Bombardier Olympic Line receives CUTA achievement award

At the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA) 2010 Annual Conference held in Ottawa, Canada, Bombardier Transportation received an award for the Olympic Line in the category "Exceptional Performance and Outstanding Achievement" under the association's National Transit Corporate Recognition Award Program.

The awards are designed to highlight successes and achievements at the organizational level of CUTA's member transit systems, business or government agencies. Recipients were selected by a national committee of transit professionals.

Bombardier and the City of Vancouver, co-sponsors of the 1.12-mile Olympic Line, provided free passenger service between January 21 and March 21, 2010. The two 100-percent low-floor Bombardier Flexity streetcars, operated by Bombardier, carried over 550,000 passengers, and made over 13,000 one-way trips with zero equipment failures, zero station delays and zero injuries, according to company officials.

"The success of the Olympic Line attests to the extraordinary response to streetcars by commuters in Metro Vancouver," said Raymond Bachant, president, Bombardier Transportation North America.

The Olympic Line demonstration project also won a Sustainability Star from the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, which acknowledged a product or service representing a new solution to local and global sustainability challenges.

More than 1,500 Flexity vehicles are in service around the world. Overall, more than 2,800 Bombardier trams and light rail vehicles operate or are on order in 100 cities across Europe, Australia and North America, including 204 streetcars for the Toronto Transit Commission.