Evidence of meeting #100 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was train.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much, Mr. Muys and Mr. Brockmeyer.
Mr. Iacono, you have the floor for five minutes.
February 13th, 2024 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be sharing a bit of my time with my colleague, the chair.
Mr. Brockmeyer, your company's goal is to “improve the quality of life in public spaces”. What drives your company is “city activity, civilisation, velocity, civitas, vivere”. I would refer to it as joie de vivre.
Can you tell us what country in Europe comes closest to Canada? As you know, the Canadian climate is very different and the demographics are very different. Which European country do you suggest would be the most appropriate one for us to look at to create a better vision of our future rail system?
12:20 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
That is a very good question. I would say Scandinavia. Unfortunately, Scandinavia is not a country, but the Scandinavian rail system, consisting of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, is very worth looking into from a climate perspective—if we're talking about snow, for example, or about storms—but also in terms of how they have improved their rail system.
They have also decided not to go for very high-speed rail, or for, let's say, really high-frequency rail, but for the conventional upgraded rail lines. There you can really see that if you do it cheaply, as the Swedish have done, when you have to compare it with other countries, where you have—
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
When you referred to conventional, would that be a mixture of HFR and HSR?
12:20 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
Yes, it's more.... We use upgraded lines, so we've improved a bit of infrastructure. When we bought so-called “tilting” rolling stock, it really does tilt on the curves. That leads to the possibility of improving the speed to up to 200 kilometres per hour, let's say. However, if you're looking into that, it is still not competitive against air. For example, I think it's a very good comparison if you're comparing the connection between Stockholm and Gothenburg and that between Ottawa and Toronto. Then you can really see what it looks like if you have a conventional-upgrade system and not a newbuild system. It's very important. It's not a newbuild system.
If you're looking more into newbuild systems here, then it's difficult because the climate is so different if you're going to France or Spain. I would suggest that you look more into some parts of Germany.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Angelo Iacono Liberal Alfred-Pellan, QC
If we look at our present rail system in Canada, we notice that it caters to mainly the big cities and not the small regions, etc. How can we increase our ridership? How can we make this rail service closer to the population? Would that be by using high speed, or would that be by using high frequency? What would be more appropriate, in your conclusion?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
What's most important is reliability. The timetable is the face of the product. It has to be reliable, and it has to be on time. Then it has to be, of course, frequent. That's the next step. It makes no sense to have a train once a day or to have two trains per day, so you need a train every two hours or every hour. That's the important part. The next step, really, is to increase the speed to reduce travel time, because it makes no sense to have a very high-speed system with one train per day. I think that's obvious.
I would say that for speeds, frequency is a necessary condition, and if you have high speed, the frequency should ultimately be a result of it.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Mr. Iacono.
Thank you for giving me a portion of your time.
Mr. Brockmeyer, thank you for your expertise today.
I'll just follow up on your comments regarding the Scandinavian countries and the decision they made to go with more upgraded models of their tracks and systems. Did they make that decision because from a logistical perspective—with the climate that they have, which is very similar to the very harsh climate that we have here in Canada—high-speed rail wasn't an option, or...?
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Could you expand on that? There's a debate here on whether or not Canada has a climate that can accommodate high-speed rail. What are your thoughts on that?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
No. It was a budget decision. The Swedish decided to not spend that much capex on the lines. If you look, for example, at Norway, Norway has a lot of money due to its oil fields, so it built a completely new high-speed rail line network. Whether it makes sense or not we can discuss at a different time, but they built a high-speed rail system, a very expansive one, and they have the same harsh climate.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
What tools are they using to cope with the harsh climate that they have? The technology does exist, isn't that correct?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
Yes, of course the technology exists. You have to build it to be a bit more robust. You have to spend a little more on a few items, some design features, but in general it's not an issue. Of course, if you have a heavy snowstorm, then you have no chance. However, then there are also no airline operations, so everybody has to stay at home. I think that's the better decision.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you, Mr. Brockmeyer.
Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let's take an example. The distance between Montreal and Quebec City is 250 kilometres. It takes about two hours and forty-five minutes by car, while the train currently takes about three hours and twenty minutes, assuming the train leaves and arrives on time. Under the proposed project, the high-frequency train would take three hours. That is longer than travelling by car, not to mention losing the flexibility of being able to leave when you want and park where you want.
Mr. Brockenmeyer, do you think the project is worthwhile since going by car would still be more convenient, not to mention the option of flying? Shouldn't we focus instead on high-speed rail which, in addition to saving time, would encourage more people to switch from cars to train travel?
12:25 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
Yes. The important thing is that you always have to consider the catchment area. As far as I know, you don't have a lot of connecting trains in urban rail transit hubs. If you want to improve the overall journey times, you have to consider the first and last mile. People have to go to the city station, then leave the city station for somewhere else—a final destination. You always have to optimize overall journey times, so you need a transport or mobility model for the overall system.
If you want to become competitive against the car in terms of convenience and all of that stuff, you at least need very competitive travel times. This means they can't take much more time than a car would.
That's it.
12:30 p.m.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
As a percentage, how much faster than travelling by car would the train have to be to make it worthwhile to choose the train: 15%, 30% or 50%?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
I wouldn't say there's a strict KPI. When there are a lot of other factors.... You also have some convenience. On the train, you can work. You don't have to control your car, take the wheel or whatever. There is no clear KPI, but you definitely have to be faster. That's all I can say. If you look at the high-speed rail systems in Europe, it's roughly between 10% and 40%.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.
Thank you, Mr. Brockmeyer.
Last, for our first hour, we have Mr. Bachrach.
Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to Mr. Brockmeyer.
I want to pick up on the question of access to city centres.
It seems as if, when we're talking about total trip length and trying to ensure that modal shift, we need to ensure that the new line is connecting with other modes of transportation and existing legacy transit in those cities.
How important do you feel it is that the government's objectives from the outset frame the journey length as downtown to downtown?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
It's a very important measure, of course, if the downtown is important. You still have very high local demand in the city centre. This is driving the demand for business trips among the travellers with a high willingness to pay. This is driving the business case of high-speed rail. The journey time from downtown to downtown—if downtown is important, which always has to be considered—is very important.
Again, it's about connection—a city station that's well connected, and so on.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
You mentioned the need to avoid bridges and particularly tunnels, due to the cost.
One of the features we have in Canada when it comes to our current rail network is a lot of level crossings. I've heard this cited as one of the cost factors when it comes to building high-speed rail. We need to deal with and eliminate all those level crossings, because they don't function with high-speed trains.
Is that a situation you've come across in Europe? How do European projects manage that?
12:30 p.m.
Director, Civity Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG
Yes, this is an issue. After about 60 kilometres per hour, you cannot use level crossings, so you need small bridges flying over the level lines.
I think you can do it in two ways: the European way or the U.K. style. In Europe, it's not really a cost driver. If you're looking at capex projects to build the bridges.... I'm not talking about the rail bridges. I'm talking about for street bridges. They are not driving the costs. If you are looking into high-speed, too, this is an issue. They build very complex bridges to cross the rights of way and level lines. In the U.K., it's unfortunately the case that it's very expensive to build them. It's completely different if you're looking into mainland Europe.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Peter Schiefke
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses, particularly Mr. Brockmeyer.
Thank you for your generous time today, for being so technical and for sharing so much of your expertise with our committee on this very important study.
With that, I'll ask the witnesses to log off.
Colleagues, we'll take a five-minute break. I will suspend, and we'll come back for our second session.
Thank you, everyone.