UTDC

The Urban Transportation Development Corporation Ltd. (UTDC) was an Ontario, Canada, Crown corporation created in the 1970s as a way to enter what was then expected to be a burgeoning market in advanced light rail mass transit systems. UTDC built a respected team of engineers and project managers. It developed significant expertise in linear propulsion, steerable trucks and driverless system controls which were integrated into a transit system known as the Intermediate Capacity Transit System or ICTS. It was designed to provide service at rider levels between a traditional subway on the upper end and buses and streetcars on the lower, filling a niche aimed at suburbs that were otherwise expensive to service.

Urban Transportation Development Corporation Ltd. was in fact a holding company. During its time it held several wholly owned subsidiary companies. Metro Canada Ltd. was established as the contracting, delivery and operating company for system sales. UTDC USA Inc. was a marketing company located in Detroit. UTDC Services Inc. provided transit service consulting to international clients and worked very closely with the experts from the TTC. UTDC Research and Development Ltd. was formed not only to support the continuing improvement of the group’s base technology but to repurpose it and apply it to different, non-transit markets. Buses that ran on rails, materials handling systems, steerable trucks for freight rail cars and extruded tunnel lining systems were some of the products researched. The Services and R&D companies were merged in the mid 80's to form Transportation Technology Ltd.

The Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) was successfully sold into three markets: the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) for its Scarborough RT line, Detroit's Detroit People Mover and Vancouver's famous SkyTrain system.

Further sales proved more difficult than initially hoped, but in the early 1980s, Hawker Siddeley Canada joined forces with UTDC in order to win a number of contracts with the TTC and GO Transit. Forming a joint operating company at their Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F) factories in Thunder Bay, Ontario and Kingston Ontario,Can-Car Rail built heavy-rail passenger cars, subway cars, streetcars and other vehicles. Now armed with a complete portfolio from light to heavy rail, UTDC had a number of additional "wins" across North America, becoming a major vendor in the mass transit market. It was eventually privatized in the 1980s, when it was purchased by Lavalin of Quebec. Lavlin ran into financial difficulties in the early 1990s and sold its interest in UTDC to Bombardier in 1991.

Bombardier operates UTDC as part of their Bombardier Transportation brand. Bombardier has had greater success marketing the product portfolio abroad, and the ICTS, now known as the Advanced Rapid Transit (ART), has been sold to a number of operators and is currently in operation or under expansion in seven cities around the world. Bombardier often relies on Lavalin's new owners, SNC-Lavalin, to plan the construction of the rights-of-way and set up the operations centers. The UTDC factories in Kingston, Ontario and Thunder Bay continue to produce rapid transit systems for use in Ontario and abroad.