Today, about 100 people made up of Capital Metro employees and family members are participating in “Dry Run” testing. The purpose is to simulate passenger service to see if everything works as intended.
The trains started running their regular schedule at 5:25 this morning. Shortly after 7 a.m. the train began picking up groups of testers at the stations. Once the train arrived at the MLK, Jr. and Downtown Stations, some people transfered to the rail connector buses to test the routes as well.
Shortly after 9 a.m., the train headed northbound to drop the testers back off at the stations. At 10:15, all of the testers simultaneously began using the ticket vending machines to see if the network could handle it…and it did.
Other aspects of the testing include security cameras, station announcements, boarding with bikes and wheelchairs, lost and found process, Wi-Fi and Go Line trip planning.
Overall, the testing went well this morning and right now all of the participants are at a lunch debriefing to discuss how things are going. More testing will continue this afternoon and again tomorrow.
Good! This is nice to know. When will the next update be since this is supposed to launch either the 3rd or 4th week of March?
Kristi, we are waiting for final approval to open from the Federal Railroad Administration. They are here this week testing and reviewing the system. We hope to know soon.
For those interested in what we’re actually getting with this thing and how it compares to existing bus options, many of which will likely be cancelled to drive riders onto the trains, I’ve been running use cases with the real rail/shuttle timetables; most recent example here:
http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/archives/000634.html
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