A North American first showed up 10 years ago at Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga

It’s been 10 years since a new train service “transformed the way people travel” the relatively short distance between the heart of Canada’s largest city and the country’s biggest and busiest airport.

In what at the time was the “first dedicated express air-rail link service in North America,” the UP Express took its first passengers between Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga and Union Station in downtown Toronto on June 6, 2015, Ontario transit officials say.

After three years of construction, the express route’s introduction came “just in time for the 2015 Pan American Games,” which were held in Toronto, officials with Metrolinx said this week. And in its first year of operation, they added, the UP Express eliminated some 1.2 million car trips from roads in the Greater Toronto Area.

“This brand-new train transformed the way people travel between downtown Toronto and the airport,” Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency that oversees the UP Express, said in its latest newsletter.

“The new service was designed with riders top of mind. The details of the design and the details of the experience are very customer-centric.”

Now a decade later, the UP Express, which runs trains every 15 minutes daily until 1 a.m., “has become an integral part of transit in Toronto, having served more than 26 million passengers,” Metrolinx officials added.

The UP Express takes riders between Toronto Pearson Airport in Mississauga and Toronto’s Union Station seven days a week. (Photo: Metrolinx)

Tanya Dubar, customer experience strategy director at Metrolinx, said the plan was clear from the outset.

“The vision was really about how we can transform the way people travel between downtown Toronto and the airport and elevate the way that they experience transit and the city,” she said. “UP Express is demonstrative of what’s possible when you start from the customer and think about their needs and deliver to that.”

The UP Express makes two brief stops, at Weston and Bloor stations, between Union Station and Pearson.

To mark the 10th anniversary, Metrolinx is hosting a customer appreciation event throughout the day on Friday, from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. at the skywalk at Union Station.

The UP Express route during construction more than a decade ago. It opened in 2015. (Photo: Metrolinx)