Under the original contracted schedule, the gap between car 1 and car 60 was to be significantly narrower - there has been more time for TTC maintenance folks to get up to speed and for BBD to discover and fix bugs.
What I wonder is whether other light rail vehicles comparable to TTC's routinely produce this level of MTBF, or did BBD make a promise significantly above industry norm.
Doubt it. 35,000 km should very reasonable. Subway trains reaches over 1 million km in Asian cities. The TRs are at 720,000 km. 35,000 km for a streetcar should be easily obtainable.
Right now they are preforming worst than buses. I don't think the TTC ever did in the last decade achieve 14,000 km for buses. It's something they should be proud of. Of course new buses should be closer to 20,000km. If the Flexities don't reach over 35,000km, something is really wrong here. TTC should really report MTBF for different bus models. The Novas could be really good and hybrids driving them down. The 4 car TRs shouldn't be mixed with 6 car TRs as they just converted to OPTO causing a whole lot of problems. TTC numbers are a joke.
The Calgary C-trains are closer to 60,000km:
http://www.metronews.ca/news/calgar...gary-transit-expects-improvement-in-2016.html
And more numbers:
http://archives.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/06/13/muni-glad-bag-bus-yanked-out-of-service
Los Angeles Municipal Transportation Agency: Light-Rail Vehicles: 17,926 miles. = 28,849km
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA): City Trolley: 7,645 miles = 12,255km. Suburban Trolley: 43,730 miles = 70,3736km
San Francisco Muni: Light-Rail Vehicles: 2,258 miles. = 3636km
Although a few years old,
https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/files/agendaitems/7-10-2014 Benchmarking presentation.pdf#page=17
Brand new vehicles could be reaching 100,000 km. 35,000 km is a low bar for light rail.