Hitting the Finish Line: the Last 600 Days of Our 5-Year Plan to Modernize the TTC

The Empire Club Presents

Andy Byford, CEO, Toronto Transit Commission

on

Hitting The Finish Line: The Last 600 Days Of Our 5-Year Plan To Modernize The TTC

April 15, 2016

Welcome Address by Dr. Gordon McIvor, President, Empire Club of Canada

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, from the Arcadian Court in downtown Toronto, welcome, to the continuation of the 112th season of the Empire Club of Canada. For those of you just joining us either through our webcast or our podcast or on Rogers TV, welcome, to the meeting. Before our distinguished speaker is introduced today, it gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our head table guests.

Head Table:

Distinguished Guest Speaker:

Andy Byford, CEO, Toronto Transit Commission

Guests:

Mr. Doug Allingham, P.Eng., Executive Vice President, Canada, AECOM Ms. Mary Fragedakis, City Councillor, Ward 29, Toronto-Danforth

Ms. Angela Iannuiello, P.Eng., F.E.C., Vice President, Canada Transit Market Sector Lead, AECOM

Ms. Monica Masciantonio, Senior Manager of Government Communications, Research and Policy, Scotiabank; Director, Empire Club of Canada

Dr. Gordon McIvor, Executive Director, National Executive Forum on Public Property; President, Empire Club of Canada

Ms. M. J. Perry, Vice President and Owner, Mr. Discount Ltd.; Director of Empire Club of Canada

Mr. Adam Vaughan , MP, Spadina–Fort York

My name is Gordon McIvor. I am the Executive Director of the National Executive Forum on Public Property and the President of the Empire Club. Ladies and gentlemen, your head table.

We are also delighted to have a group of students joining us today. And this week, our students come from the MBA Program at Ryerson University. Students, welcome.

Introduction

The Toronto subway, which for many is, in fact, the jewel in the crown of North America’s third largest transit agency, began operations the year I was born, in 1954, and changed forever not only how residents of our city got from point A to point B, but even where they lived and worked and where they shopped—even how they socialized.

A few months before the new subway was about to commence operations, we welcomed at the Empire Club the then legendary Chair of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, Frederick G. Gardiner, who delivered a speech in which this upcoming opening loomed very large. It was, for many Torontonians of the day, the indisputable proof that Toronto had come of age and had a future ahead of it, which would make it one of the great cities of this world.

In this November 5th, 1953 speech, Chairman Gardiner strongly emphasized the importance of the new subway that was about to open and how it would be the cornerstone of the new TTC, and I quote from that speech:

With respect to public transportation, the Toronto Transportation Commission, which has been a separate authority for 30 years, will be expanded into the Toronto Transit Commission. The new TTC will have the monopoly in respect of public transportation in the whole of the metropolitan area with the corresponding responsibility of providing public transportation throughout the whole of this area. The City of Toronto subway, which is nearing completion and will cost approximately

$60 million for the subway and rolling stock will become the main stem of the transit system with its surface lines, trolley coaches and bus facilities, which will provide millions of passengers every day, all public transportation requirements bringing them across great distances.

Now, fast forward to April 2016, and we see what our guest speaker at the Empire Club this week has called “the least funded transit system in North America,” the situation that has led CEO of the TTC, Andy Byford, to become what some have referred to as a squeaky wheel, a man who is not afraid to stand up and fight for what he believes in. He has always transit in his blood to be sure. He did, after all, start his career as a station foreman in the London Underground in 1989, and even his grandfather had been a bus driver for London Transit.

While he grew up in the beautiful city of Plymouth and remains faithful to the Plymouth Argyle Football Club to this day, his career was to take him to the far reaches of the Commonwealth, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer of Sydney, Australia’s Rail Corporation.

When he joined the TTC as Chief Operating Officer in November of 2011, he had already acquired all of the operational skill sets to face the challenges of our own municipality’s heavily underfunded transit system. He has never lost his focus as he fights for what he truly believes are necessary infrastructure upgrades and investments to allow this great city of ours to continue to grow and to live up to Frederick Gardiner’s vision of Toronto as one of the great metropolitan areas of the world.

Now, at last, his call to action appears to have fallen on receptive ears, and, as we heard last week when Federal Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, addressed our Club in a joint meeting of the Empire Club and the Canadian Club of Toronto, funding for Toronto Transit will finally be forthcoming. It is not surprising, then, that Mr. Byford can now come to the Empire Club with a message we hope of hope and optimism.

Now, keeping our city moving on time in a safe and efficient manner is now more than a pipe dream and will help ensure that Toronto continues to hold the position of one of the great and most livable cities in the world.

Ladies and gentlemen, to tell us about the last 600 days of the TTC’s modernization plan and what it will look like when it is completed in 2017, please, join me in welcoming to the podium of the Empire Club of Canada for the second time in our history, the CEO of the Toronto Transit Commission, Mr. Andy Byford.

Andy Byford

Well, thank you for that kind introduction, Mr. President. It really is an honour to be back at the Empire Club. Once again, just looking at the placeholder on the table and through the names of the luminaries who have spoken, it is quite humbling, really, to speak in such a prestigious institution. And I had the honour of signing the book with the President earlier on, and that was something that will always resonate with me throughout the rest of my career. Mr. President, Councillor Fragedakis, MP for Vaughan, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen—and also AECOM: Thank you so much for sponsoring this— thank you for, once again, affording me the honour of speaking at this, one of the premier institutions of this great country.

Since I last spoke here, which seems like yesterday, but it was actually back in May 2013, a lot of water has passed under the TTC bridge. Back in May of that year, I stood up to announce the launch of the inaugural TTC five- year corporate plan, a comprehensive top-to-bottom modernization of the company to transform the customers’ experience and to deliver a transit system that makes Toronto proud. Three years on, then, and in the penultimate year of that plan, it is good to be able to update you on progress, to celebrate successes to date, to acknowledge where we still have work to do and to outline what is coming up as we sprint to the finish. The plan that I outlined three years ago is what has guided the TTC in the intervening period. Launched to our employees in no less than 83 town hall meetings, it has proved to be the foundation for relentless focus on what we need to do in spite of occasional political turmoil and in the face of relentless criticism. Anchored around seven objectives, five megaprojects and, literally, hundreds of work streams, this plan has transformed the way that we manage our business.

Taking these seven objectives in turn, how are we doing? In the critical area of safety first, I talked last time about the need to move to a new way of managing safety based around a concept of quantified risk. Well, in just three short years, we have made huge progress towards implementation of a modern safety, health and environmental management system, a first for any North American transit. We have developed a risk register to capture and quantify key risks. We have tightened up on all aspects of operational safety, and we have embraced best practice in enterprise risk management to become leaders of all the city agencies in that discipline.

Under the area “Customer,” a true passion of mine, I announced changes back in May 2013 to our station management model, promising a new focus on the customers’ experience. I am hugely proud to say, and I am hugely proud of the fact that customer satisfaction is at an all-time high on the TTC, increasing by statistically significant five points, year on year, between 2014 and 2015 and maintaining that high as we proceed into the first quarter of this year. We are onto our fourth iteration of the customer charter, a charter that has now delivered over 80 time-bound promises to our customers.

On people, I stress the need for a new way of managing and motivating our employees, the most valuable asset we have. Here, I would describe our progress as nothing short of phenomenal, and it was great to hear from the table.

M. J. was just saying that you, yourself have noticed that the staff just seem to be more motivated. We have delivered four four-year negotiated deals with our unions, without recourse to arbitration and within our financial mandate. We delivered an employee version of the customer charter setting out mutual expectations of managers and employees, and we carried out the first ever employee engagement survey to gauge the prevailing mood of our workforce.

This has given us invaluable insight into what we need to do and what we need to address to truly motivate our team, so that they excel in customer service, to give them the tools to do the job and to unlock their potential to excel. With huge change underway and more to come, and more about that later, we recognized the need for dedicated change expertise, so we went out and recruited a top change practitioner to help us imbed change and to ensure that improvements are sustained going forward.

Our Change Director represents two other areas of huge progress. The Director, a lady called Jody Humble, came to us from Deloitte’s, a world-class company and not the kind of place that people used to leave to join the TTC. Jody is also an increasing number of women in an ever more diverse TTC. Back in the day, back just a few years ago, as little as five years ago, the TTC had never had a female on the executive. Well, we now have 30% female representation on our executive, and it is not uncommon for men to be in the minority at meetings. Whatever next? There you go.

With assets, the 2013 challenge was twofold: To make what we currently have work more reliably and to achieve a step change in system capability. The key to reliability is attention to detail. Greg knows all about that with our sister organization in GO. We have changed the way we manage roots, ensuring that our procedures are customer rather than process led. Bus reliability is up. Streetcar reliability, ditto. Emergency alarm activations on the subway are markedly down. Subway punctuality is up, and we have delivered reductions in Line 1 delayed minutes and overall incidents of 25% and 11% respectively.

How is this being done? Better management for a start. New blood has been brought in to head up the subway and our surface roots. Our focus is changing from fix on fail to fix before fail. We have developed root supervisors to actively manage what goes on and about the street. The dreaded short turn. You know all about that in Toronto? Well, three years ago, people still told me that short turns were a fact of life; you could not do anything about them and that bunching was inevitable. Rubbish. I engaged a new Chief Service Officer. We brought him in from Boston. He had a specific mandate for me: Eliminate short turns and eliminate bunching. And, so far, we have reduced short turns on Queen, for example, by 90%, nine zero, tangibly improved service for bus and streetcar patrons.

Our growth objective has faced challenges. We opened the second platform at Union before the Pan Am Games, as promised, with our excellent contractor, Ellis Don. We now have a stunning, state-of-the-art streetcar down on the Lakeshore.

Not disappointingly, our new streetcar fleet numbers less than 20, and last week’s news that Bombardier has just released their North America CEO, tells me that all is still not well at Thunder Bay. But, on a positive note, the 17 cars that we do have in service are spectacularly reliable and very much appreciated by our customers. And their Toronto Rocket cousins on Line 1—the rocket trains—are achieving reliability figures on par with the world’s best. They achieve reliability figures on par with the best Asian metros. The Spadina extension will now open in 2017 after it proved impossible to overcome issues dating back to its inception. But just wait until you see what Toronto and York are going to get in terms of a spectacular railway extension.

On financial stability—and Doug touched up on this earlier—there is good news to report: Our three-year record of lobbying or being the squeaky wheel, our three- year campaign came good with a record investment in transit by Mayor Tory and City Councillor Fragedakis at the fore. Thank you for your support, enabling us to deliver a huge expansion in service, including—wait for it—earlier Sunday service on the subway. There you go.

On the capital front, we await with bated breath the dollar amount that Ottawa says is coming our way, and we have calculated around $850 million because, for the first time, the allocation will be based on ridership, not pro rata. Adam, as a member of the government, I really salute you for that. That is a huge step forward, and that will transform this city as we apply that funding to projects that this city desperately needs.

Finally, reputation, the seventh objective, is really driven by how well we do on the other six objectives and our ability to get things right, at least for most of the time. The fact that we delivered a flawless Pan Am Games was a real step in the right direction. We just need to make that level of service the norm.

Three years in, what remains to be done? Well, job one for me this year is to finish off the rollout of Presto with our partners at Metrolinx. Around 30 stations are now Presto enabled, including Main St. station that features the new style automatic gates. All streetcars accept Presto, and we have introduced all-door boarding on all 11 routes of the TTC, key initiatives to speed up service. Now, we will finish all the stations by the end of the year and the bus fleet—around 2000 buses and Wheel Trans—thereby delivering smartcard and the efficiencies that Presto will bring one year ahead of schedule.

At the turn of the year, tokens, transfers and tickets will be confined to TTC history, and our collectors will vacate their booths to offer a friendly, proactive service out in the station with their customers. The year 2016 will see all stations Wi-Fi enabled by the end of quarter one and cell service on all stations by the year end. This year, we will complete construction at the TYSSE stations ready for systems installation, testing and commissioning and trial operations, ready for a December 2017 opening.

That new line will, of course, need a new signal system, and that will be the second phase of the new automatic train system currently being implemented on Line 1, the first phase of which will go live from north of Dupont from the fall of next year. Throw into the mix more work to drive up service reliability, more work on culture, further service improvement, and it truly is a sprint to the finish.

Now, of course, this is only the start of the job. There are huge amounts more to do as we move to the next five-year iteration of our corporate objectives. So, working with Metrolinx and our partners at City Planning, there are a whole raft of other projects to now deliver. Our next five-year plan, under development now, has an equally impressive checklist and suite of projects to get started with: The Scarborough subway extension, SmartTrack, the Relief Line, Waterfront LRT, Crosstown. All must be progressed if we are to maintain the momentum and consensus that seems to have finally been achieved. And the TTC will be front and centre in each of those signature projects. Further ahead, we are developing a master plan for the complete route modernization of Line 2—new trains, new signals and potentially a new yard.

More immediate challenges remain. Our service is not yet as robust as it should be as we continue to grapple with ever-aging infrastructure and ever-rising customer numbers. And I cringe every time I see customers being loaded onto shuttle buses for unplanned closures. We must continue to drive down the root causes of failure. Difficult issues must continue to be tackled. No one likes subway closures, but they are essential if we are to give our crews the time and space that they need to replace worn out track and signals. There remains a small minority, and I stress that, a small minority of employees whose actions embarrass us from time to time and that have not yet embraced the new customer service and accountability paradigm. We will continue to cherish, support and stick up for the overwhelming majority of TTC staff who do do a good job and who do set out every day, day in and day out, to delight their customers and to deliver excellent service. But we will not let poor performance off the hook, especially, the few that break the rules and provide fuel for our critics.

Mr. President, we are delivering change to the TTC on an unprecedented scale, a five-year transformation that would take most organizations double that to achieve. And all this—and I am going to repeat it again—all this on what is still the lowest subsidized transit in North America. It is for that reason that I call the much maligned TTC staff our miracle workers, and I want to salute and thank them for what has been achieved thus far.

Now, let me just finish by describing a future journey on the TTC. Just imagine this: You arrive on a modern, spotlessly clean articulated bus at the state-of-the-art, architecturally stunning station that does not currently exist on a subway extension that is not yet a reality. You use your Presto card at the all-new gate line to enter the station, and you are greeted by a customer service assistant in a new uniform—probably with an iPad to give you information on what you need and to tell you where you need to go. You go down to the platform on what is, of course, a fully accessible station to make a phone call while you wait the short period for your train to arrive. An immaculately clean Toronto Rocket train pulls in, one-person operation in automatic mode. It leaves on time, and you arrive at your interchange ready to seamlessly transfer, again, using your Presto card onto a low-floor, air-conditioned streetcar.

It sounds utopian, does it not? Well, it is not a dream, Mr. President. This will be reality in less than 600 days as we drive relentlessly to the finish line in a transit system that makes Toronto proud. Thank you.

Questions & Answers

Q: Obviously, what happened in Belgium a few weeks ago must have had you wincing and grimacing. It is a horrid scenario for anybody that runs a transit system. When things like that happen, is there a reaction at the Toronto level where you actually sit down and go, “Okay, let’s check our systems again,” or is that already in place so much that you go on as usual?

AB: It is a very topical question, obviously. And it is one that never leaves you. I am a former Operations Director, so you kind of obsess about that kind of eventuality, but also just always try to envisage what could possibly happen. What you should not do is just react to things. You should be being proactive about things. We have very carefully worked through and trained security escalation procedures, so we have procedures to escalate if something were to happen, but we also have various training programs that we undertake and specific actions that we take were the security situation to deteriorate. We take advice from CSIS, and we take advice from our sister organization, such as the Tube.

As someone who was an Operational Manager through the 1980s and the early ‘90s when the Tube was having all sorts of issues with the troubles in Northern Ireland and as the person who was Operations Director and led the operational response to the July 7 bombings in London—I had to manage the evacuation on southeastern trains—I can tell you, it is something that we are very focused on. I do not want to say much more than that, but it is the kind of nightmare scenario that we never want to have happen here.

Q: (From M. J. Perry:) I am going to ask you to bear with me. This question is from a friend who spent the night in the ER with his mom, so he could not be here, and he did not have the benefit of hearing your speech. In 1890, we had a population, in the country, of 4.7 million. Today, the GTA alone has a population of more than 6 million. In 1890, we had a national dream to span the country with a railway to enhance and spur our economic growth. It would seem our lack of progress on the transit file has to do more with vision than resources or population density. Can you comment?

AB: Well, I think the good news is, I mean, I would like to put a sort of positive response to this. I think we are on the cusp of—and I kind of alluded to it in my few words—a real golden age in transit in this city and not just this city, but in the GTHA, generally, because, think about how many projects are underway—and I talked about some of them: The new vehicles, subway extensions, etc.; what we are doing with our colleagues at Metrolinx; all of the advances on Presto; the fact that lines like SmartTrack, the Relief Line, the Waterfront LRT are tangibly close now. I actually think we are on the cusp of breaking that kind of mindset. And with the government’s commitment to infrastructure funding, with City Council’s commitments in terms of an increasing operational expenditure on subsidy to the TTC, I think things can only get better. I think the fact that people are frustrated about the congestion in the GTHA and the fact that most people are saying, “Can we just stop talking and start digging,” can really be leveraged such that we are on the cusp of a real transformation of transportation in this, not just city, but the region as well.

Q: I am a user of the TTC. First of all, I am wondering what number or percentage of employees will be displaced by these changes? That is number one. Number two, how expensive will the Presto card be, and will it be subsidized? Number three, what will the condo explosion mean to transportation?

AB: In terms of displacement, if what you are alluding to is do these changes mean that people’s jobs disappear, what is actually going to happen is that jobs will change. For example, where Presto comes in, there is absolutely no point in having a collector when there is nothing to collect. I was at the division the other day, and the collectors totally get that, because you are not just going to sit there in a booth when there is very little money to collect and there are no tokens, so the job will change. We will migrate; we will re-engineer the collectors into being very proactive, very customer-focused, customer service agents. On the condo issue, condos are a challenge to us. I was just with Councillor Mark Grimes the other day. We were discussing the explosion of condos being built down on the Lakeshore, down in Etobicoke. And to a certain extent, the TTC is struggling to play catch up in places like Etobicoke and places like Liberty Village because there are all these beautiful new condos going up. And I have to say, I look at them and I think, “How the hell are we going to carry all these people?” But we have to bite that bullet, which is why we are introducing bigger vehicles and rolling out more capacity. With the Presto system, the question I am most asked, and I think it is possibly what is behind your question, is “What happens to Metropasses? Will you end up paying more?” No. The Metropass as a product will not be in the form of a ticket, but Metropass will be loaded onto Presto. You will not pay more than you would have had. It will cap out at what you would have paid.

Q: Andy, terrific presentation. Two quick questions. I am interested in your thoughts of why you believe it has taken so long for the evolution of the TTC, particularly, in things like if you want to put a token, it seems you cannot even get a token, multiple tokens at multiple spots. The other thought I have is what is happening in terms of the relationship between the TTC and Metrolinx to help facilitate the two-hour transit visits that people have when they are coming from the 905 area to the city? This is obviously a concern if we are going to take account of that growing 905 population who have jobs primarily in the city.

AB: To the first question, one of the marks of my tenure has been, “Let us just get on with some of these improvements,” so hopefully the list that I read out gave you some indication of that. There was certain things that seemed to me, when I turned up, just kind of nonsense— the fact that, for example, you could not use a debit or credit card, and I was given lots of excuses as to why you could not. Well, could we just get on with it? It is 2012 as it was at that point. We are fast-tracking change. We have rolled out a series of what I call “quick wins,” so things like enhanced cleanliness, enhanced information—things that show the customers that we mean business and that we are serious about improvement. Other things take longer, like buying new vehicles, building extensions, et cetera.

In terms of two-hour transfers, it is part of the wider debate about what is going to happen in the future with the GTHA. People often say to me, “Are we going to have integrated fares?” Absolutely, we should be moving towards integrated fares. The good news is that the glue, if you like, the enabler for integrated fares and for things like time-based transfers— which are expensive, but it is the kind of thing that we could look at—or even zonal fares or fares by distance, is Presto. And the reason for that is Presto’s big advantage is it is pan-GTHA. It is not just the TTC; it is Brampton, Mississauga, and even Ottawa has Presto. So I think you are about to see as part of that golden age that I referred to, in addition to new services as in new lines, a much more dynamic mix. I like to think— and I am convinced that we can do this—we can leap. Certainly, for the TTC, we can leap from sort of being at the back of the class, right to the forefront in all the various things that we have talked about today.

Note of Appreciation by Mr. Doug Allingham, Executive Vice President, AECOM

Thank you, Mr. President, Andy and head table guests. We are most honoured to have the opportunity to sponsor this event. AECOM is involved in many projects for both Metrolinx and TTC, and we are thrilled to be able to do that. I was going to talk a little bit about those projects, but I did want to mention that I am a long-standing and long-suffering Leicester City supporter, and I can now reveal my allegiance, and that may be an inside joke, but, hopefully, some of you get it.

In any event, I did want to talk about some of the AECOM projects, but, instead, after listening to Andy, I wanted to recognize the fact that he has been a great leader and a great promoter for the TTC. And he has been a driver of improved transit service and for the citizens of Toronto. His focus on service and quality improvements have greatly enhanced the user experience and improved the public perception of the system, and so much that when AECOM is looking at the next five years and we are looking at where to locate our offices, one of the things that is giving us rise to consider coming back to the downtown is the current state of the transit system—both the TTC and the regional system run by Metrolinx. So it is a huge part of our decision- making process. We will be thrilled to come back into the City of Toronto where we think our future employees are, but a big piece of that is a result of the work that Andy and your staff have done. Thank you, Andy. We are pleased to have sponsored this event today. Thank you very much.

Concluding Remarks by Dr. Gordon McIvor

Thank you so much, again, to our speaker and thank you to our generous sponsor, AECOM. Thank you, again, Doug and Angela. I really appreciate you being here.

I would also like to thank the National Post, which is our national print sponsor and, of course, Rogers TV, which is our national broadcaster. We would also like to thank Mediaevents.ca, which is Canada’s online event space, for live webcasting today’s event at the global level. Please, follow us on Twitter, ladies and gentlemen, at @ Empire_Club, and you can also follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Please, join us again. We have some extraordinary events in the following weeks. We will have a panel discussion on physician-assisted suicide, very topical, called “Navigating the New Canadian Right.” That will feature Dr. James Downar; Shanaaz Gokool, who is the new CEO of Dying with Dignity Canada; and Piya Chattopadhyay, the host of CBC Radio and TVO Television. That will be at the Royal York Hotel on April 26th. The Honourable Navdeep Bains, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development will speak on April 29th, right here in the Arcadian Court. We will have William Charnetski, the Chief Health Innovation Strategist for the Province of Ontario on May the 4th at 1 King West. And we just booked Beverley McLachlin, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, who will actually be kicking off our sesquicentennial—and I had to practice that word—Canada’s 150th anniversary. That will be kicking off on June 3rd of this year as we prepare for our celebrations next year.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance today, and this meeting is now adjourned. Thank you.