“The vehicles appear to be more prone to these failures during wet or inclement weather.”
Business
Bad weather is bad news for Ottawa LRT trains, city told – Ottawa Citizen
Ottawa LRT in winter
International rail experts hired by Rideau Transit Group are being treated to a fine example of Ottawa’s current LRT mess as the city’s contractor started another week with a serious shortage of trains for the busiest times of day.
The gurus from JBA Corp. come on board this week with news that the Alstom Citadis Spirit trains don’t like bad weather.
The city reported that several trains suddenly stopped during the snowy, wet weekend because their circuit breakers tripped.
The problems continued Monday when only nine trains operated during the busy morning and afternoon transit commutes.
Monday night, a transit user tweeted that there was no westbound service past Lyon Station.
There should be 13 trains during peak-hour service. Wait times for trains hit six minutes, two minutes longer than what people have been used to when LRT is working properly.
OC Transpo said in a release late Monday that Tuesday service would again operate with nine trains in the morning and afternoon peak periods, supplemented by special morning bus service to downtown from Tunney’s Pasture, Hurdman and Blair stations and from downtown to Tunney’s, Hurdman and Blair in the afternoon.
As many as 50 bus trips on higher-frequency routes would be cancelled in the morning peak and up to 75 in the afternoon peak.
Experts from JBA are expected to examine a dozen issues flagged by the city about LRT maintenance. The consultants have been helping the City of Ottawa’s transportation department figure out if RTG is off track with the maintenance program, and now RTG, which is a partnership of ACS Infrastructure, EllisDon and SNC-Lavalin, has hired the consultants to fix troubles related to LRT upkeep.
JBA has experience with Alstom trains and infrastructure.
Everything about RTG’s maintenance program, which is overseen by affiliate Rideau Transit Maintenance, appears to be open to scrutiny.
Someone will obviously have to look into the power problems with the trains.
John Manconi, the city’s transportation general manager, told council and transit commission members on Monday that the loss of power to the vehicle motors has to do with problems with the electrical equipment on top of the vehicles.
“The vehicles appear to be more prone to these failures during wet or inclement weather,” Manconi told members.
The root cause is under investigation.
According to Manconi’s note, safety systems monitoring the flow of electricity will cut power using a rooftop circuit breaker and the train might come to a stop. Other on board systems, like the lighting, still work when the breaker trips.
“Customers may hear a bang or see sparks where the train contacts the overhead power wires. This may be startling but does not pose a risk to the safety of passengers in the train or on the platform,” Manconi said in his email to members.
When a train loses power, a technician must investigate and reset the system. Workers remove the train for inspection and maintenance.
The reason why there’s such a shortage of trains this week is because some of the repairs require time to complete, Manconi said.
OC Transpo strategically pulled buses from routes across the city to fill a supplemental bus service along the LRT route. The transit agency published 138 bus trips on Monday that were cancelled so buses could instead help move customers in and out of downtown.
A supplemental bus service will run on streets parallel to the LRT line until at least Friday.
It seems that as soon as RTG started getting a handle on some problems, like the buggy computer systems and the malfunctioning doors, new problems started to emerge.
The list of problems grew over the weekend when some trains conked out because of the power problems.
RTG was just making progress on rounding out steel wheels that have developed flat spots. There was a backlog of maintenance — up to 13 trains at one point had flat spots on wheels — and the company couldn’t roll out the necessary number of trains to provide full service.
Over the past four weeks, RTG reported some occurrences of electrical arcing above the trains.
Then there was that train that pulled down an overhead wire near St. Laurent Station.
Track switches have been a problem, too, as RTG figures out a maintenance strategy for heavy snow and ice.
For each separate problem, RTG has assembled a task force to investigate the root causes.
During a transit commission meeting last week, Peter Lauch, chief executive of RTG’s maintenance arm, said the company has been consumed with reacting to problems rather than studying day-to-day operational issues.
RTG was the top-ranked consortia during the Stage 1 procurement, both on the technical side and financial side. The consortium’s maintenance and rehabilitation plan scored 80 per cent during the technical evaluation, leading to the group’s winning the $2.1-billion LRT construction contract. The group has a 30-year maintenance deal with the city, which is withholding monthly payments during the service problems.
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TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
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Yuri Kageyama is on X:
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
Companies in this story: (TSX:REI.UN)
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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