Why TTC opted for trainscreens: platform-edge doors are among the latest technological advances that offer the traveling public increasingly attractive, safe, and commodious rail transit facilities. (Toronto Transit Commission's Rapid Transit Expansion Program enhances 50 commuter stations in Toronto, Ontario)

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), after a year-long analysis, arrived at a policy decision late in 1993 to adopt the trainscreen design for as many as 50 new stations in its Rapid Transit Expansion Program (RTEP). This design calls for station platforms that are screened from the tracks, with platformedge doors that line up with, and open simultaneously with, the doors of incoming trains.

While new to major North American transit operations, the station-screen concept was pioneered in Russia more than a half-century ago and has recently caught on around the world (see…