December 1, 2006, was not a good day for transit operations.  As I have already discussed for the King route, it was probably the worst day of the month.  The weather was bad through the afternoon and early evening, and severe congestion problems affected many routes.

This is a contrast to Christmas Day, discussed in the previous post, where good weather coupled with little congestion or passenger surges made for ideal conditions.

Among the problems we will see for December 1 are:

• bunching of cars due to congestion
• pairs of cars running together over the entire route
• large gaps to the termini
• congestion, most severely in an area well away from downtown, and only in one direction

This shows what the line looks like under worst case conditions.  Even though the service is seriously disrupted, this data has important lessons about how the line is scheduled, managed and operated. Continue reading →