Updated February 16, 2013 at 11:00 am: The graphs of average trip times have been revised to show the data in two ways — grouped by calendar week, and grouped by day of the week. The commentary has been updated to reflect this change.
Updated February 14, 2013 at 6:40 pm: Graphs showing the average values of trip times in hourly blocks have been added to this article. This consolidates information from the scatter diagrams showing values for individual trips, and simplifies comparison of averages to the scheduled times.
Recently, I wrote about the reliability of headways on the Queen route during the month of November 2011. That article was intended both to confirm the erratic nature of service well-known to riders of the line, and to put in context the TTC’s own “punctuality” claims and targets.
A common rejoinder from the TTC is that services operated in mixed traffic are subject to unpredictable delays causing not only bunching, but also such a variation in running times that short turns are an inevitable result. Operators, on the other hand, complain that scheduled running times are less than what is needed for a car to actually traverse the city, and late running is built into the timetable.
This article reviews data from the service operated during November 2011.
Steve Munro 