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.
Before I consider the route as a whole, it’s worth looking at four major segments:
- Neville Loop to Yonge Street
- Yonge Street to Roncesvalles Avenue
- Roncesvalles Avenue to Humber Loop
- Humber Loop to Long Branch Loop
The following sets of charts show the time taken for streetcars between each pair of points. These are plotted by time of day, and grouped by week and type of day (Saturdays and Sundays are separate).
During November 2011, there was a scheduled diversion between Shaw and Roncesvalles via King Street due to Metrolinx bridge construction at Dufferin. New schedules went into effect on November 20, but the diversion did not actually begin until the evening of Friday, November 25.
The “time” of each measurement is taken at the beginning of the segment for each set of charts. A 90 minute trip from Neville to Long Branch that appears as a data point at “1500” represents a car that did not actually reach Humber Loop until after 1600.
Neville Loop to Yonge Street
In each chart set, the first five pages correspond to the five calendar weeks in November. Each day has its own colour for the data plots and trend lines.
For the westbound service between Neville and Yonge, all of the weekday data lie within a band about 10 minutes wide, although the centre of this band moves throughout the day. The week-to-week consistency is shown on the sixth page where all of the weekday data are consolidated. With only a few exceptions, the running time for this segment is predictable within that range.
Eastbound from Yonge to Neville is similarly well-behaved and, if anything, the band holding most of the data is a bit narrower than on the westbound chart. What is quite noticeable, however, is that the pattern of values eastbound has only one peak — in the afternoon — while the westbound data show distinct AM and PM peaks.
On Saturdays (page 7 of the charts), the peak is at about 1500 (3:00 pm) and it is more pronounced eastbound than westbound. On Sundays (page 8), the peak westbound comes slightly earlier than eastbound. Generally speaking, the data points stay within a 10-minute band although a greater amount of scatter is visible on some days.
Yonge Street to Roncesvalles
For the purpose of this pair of charts, Triller Avenue stands in for Roncesvalles. Triller is a short distance east of Roncesvalles on Queen, and using this point filters out trips that divert via King Street. There are no data points for this segment after the PM peak on November 25 when service began diverting via King.
Weeks 1 and 2 have consistent values in both directions, but by week 3, the congestion caused by some construction activities is evident.
Week 4, just before the diversion begins, is fairly well-behaved.
Weekends are a different story, with running times on Queen West almost doubling during the peak period mid-afternoon in both directions on Saturdays.
Sundays do not have as pronounced a peak except on November 20, the Santa Claus Parade, which looks more like a Saturday. Higher-than-average Sunday values appears east of Yonge as well on this date.
What is quite striking in both sets of charts here is the absence of congestion caused by fair weather traffic and events both in The Beach and on Queen West. Any additional activity that adds to traffic (auto or pedestrian) and transit demand will produce longer running times and, probably, less reliable service over the day. A schedule that may be adequate for “off season” operation will fail under the additional load of summer traffic.
Roncesvalles Avenue to Humber Loop
The segment covered here extends from Triller Ave. (east of Roncesvalles) to Lake Shore Blvd. at Humber Loop. Running times in both directions are quite consistent showing no sign of peak period effects, but despite the short distance they spread out over a band 5-6 minutes wide. Looking at the details, much of this variation occurs around the Roncesvalles & Queen intersection which has a long cycle time, and which is the west end crew change point.
Because this is a short segment and the trip from Roncesvalles west to Long Branch is rarely obstructed, any time lost here is not made up enroute and this contributes to widening the range of running times over the full route to Long Branch (see below).
As in the previous “Yonge to Roncesvalles” section, no data are shown after the PM peak on November 20 when service began to divert via King Street as no cars operated through the Triller & Queen reference point.
Humber Loop to Long Branch Loop
In these charts, “Humber Loop” is actually a point on the Lake Shore Blvd. just outside of the loop, and “Long Branch Loop” is at the loop’s entrance. These locations filter out any variation caused by layovers within the loops.
Westbound values on all days are consistently within a band of under 10 minutes with only slightly longer running times on weekdays as compared to weekends. The effects of the AM and PM peaks are quite small. Weekends show a slight peak in the afternoons.
Eastbound values are similar to westbound, although the effect of the peak periods is more visible for inbound trips where loading delays will have an effect.
There are a few anomalies in the trend lines notably on the morning of November 1 when streetcar service west of Kipling Loop was replaced by a bus shuttle and, therefore, there is no data for a “Humber to Long Branch” trip. This shuttle actually remained in operation until after the PM peak intermixed with streetcar service to downtown.
Full Route Westbound
Neville to Humber Neville To Long Branch
Note that the charts in this section have a different scale to accommodate the larger values involved, and that the bottom of the charts is not at zero.
Although the Queen East and Queen West charts above both showed data over a band of roughly 10 minutes, these values did not combine to produce, generally speaking, a wider band when trips over the the full route from Neville to Humber (actually a point on the Queensway just before the loop) are considered. Much of the data stays within the 10 minute band, although week 3, more affected by construction than the others, shows more scatter and a higher peak value. Oddly enough, week 5, when the service was on diversion via Shaw and King, has lower off-peak running times than other weeks probably due to the lower level of congestion and busy, signalled intersections, on King than on Queen.
Running times from Neville to Long Branch do exhibit a wider range of values with the band smearing out to roughly 15 minutes, varying depending on which week’s data one looks at. As discussed above, delays at Queen and Roncesvalles add to the variation in trip times westbound from Neville to Humber or Long Branch.
Full Route Eastbound
Humber To Neville Long Branch To Neville
Eastbound trips from either Long Branch or from Humber to Neville show a narrower range of running time values and stay roughly in a 10-minute band.
Scheduled Running Times
The values shown in this table give the scheduled running times and headways for the Queen route in November 2011. One set of values covers the first three weeks before running time was added for the diversion around the Dufferin bridge construction, and the other covers the last two weeks.
For each set, there are four values:
- RTT (Round Trip Time): This is the time allocated for a round trip between terminals, but not including “recovery time”.
- Rcvry (Recovery Time): The name implies that this is intended to give operators a break after a long drive across the city, but in fact the amount of time is dictated by whatever is needed to even out the trip to a multiple of the scheduled headway. There is no relationship between the length of recovery time and the time of day, day of week or length of trip.
- Total: The sum of the two values above.
- Hdway (Headway): The scheduled time between cars. As discussed in a previous article, TTC standards consider service operating within 3 minutes of this value to be “punctual”.
Scheduled running times to Long Branch on weekdays range from 90 to 95 minutes one-way, dipping to 80 minutes for late evening service. Weekend times are a bit shorter although Saturday afternoons have almost as much time allocated as the PM Peak period.
On the Humber branch, scheduled one-way times range from 65 to 69 minutes during weekday peak, daytime and early evenings, dropping to 58 late evenings. Weekend times are slightly lower as with the Long Branch trips.
Updated: The following graphs show the averages, by hour, of actual running time data. The degree of scatter in values can be seen in earlier plots showing individual points, while the graphs of averages show the mean of all values for each hour. The following text has been amended to refer to the averages.
Each set of graphs contain two pages. The first groups data for weekdays in each calendar week to show the variation, if any, over the course of the month. The second groups data for each day of the week to show differences between average trip times through the course of the week and on weekends.
Neville to Long Branch Neville to Humber
Long Branch to Neville Humber to Neville
Actual running times from Neville to Long Branch on weekdays lie above the scheduled times except in the late evening period. Averages between 1400 and 1800 (2:00 to 6:00 pm departures from Neville) are over 100 minutes when the scheduled running time is only 95 plus 7 minutes of recovery time. There is little variation between the data on a week to week basis except for a small increase in peak direction, peak period times for week 5 when the route diverted via Shaw and King.
Weekday averages stay close to each other except on Friday when running times are slightly longer midday and in the evening. This pushes them even higher than the scheduled times and leads to more ragged service and short turns.
A peak over 110 minutes occurs from 1400 to 1600 on Saturdays when the total scheduled time is 100 minutes. Sundays peak above the scheduled total time of 93 minutes, and this is not simply due to one day with the Santa Claus parade. Eastbound running times show a similar pattern, although some peaks do not last as long.
In these comparisons it is important to note that the times charted here are measured from outside of the loops at each end of the line, and so they slightly understate the total travel times.
The running times allocated to trips on the Queen route are shorter than the cars actually require during many operating periods. However, one challenge is that the “peaks”, especially on weekends, can be shorter than the scheduled period that includes them (such as “afternoon”). What might be adequate at noon or at 5:00 pm is too short during the height of Saturday traffic at 3:00 pm. As mentioned earlier, these data are from a month where most seasonal effects are not present such as tourism, shopping and street fair activity. Only the Santa Claus parade introduced a visible effect taking data values out of their ordinary range.
All of this suggests that a more finely-grained approach to allocating running times is required to bring scheduled provisions for service into line with actual conditions. This cannot simply be done by scheduling very large “recovery” times at terminals where there may not be capacity (as at Neville) to store cars taking long layovers. This also raises the issue of relief time for operators separate from time for their vehicles and of operating strategies that can preserve service quality.
I will turn to the issue of service management and short turns in the next article in this series.
Steve Munro 
Indeed, streetcars in mixed traffic is just awful for Queen and King. If there were previous discussions on these ideas I’d love to read up:
1. make King/Queen one-ways (2 lanes going west and east respectively) leaving 2 dedicated streetcar lanes during rush hour, yeah, one can dream.
Steve: This is impractical because it requires the elimination of parking and loading, something that simply will not happen on either street. As things now stand, parking is banned typically only in the peak direction.
2. more realistically: extend no-parking time to 3pm to 7pm – it’s dumb to have cars parked along those arteries @ 6.05pm.
Steve: This sort of thing has been proposed a few times, and might actually have been implemented were it not that City Hall was taken over by the “war on the car” crowd. It may re-emerge as part of a Downtown transportation study now underway.
3. pet peeve: reduce # of stops – examples for too close are (I know King better but the same ideas applies to Queen)
+ Yonge and Victoria
+ University and Simcoe and York
+ Brant and Portland
Steve: The Queen & York stop westbound has already been removed. I agree on King & Victoria westbound, but not on the stops at Queen which are (a) at a hospital and (b) at a signalized intersection. Queen & Simcoe westbound is not needed either (and I say this as someone who uses it from time to time). King at York and at Simcoe, bothways, are signalized intersections. The latter serves the east end of the Entertainment District. An annoying problem at Queen and York eastbound is that this signal does not have transit priority, and streetcars are often caught here having crossed University on the tail end of a green wave.
As a more general observation, yes there are occasional locations where a stop just makes for extra delays. (I am surprised nobody mentions the stops bothways at Dundas and Victoria together with their very transit-unfriendly traffic signal.) However, these are exceptions as opposed to examples of rampant “waste” of time on the system.
Cheers
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Steve wrote:
The only way to fix this is with a drop back policy. The TTC needs a driver ready at Long Branch (or Neville Park) to take a car out once it arrives. The driver who has just arrived with the car then gets a break until the next car arrives. This would allow for a much shorter layover time for cars, and thus better service. Plus it gives the driver a chance to rest until the next car arrives.
Steve: Strictly speaking, this does not have to be done at the terminal which, on some routes, is far from an ideal location. To an extent, this is done with the Service Assistance Crews at Russell who drive cars to Neville while an operator takes a short break and then picks up a westbound car that is “on time” for his or her schedule. It would be possible to have crews at Queen and Ronces who spent their time driving cars to and from Humber or Long Branch. Routes that don’t pass by a division office (most of them) would need a location where this sort of scheme could be properly managed, allowing for weather issues.
Drop back crewing does not necessarily fix the underlying problem of inadequate running time unless the links between crews and vehicles are broken. Managing this is a very “hands on” exercise because circumstances will vary from hour to hour, day to day.
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A door on the left side of the vehicle to the driver’s cab (like the TR cab) would have been a helpful addition to support smoother in-street switches.
Steve: This would have been quite a safety hazard given the space between two passing cars and the fact that at the cab, the carbody has already started to narrow.
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Steve wrote:
That works too. However, you need proper supervision still – which means managing the time the streetcar sits at Long Branch. It’s great to talk about a location for weather issues, but what about the passengers who currently have to wait in the heat or cold now – and possibly even with a driver drop back – of streetcars taking their time to pick up passengers. I have had to stand in the cold at Long Branch Loop (the shelter is not heated) waiting for the driver to finish his break and decide to pick up passengers – it would have been nice to wait on a warm streetcar for a few minutes. Even with a dropback, drivers have to be encouraged to drop of passengers, pick up passengers, and then get going. No long delays – and a quick toilet break is not bad if the driver doesn’t take his/her time doing this.
Steve: The issue of cars sitting and not picking up passengers is completely separate from the issue of crewing. This is something the TTC should be dealing with because at loops in subway stations, passengers board streetcars while the operators have a break. The problem may be, in part, because the ops have had such a long trip across the city, they want some “free” time. If crews changed over at Ronces, this would not be such an issue.
Steve wrote:
True. Then again, priority signals – or using technology that allows the streetcar (or a bus too) to change a red light green. Similar technology exists for fire trucks to keep green light green until they pass through the intersection – so it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with the new technology.
Steve: I have written before about the absence of operator controls for signals — they cannot signal either “I want to go now” or “I’m loading and don’t need to hold the green light”.
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I wonder to what degree the Lansdowne and Jameson signals impact the service on Queen, as these are ridiculously close together and thus create weird, unmanageable traffic patterns. Anytime I’ve been on the 501 through those signals, it’s evidently a dysfunctional arrangement.
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By the way, what happened to implementing transit priority on more intersections? It looks like the TTC stopped doing so ages ago. It would be nice to see them implemented on all the new streetcars and articulated buses.
Second, does the TTC’s transit priority have a shortened red phase? I only seem to notice extended greens.
Steve: There is a provision in the capital budget for adding more intersections each year, and the focus is now on bus routes. However, the TTC does seem to be left behind when new signals are installed on a route that already has transit priority, and a new minor signal without priority capability can interfere with service for months. This problem also occurs during track construction projects when the loop detectors are not immediately reinstalled in the new pavement. This appears to be a co-ordination issue between responsible departments.
Yes, where it works, the signals have a shortened green time on the cross street. A constraint for this, however, is that a signal must have been green long enough on the cross street for a minimum of traffic movement, and if the flashing hand countdown has not yet started, this must run to completion at its normal time to avoid trapping pedestrians in the crossing. This is a greater problem at wide intersections than at narrow ones.
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If one pads enough time to a schedule, a 100% on time performance can be achieved. But, it does not mean anything. Looking at AC787, Air Canada consistently pads the schedule by 20 minutes to make it appear on time. However, in reality, congestion at LAX will ensure that the plane will spend at least 20 minutes heading from the runway to the jetbridge. It does not help the passenger when the plane is sitting on the tarmac waiting for a free jetbridge. The 501 and also the 504 trams running times demonstrate that congestion is the main issue.
The 501 carries so many passengers. Even though I am a believer of the 13th amendment, it is quite reasonable to make the tram lane a car free zone. Just as a Cessna plane will yield to an Airbus A380, why should the right of a few motorists trump the rights of 200 passengers? Right now, if the cars are not moving on Queen St, the 501 is not moving.
The 501 frequently spends at least two traffic light cycles boarding passengers at Queen Subway Station. If a tram dwells that long at one stop and let’s not forget that Victoria St is just 50 meters ahead, no matter how well the line is managed, bunching will occur. The only way to solve this would be to make the leader of the pack travel x number of stations non stop in order to maintain headways. Short turning does not help as it ends up decreasing capacity at the ends of the line.
Steve: I agree with you up to a point in that, yes, substantially improved priority for transit’s use of streets would certainly help the Queen car. However, what I set out to demonstrate was that although running times over parts of the route may be slower than we would prefer, they are also predictable under many circumstances. Congestion may slow the service, but this is no excuse for not trying to manage it.
In previous analyses, I have shown that service is typically bunched from the time it leaves the terminals and this is exaggerated as cars travel across the city as the follower catches up to the leader. That’s a management issue.
As for padding running times, I most definitely don’t want them padded as this leads to dawdling operation, but a way should be found to schedule service at a granularity that matches actual line behaviour. Using the same running time for the entirety of Saturday afternoon ignores the fact that by late afternoon, everything will be late and this will require a spate of short turns. Saturday evenings, especially in the summer, can see considerable congestion in the club district for which there is no provision in the schedules. It is very common to see cars short turning after midnight when service is less frequent, and this effectively disservices the outer ends of routes such as Queen and King.
The TTC has had the data it needs to perform a detailed analysis of line behaviour for years, but stays with operating practices that doom passengers to unreliable service and operators to frustration.
To continue your airline analogy, everyone knows that prevailing winds blow from the west, and scheduling flights as if this were not so guarantees late arrivals. If airlines operated like the TTC, passengers traveling to Vancouver would find themselves enjoying the pleasures of Calgary’s (or even Winnipeg’s) airport.
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Steve wrote:
And a drop back would fix that problem and get the streetcar out of the loop faster – which solves part of the problem with service issues.
Steve: The distinction I am making is that you don’t have to “drop back” at the terminal, but can do it enroute at a location which is more convenient for staff management. This also avoids problems with the need to send all cars out to the terminal just to effect a crew change.
As for traffic signals, why can’t something be set up with the new streetcars at least – some sort of a button. When the driver presses the button, signal is sent to the lights to keep them green. At 2 a.m., it doesn’t matter as much to keep the light green as traffic is light. But during the rush hours, this button could save a few minutes on a long route (if not more.)
Steve: It’s not a question of new or old streetcars, but of the technology that controls the traffic signals. If the capability of having an external override isn’t built into the design, no magic button on the dash is going to accomplish anything. Conversely, if the capability exists, retrofitting controls to transit vehicles is a simple matter of planned maintenance.
Of course, running times could be better if the route was broken down into two (or maybe three) routes that overlap. Mind you we have discussed this here before and the TTC could, well really should, break up the line. But I don’t see this happening anytime soon.
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Separating cars from operators or changing the anticipated running times to reflect differing traffic conditions during the day or week both seem like very sensible suggestions BUT it seems to me that they would both require a degree of ‘management’ that the TTC may be incapable of. It is clearly easier to have operators and vehicles ‘linked’ and to pretend that it always takes 100 minutes to travel from A to B. Remember that this is an organisation that continues to monitor its fleet using the outdated and inaccurate CIS data rather than the accurate GPS data they now provide to customers.
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Running time is an interesting dilemma for streetcars because I imagine you certainly would not want streetcars blocking the street at intersections while they were waiting for their scheduled departure times (unlike buses). While transit-only lanes are impractical on Queen, perhaps an exception could be made at Yonge so that a short layover could be taken, or at least the car could get back on schedule after the large number of passengers get on from Queen Station. Does the TTC really use computer scheduling software now to analyze running time (which would allow for running time changes every 15 minutes or even less) or do they still do it the old fashioned way with schedule checkers?
I feel like the recovery time is also not adequate. You would certainly want recovery time to be at least 10% of the scheduled running time (at least on a long route with volatile operating speed like the 501) to ensure that late vehicles could leave the terminus on time. Increasing recovery time would add hours and vehicles but would certainly improve the reliability of the line and decrease the number of short-turns. How many streetcars can be at the Neville / Humber / Long Branch loops at once?
Steve: I don’t know the degree to which the TTC is performing analyses of operating data at the level I have done on this site for the past six years, although this has been changing as part of the “culture shift” within the organization. As for loops, well, after we have the new 30m cars in operation, the answer to your question at some locations is “one”. Long Branch is a big loop and an exception, but Neville is much smaller. Broadview Station will only hold one new car on each of its two tracks, and it has problems now with buildups of cars awaiting their departure times.
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Now that is the kind of analogy for a short turn (especially a surprise one) that would get more people to understand what it is like for a transit user to be thrown off a streetcar and forced to wait for the next one. People should understand that it is not that easy … which is why there should be more pressure (say, from Commissioners, councillors, and the public) put on the TTC to improve their line management.
Cheers, Moaz
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With respect to Chris’ comment about recovery time not being adequate and Steve’s reply that the loops can’t handle any more cars, especially 30 m long ones I say unfortunately both are right. When I was in Boston last spring I noticed that many lines had a car house or storage yard at the end and except in the rush hour cars would come in and disappear while 2 or 3 others went out before reappearing. This must be great for the operators but may explain why the have a higher operating subsidy than the TTC does.
In Chicago it was common to see many buses sitting in terminals for long periods of time, fortunately the ones I saw had lots of real estate to allow this. Even the L trains seemed to have lots of lay over time, often in a car house yard. The station at Mid Way I thinks has 3 platforms and the train I was on, on an 11 minute headway, could not get in because the 3 tracks were full.
Toronto does not have the luxury of having large street car loops on most lines or the land to expand them. The exceptions are: St. Clair Station, Main Station, High Park, Long Branch, Humber, Exhibition and Bingham, but on the 502 and 503’s headway is that much help. The TTC is unfortunately caught in a situation where some of it solutions are eliminated by physical restraints. That being said they can do a better job of managing the line and the best way to do that might be from a point along the line and not in the comfort of a subway station.
Having been sick for the past week I have been passing the time by watching the street cars on NextBus. I have learned some imaginative new short turns for street cars: Spadina Station for Dundas, Carlton and King cars, Exhibition for a Queen car, Queen West and Roncesvalles for a Dundas car. The imagination of the route supervisors continues to amaze me. Hopefully next week I can get back to a real life.
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Airlines that there own inimitable to screw you up, not always their fault. A few years ago I was 11 hours late on a 3 1/2 hour flight that left on time and had no mechanical difficulties. We were on final approach to New Delhi when the airport disappeared in a fog bank. After waiting for 45 minutes for the fog to lift, it didn’t, we had to divert to Pakistan to pick up fuel then return to Dubai where the planes was cleaned resupplied, re crewed and sent back to New Delhi. After this I am much more forgiving for minor hassles.
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As I have read through this post and the various comments, I am struck by one common fact: the lack of line management. While I have no experience operating streetcars, having been a bus operator since I started at the TTC, I can see many parallels between route management of the two modes with one exception. Streetcars have route supervisors on the street, while buses do not.
That said, route mismanagement seems to be the norm at TTC. I will say that, based on my personal experiences, I can usually tell how my day will go by knowing which supervisor is in the console for the route I am operating on. If the “wheels fall off” and the route goes to hell, I know how each supervisor will react. Some will micromanage and do turn after turn to get the route back “on schedule”, pissing off passengers and operators alike! No operator likes to be constantly short turning and facing the wrath of the passengers, with the exception of the “gamers”. Other supervisors will just “wash their hands” of it all and allow the route to remain in chaos.
There is a small group of supervisors, many of whom I respect immensely, who will actually contact operators and work with them to use a teamwork approach to get the route back on track. Unfortunately, this last group is very small.
In my opinion, until TTC updates the vehicle tracking system to being GPS based, these problems will continue to exist. The old TRUMP technology, which is signpost and axle revolution count based, us not accurate enough to give the supervisor real time information. Line management is schedule adherence based, and with schedule adherence being a discipline issue for operators, no operator is going to risk running hotter than +3 due to the increased crackdown that is happening. If you are carrying the gap, you will only attempt to get ahead by a couple of minutes, but not more than +3.
TTC is also trying to bring on more supervisors at the moment. Unfortunately, most of them have less than two years of operating experience under the belt and therefore are not really that knowledgeable of various operating situations. This is also a contributing factor to the poor line management.
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Robert Wightman said:
With all that, I’d say that Melbourne’s University terminal (with its pocket tracks) is a thing of beauty. And then there is the St. Kilda terminal overlooking the beach.
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The easiest way to add transit priority is if the city just orders the equipment on all new signal boxes. Eventually you would have it city wide, because the signal boxes are replaced from time to time.
Steve: Part of the problem is that the priority signal work (which includes detectors in the pavement) is paid for by the TTC, not by the City.
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One of the oddities of November 2011, is that the increase in running time that was instituted on November 20th were reverted without comment by TTC on February 12, 2012. Clearly they didn’t think that whatever they were trying had worked. And I recall hearing complaints from Queen regulars after the change, that the service was worse.
A contrast to the recent PM peak running time increase on the 506, which as far as I can see stabilized service to some extent.
Have you heard what they were trying to accomplish and why they reverted the change?
Steve: The extra running time was added to compensate for the diversion, but the vehicle count was not changed — the headways just got wider. I have a post in the works looking at short turns and the proportion of service that reached the ends of the line. For a bit under a week, the new schedules were in place, but the diversion had not started. During this period the proportion of service getting through to the terminals was quite markedly better. As you say, they went back to the original schedule in February as part of the overall service cuts to trim the 2012 budget.
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Steve:
Do short turns enter into your running time data? Have you had to remove some data where the cars were so far behind that they didn’t get to the terminal?
Steve: The running times are included for cars that covered the distance in question. For example, a car that runs from Neville to McCaul would be included in the Nevvile-Yonge segment only. Times for Neville-Humber include data for cars that continued beyond to either Kipling or Long Branch. Times for Neville-Long Branch are only for cars that actually made the entire trip.
It’s not a question of removing data, but of including only those trips for which the start and end points include the segment for a specific chart. Selecting the data is done by a program that takes the start and end points as input parameters and formats the relevant data for use in a standard template. The whole process has been set up so that I do the minimum amount of “hands on” work and let a suite of programs slice and dice the data for me.
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I can see on problem with streetcars when it comes to line management – it is not always possible (or even practical) to re-route a streetcar. A streetcar can only operate where there are tracks, so west of Roncesvalles for example, a streetcar can turn back at Humber or Kipling, but cannot be re-routed. Thus, if an accident occurs at Long Branch Ave., a streetcar west of Kipling may be stuck, while other streetcars can simply be turned at Kipling.
Even where there are other lines, unless the intersections are set up to allow it, a streetcar may not be able to use another street – not all connections are set up for ‘all way’ turning. For example, heading eastbound, a streetcar cannot head south on Dufferin (although a westbound streetcar on Queen can go south on Dufferin and then east on King) although it can go south on Shaw. Or go south on Bathurst, or on Parliament. So depending on the nature of the re-routing, it might mean a large deal of rerouting – or not a practical one.
Steve: Although the tracks do pose a limitation in cases of a road blockage or a disabled streetcar, the vast majority of problems with irregular service are the result of day-to-day operating practices including a lack of headway management, overcrowding, impractical scheduling and a goal of staying on schedule even though the TTC claims that its goal is to provide a reliable headway.
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If so, WOW.
Steve: They are supposed to be converting to a new system, but I don’t know how far this has progressed. I will follow up.
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Steve wrote:
Given the plethora of modern electronic devices it should be possible to give each operate a device that would have his schedule in it. He or she would plug this into an appropriate connector on the vehicle and control would know where the operator should be. The operators who are nearing a mandatory break or relief could changed to another vehicle more easily.
Steve: Maybe, but such a device has to be designed and its functions retrofitted with existing vehicles. The single biggest problem is that the onboard unit”s design is over two decades old with hardware constraints to match. What is really needed is a completely new onboard unit as the base for additional functionality.
Moaz Yusuf Ahmad says:
I have seen them and they are efficient, unfortunately they require double ended equipment and that will not happen soon [here].
TorontoStreetcars says:
Don’t think that it is necessarily easier with buses. If a major section of a road is closed for a police investigation in some parts of the suburbs it is necessary for buses to divert to the next major road way to get around it. This can result in up to a 5 km diversion, not to mention the resulting traffic chaos.
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I have seen a streetcar at the St. Clair West station resting in the tunnel under St. Clair Avenue itself, between the two turn switches. They didn’t use the bypass track in the loop itself. When the new longer streetcars come on board, they will not be able to do that anymore.
Are there plans to put in a new bypass track at St. Clair Station and/or to reconfigure the tracks at St. Clair West Station for the new streetcars?
Steve: I have not seen anything in the plans. There are multiple locations that will have to be adjusted for the new cars to work decently.
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I always wondered why there aren’t any switches on our streetcar tracks to allow bypasses to happen. I know that they aren’t really needed when you have a complete network of track (like downtown) and are only really possible where you have a protected ROW … but it would be nice to have in the ‘non-downtown’ parts of the network … west of Dufferin, east of Parliament.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: I am not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you mean trackage linking the east west streets at additional locations? Where this exists, it is a remnant of old routes, not purpose-built trackage.
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Me:
Steve:
I thought that was a given. Please tell me they are going to advance to the current millenia.
Steve: There was a capital project some years back to do a complete refresh of the CIS system, but it was cancelled due to budget cuts. Maybe with the new focus on “customer service”, someone at the TTC may wake up to the effect of having a stone-age control system.
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I mean that we could have switches on a street like Queensway with a protected Row…so in the case of a broken-down (or otherwise stopped) streetcar, service can still operate safely in two directions, albeit slowly, until the delay is fixed.
Having tracks where streetcars could turn or otherwise avoid obstructions would be nice too… but it seems like the TTC isn’t too keen on the cost of maintaining non-revenue track.
Not to mention that TTC policy on diversions seems to focus on keeping passengers as close to a corridor as possible.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: In effect, you want to operate single track to get around the point of delay. In order to keep the length of this operation short, there would have to be many crossovers along the line. Operationally, these would need to be facing point crossings in both directions to that cars could switch onto either the eastbound or westbound rails as a facing point movement. That’s a lot of extra special work plus the challenges of managing traffic to allow wrong-way streetcar operation on a four lane street with the curb taken for parking. I suspect the time needed to launch and manage this sort of operation would be comparable to simply dealing with the primary problem, and this would require more staff and police assistance. On a private right-of-way line, this sort of thing can be handled with signalling, but on street trackage it would be much more complex.
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Safety is relative. Operators moving between two stopped vehicles via a cab door on the other side of the vehicle is imperfect but it’s safer than what they do now when they need to change vehicles in the middle of the street.
Steve: I beg to differ. Using cab doors would require crossing a gap of at least two feet several feet off of the ground, and this would have to occur under all sorts of weather and lighting conditions.
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Gord writes:
Seems like the Queen car got a micromanager last Thursday evening (that’s Feb 14th). My peak-period streetcar got short-turned into Kipling loop, which almost never happens any more. There was another streetcar in there, so this “manager” really likes the short-turns.
To make matters worse, the next Queen car wasn’t to show up for 20 minutes! Yes, the line was being “managed” back into shape by abandoning service to Long Branch.
Fortunately we only had to wait for about ten minutes for a 508 to show up, and go through to Long Branch.
I will point out that there is only a narrow sidewalk on Lake Shore at Kipling, and no transit shelter. And of course it was windy and raining.
From Gord’s comment, it seems that route supervisors don’t work on a board-period, but rather ad hoc day by day? That would certainly explain some things (not in a good way either).
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Steve wrote:
True. But delays are delays and if they could be avoided would help. Mind you, with the Queen car, a delay due to demand (it can take a fair bit of time to load several people at one stop) can potentially put a streetcar behind schedule. And if the streetcar sits at any of the three “main” loops (Long Branch, Humber and Neville), the delay will not be made up thus delaying its departure. So a 2 minute delay can multiply fast.
Robert Wrightman wrote:
In some cases yes, but again it all depends on the route. But the other advantage of a bus it is can change lanes – again something a streetcar cannot do. So a lightly used bus can pass a crowded bus and potentially help spread out some of the ‘load’ which cannot happen with a streetcar – which can become part of the problem with the 501.
I have departed east from Humber on a streetcar from Long Branch, only to have a Humber streetcar pull out right behind us. This means the first eastbound streetcar has to make all the stops and handle all the passengers, with the second car virtually empty and thus delayed as well as the first streetcar is delayed handling all the passengers.
Steve: I have looked at this issue and will comment in an article now in preparation. Yes, Humber cars do pull out right behind Long Branch cars, but they also pull out right in front of them too. Both services are operating on badly scattered headways and this can be compounded by uneven loading delays. Nothing prevents the TTC from actively spacing the service eastbound either at Humber or at Roncesvalles except the will to do so.
By the way, many operators are loathe to run “skip stop” by pulling around a heavily loaded bus on their route as this may make them “early” to the schedule and result in a dressing down by management, even though the goal of provided a better-balanced service is supposed to be what the TTC is all about.
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Gord’s comments are fascinating because they suggest typical route management could be vastly improved without any changes to equipment, road and traffic conditions, or even the habits of “gamer” operators. It may be as simple as some route supervisors doing a tough job well, and the rest falling short.
I realize your streetcar data doesn’t correspond to Gord’s bus experiences, but it’d be interesting to see if a similar analysis would pull out patterns that matched Gord’s impressions of good vs. bad route management. If it was possible to objectively measure and identify the best route supervisors, others could be retrained and then held to that higher standard. It seems like the impact on quality of service could be huge.
Steve: While it is possible to see the effects of different management styles, the observations also must be tempered by understanding of the weather, special events, seasonal effects, service cuts, etc. This isn’t the sort of thing that lends itself to generation of an automatic index giving a pass/fail rating to a day’s supervision.
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Steve, I just want to comment on several posts/topics that have come up in this discussion. I apologize in advance, if I appear to ramble a bit.
In terms if the TRUMP units; they are based on 1970’s technology! This technology is 4 decades old (and obviously out of date)! The radio portion if the unit cannot handle the data flow requirements of today. I speak with a great deal of knowledge, as prior to working for TTC, I spent 24 years working in the telecom industry (specifically the 2way radio portion). To enable the TRUMP system to handle what is now expected of it, it needs to be replaced with a totally new system! This has been proposed and removed from the capital budget so many times over the last decade that I expect it will never happen! The most adaptable system to achieve the TTC’s goals is to use Telus’s MIKE systems, as was used by Oshawa Transit (and later Durham Regional Transit).
In terms of Route Supervisors (I have worked with streetcar supervisors, having done bus replacement on Carlton, Queen (east end), St. Clair, Queen (Connaught)). There are good supervisors and there are poor supervisors! Keep in mind, that I obviously have personal biases here, but TTC has supervisors who are in well below the level required of them. I find that the best supervisors are the long-term ones; who, unfortunately, are now ready to retire! There are a few “new” supervisors who have the “street smarts” to be successful (they were excellent operators in my opinion), but they are in the minority! As Steve stated about the variables (weather, special events, etc.), an excellent supervisor would be able to adapt to the circumstance! I don’t think that some of the poor performers could do this.
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Just a quick note to address Ed’s comments about supervisor “board periods”. Supervisors do not follow the same “board period” as operators. My understanding is that supervisors work on a four week schedule. Their hours are different from operators, to start. They go through different rotations as well, such as the mobile cabs (if qualified).
Malvern and Arrow Road CIS are staffed 24 hours (to cover Blue Night service), while Birchmount’s mobile cab (Cab 111) covers the east end overnight (I’m not sure which cab covers the west end overnight). Supervisors have mid week off days, split shifts (“Black and Tan” in their terminology), etc. Their work is not “ad hoc” but, rather is in scheduled shifts just like operators but set to their own “board period” schedule. As I say, I am not an expert on their scheduling, but I do know that it does not follow the same scheduling as operators.
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Yes, that is the big challenge to deal with. I was thinking more of the isolated portions of the streetcar network-Queensway, Lakeshore, St. Clair and Queen east of Woodbine, where there are limited or no options for diversion.
I’m guessing that right now the TTC would rush shuttle buses into these places if there was a streetcar breakdown or major delay.
That’s why I was thinking of St. Clair and Queensway (although Queensway has loops at both ends of a short private ROW so it might not be needed) as well as Lakeshore (not private now but perhaps in the future.).
I’m guessing that there will be a few crossovers in the underground portion of Eglinton. Does it make sense to include them in the surface portions as well as on Finch, Sheppard East and the SRT?
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: I believe that crossovers were included in the designs for the surface LRT lines, assuming Metrolinx ever gets around to building them.
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