and extreme weather.
In 2016, GO issued $1.3 million in credits. That was less than the $1.7 million issued in 2015, but more than the $972,000 refunded in 2014.
In terms of delay time and number of trips affected, 2015 was the worst of the past three years, with 880 hours of delays and 4,383 journeys suffering. Percy blamed the problems that year on a harsh winter followed by a sweltering summer.
Measured by number of affected trips and hours of delay, 2016 was not as bad as 2015, but worse than 2014. However, 2016 had the highest number of cancelled trips of the past three years, at 473. That was up from 317 cancelled trips in 2014.
The incidents that caused the most delay hours last year were weather-related track and signal problems, followed by external issues like police investigations and vandalism, and general equipment failures.
Deaths on the tracks caused 94 hours of delay, while trespassers were responsible for 54.
In addition to routine delays, service was thrown into chaos last June, when two platforms at Union Station were closed to accommodate work on the building’s roof.
Metrolinx was forced to run GO trains closer together in order to fit them onto fewer platforms. Train operators and dispatchers had difficulty adjusting to the compacted schedules, and to make matters worse the network suffered multiple IT issues, engine failures, and defective signals and crossings.
Percy called it “the month from hell.” On-time performance dipped to the “embarrassing” level of 90 per cent, although it has since rebounded to 94 per cent, which is the agency’s target.
Cindy Smith was trapped in one of GO’s worst delays last year. In September, she and hundreds of others were stuck on a train on the Lakeshore East line for three hours when its locomotive broke down. For safety reasons they weren’t allowed to leave, even after the power and air conditioning died.
Smith, who writes about GO commuting on her blog This Crazy Train, described the situation as a “hostage taking,” which was made more frustrating because the train was only metres from the Ajax GO station platform.
In that case, GO went beyond its regular delay policy and gave stranded riders $100 credit and a letter of apology.
Smith said it was “a very nice gesture” but more than anything she wants a guarantee that it won’t happen again.
“That’s wonderful, but I’m still waiting on the report on what they’re going to do in the event of another catastrophic engine failure.”
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