Thank you.
I'll be speaking today about the unprecedented growth at Toronto Pearson to set the context for what I'm presenting: existing and emerging ground transportation challenges as a result of this growth, and the new developments that we have in our plan in response. I'll also touch on transportation and technical challenges as far as regulatory and design implementation is concerned.
Toronto Pearson is experiencing a period of unprecedented growth. In 2016 we moved more than 44 million passengers. It's estimated that in 2035 we will move as many as 80 million passengers. A global hub status would be achieved should we meet that number of 80 million, and we would be in a group of airports—much like JFK or Heathrow—providing global connectivity.
Global hubs provide prosperity to the region in which they operate through job growth, foreign direct investment, and tourism. Keeping up with this growth within our physical facilities is difficult, and the expectation of the passenger is key. People have a choice about where they travel or which airport they choose to connect through. Our direct competitors are JFK, Detroit, Chicago O'Hare, and other airports that provide connectivity, such as Atlanta. Passengers have a choice of which airport they choose. We want them to choose ours.
One key deliverable to achieve that is to provide connectivity for the passenger using various transportation mechanisms to allow them to move freely and quickly through the facility from gate to gate, from check-in to gate, or from gate to ground transportation.
We'll increasingly rely on technology to move our passengers and their bags in an expedited fashion. We've explored the use of accelerating high-speed moving walkways, personal rapid transit vehicles—PRTs—and automated people mover systems to move people efficiently.
I have an example of this. I met a passenger who was travelling on Air Canada from Frankfurt. She was going to be travelling out to Calgary on WestJet. The distance from gate to gate was likely three kilometres. She travelled on various moving walkways, escalators, vertical transportation systems, the automated people mover or accelerated moving walkway, and she arrived at her gate in less than 30 minutes. That wouldn't have been possible without these technologies.
One thing I want to mention is that the high-speed walkways that exist at Toronto Pearson are unique. There are two of them in the world, both at Toronto Pearson. They're the result of a research and development project that we undertook with ThyssenKrupp in Spain to develop these high-speed walkways, which move at three times the speed of a normal moving walkway.
Yet the movement of people and goods outside of the airport is arguably a greater challenge and is more out of our direct control. Toronto Pearson is located within the second-largest concentration of jobs, the airport employment zone, and accounts for about a million trips per day. Of that, less than 10% is on transit. As the region grows and our traffic grows, transit becomes so important to preventing our roads from reaching critical levels, affecting the movement of airport employees, cargo, and passengers.
To ensure that Toronto Pearson is able to continue operating efficiently in serving our community, we have recently announced plans for a regional transit centre at the airport. The facility is strategically located to provide a missing link for a number of existing and planned transit lines that come close to the airport but don't actually connect. We're asking our government partners to connect these lines to this facility so that we can keep people and goods moving freely through the region.
We'll also be looking for technology to help solve problems. The transit centre could provide important connections in all directions, including important economic zones like the Kitchener–Waterloo corridor. However, we're looking at innovative transit solutions for passengers for that “last mile” from the transportation centre to the airport terminals.
This could employ the use of digital technologies, automated vehicles, or other emerging technologies. Existing emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles, will require changes in road design and electrical utilities infrastructure. It is expected that as different types of technologies become established there will be a need for the integration of regulatory standards and design.
As an example, the UP Express connecting Pearson to Union Station's heavy rail system and the automated people mover system that connects the terminals to other elements of Toronto Pearson are on the same platform system. Nowhere in the world does this exist, to my knowledge.
It was an interesting exercise to integrate the regulatory framework that guides the safety of workers and passengers in the heavy rail system with a mature regulatory structure around automated people movers. Nowhere else do they exist on the same platform, in the same space, and in the same dynamic envelope. I think you can expect to see this more and more frequently as different technologies emerge, and there is a requirement for those technologies to be in the same space or a relatively similar space.
Some airports have begun integrating new transportation technologies and processes. As an example, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, along with MARTA, the regional transit provider, partnered with Uber to provide critical connectivity to and from the airport.
As the airport operator, we invest in tools that we need to keep people and goods moving through our airport and our ever changing region. We ask government to support us and partner with us to ensure that Toronto Pearson, one of Canada's most important commercial assets, continues to operate efficiently and to flourish.