Hitachi Rail opens new Canadian headquarters in Scarborough

Hitachi Rail officially opened its new Canadian headquarters in Scarborough on Friday. The company, responsible for the signalling systems of a number of transit projects in the GTA, said the 125,000-square-foot building will be a centre for Hitachi Rail's signalling and systems business in Canada. The headquarters will be the base for more than 1,100 employees and 100 paid interns a year, it says. Hitachi Rail is involved in delivering Toronto's Ontario Line and Peel Region's Hazel McCallion Line. The company is also involved in modernizing the signalling system on TTC's Line 2. Arnaud Besse, chief operating officer for Hitachi Rail in Canada, said in an interview after the official opening that it makes good business sense for the company to locate its headquarters in Scarborough. He said its digital signalling technology was pioneered and developed in Toronto. "The root of this technology has been here since the beginning. We invented this technology in the middle of the 70s. Fifty years ago, we started on Scarborough line, we continued on the Vancouver SkyTrain line," Besse said. "And now it's it's a technology that is deployed across the world in 150 lines. Seventy cities around the world are running our technology today." 'I appreciate your confidence in Ontario,' Ford says Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria, TTC CEO Mandeep Lali, Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay, and Masashi Nakagome, Japan's Ambassador to Canada, attended the opening. "We're an economic powerhouse," Ford told reporters. "No matter if it's transportation, or if it's nuclear energy, or mining, and the list keeps going on and on and on — when we all work together, all three levels of government, we're unstoppable." "I appreciate your confidence in Ontario," the premier said, thanking the company. Chow said the choice of Scarborough for Hitachi Rail's headquarters in Canada is good news for the city, province and country. "Hitachi chose Toronto and they chose Scarborough — $30M for the new Canadian headquarters right here. And that says something about our city, about our people, about Scarborough," she said. "Hitachi's signaling business has been rooted here for almost 50 years. The technology that keeps train moving safely in London, in New York, Singapore and cities around the world was built by engineers in Toronto. Toronto knowledge exported to the world and Hitachi is doubling down." Toronto has 'deep pool of tech talent,' mayor says The choice of location is an excellent one because the city has engineers, many post-secondary institutions, a "deep pool of tech talent and a strong ecosystem of research and startups," Chow said. "Toronto is a city of ambition, optimism and confidence. That's what global companies like Hitachi are investing in," she said, thanking the company. In July, the TTC awarded Hitachi Rail a $400-million contract to install its communications-based train control signalling system on the TTC's Line 2 Bloor-Danforth line. The system is meant to increase capacity and reduce signal-related delays. According to the TTC, the system, also known as automatic train control, automatically controls speed and separation between trains. Train location can be monitored more accurately, allowing more trains to operate closer together, meaning more frequent and reliable service for riders and fewer signal-related delays, the TTC said. Chow added: "Talent is why Hitachi is here."