In a previous article, I wrote about the crisis in system capacity across all modes – buses, streetcars and subways – and the danger that Toronto may face years without meaningful improvement in transit capacity.
This is a campaign issue, but one that is embraced only by one major candidate, Olivia Chow, and even then, not very well.
Full disclosure: Early in the campaign, I was approached by the Chow team to advise on what became her better bus service plank, but I certainly didn’t write it for reasons that will soon be obvious.
Her transit plan includes support for LRT lines, GO electrification and the first stage of a Downtown Relief subway line. It also includes this commitment regarding bus service:
A better transit plan starts investing now, with buses. Because 60% of TTC rides involve a bus and as the TTC says, the only way to expand transit now is with buses. So Olivia will invest to boost bus service right away, investing $15 million a year.
When we stack a paltry $15m up against the billions in rapid transit plans, it looks rather puny and gives the impression we are trying to get more service on the cheap. How can small change by transit budget standards stack up against the massive spending schemes of rapid transit networks?
Where did the number come from? Back when the Ford/Stintz crew started to dismantle the Miller-era service standards, the anticipated saving was only about $14m/year. However, reversing the cuts is not quite as simple.
When you cut transit service, you can reduce costs simply by letting old buses wear out and not replacing them, by reducing the operator workforce through attrition, and by cutting plans for a new bus garage (needed for a bigger fleet) out of the capital budget. That’s precisely what happened.
To undo the damage, we need more buses, more garage space and more operators. Some, but by no means all, of the cost will come out of the $15m, but there is much more involved.
McNicoll Garage has a pricetag of $181-million (of which only about $80m has been funded as of 2014), and it is required simply to handle growth in the bus fleet with no provision for better service standards. Yet another garage will be required to support better service, although in the short term one garage will do for both purposes. Also, by 2020, some bus services will have been replaced by rapid transit lines, but we don’t really know how much because the future of various schemes is uncertain.
(Some of the chaos in fleet planning dates from the cancellation of Transit City, and still more from shortsighted cutbacks of the last few years.)
New buses cost about $700k apiece. With current peak service at around 1,500 buses (not including those used for construction service), a 10% bump in fleet capacity means 150 new vehicles at a cost of $105-million.
At the very least, in the next few years, the TTC would face the following capital costs over and above what is already committed:
- $100m to fully fund McNicoll Garage
- $105m to purchase 150 buses
Moreover, the McNicoll project must be accelerated for completion before 2019, the current schedule. The idea that Toronto would see no additional peak service for five years is a disgusting testament to the ill-informed folly of the Ford/Stintz era.
Can We Improve Bus Service While Awaiting New Buses?
When I advised the Chow campaign about buses, two factors were included in the question of short-term availability:
- Can some of the existing fleet scheduled for retirement in 2015 be retained at least long enough for new vehicle deliveries in mid-2016 (likely the earliest an order placed in the new Council’s term could arrive)?
- Do known, planned reductions in construction activity in 2015 (due both to the Pan Am Games and the completion of major projects) give Toronto a one-year window where the number of “construction buses” can be reduced from recent levels?
The TTC is adamant that the old buses cannot be kept alive, but I have to scratch my head and wonder whether the real problem is reliability of the newer fleet, notably the hybrids. Toronto needs some straight talk about the condition of its bus fleet and whether buses can be kept rolling into mid 2016.
Some have argued that keeping the lift-equipped buses running would be a disservice to the disabled riders. Without question, riders who encounter those vehicles would be at a disadvantage, but – even more so – all riders suffer when there isn’t enough capacity for anyone to board a vehicle. Any move to keep these buses in service must be accompanied by a guarantee that they will be withdrawn as soon as possible and used only as rush hour extras, not for all-day service.
As for construction, we know that some projects will be finished or winding down: the Queens Quay renewal ends next month, the Spadina subway extension will reach a point where delays thanks to torn up station sites such as Finch West should be over, the Metrolinx Georgetown South project will be done. Finally, the TTC has no major track projects planned for 2015 that require service replacements with buses (unless they have changed the plan published as part of the 2014 capital budget).
It won’t be easy, but the TTC should do more than shrug its shoulders and say “we cannot run more service because we have no buses”.
Service Improvements Within The Existing Fleet
Two changes are possible immediately: better off peak service, and better PM peak service.
The TTC has already proposed a return to the pre-Ford loading standards in its Opportunities to Improve Transit Service report.
Better peak service means a bigger fleet, but only in the AM peak because there are 85 fewer peak buses scheduled in the afternoon than in the morning. (The AM peak includes school and work trips in the same time period, whereas in the PM these are spread out.) Afternoon peak service could be improved immediately, at least to the point of matching AM fleet requirements.
Off peak improvements, of course, require no additional vehicles, only the will to fund the service. The TTC’s estimate of reduced off-peak crowding is about $11.9m/year, although this does not take us all the way back to pre-Ford levels.
The TTC report includes other proposals such as the creation of a core network of 10-minute routes, another off-peak change that requires no additional vehicles, with an annual cost of $13.6m.
What About Streetcar Routes?
Although they are over a year late arriving, the new streetcars have finally made their appearance and the fleet should build up in coming months now that the strike at Bombardier has been settled.
The TTC’s original fleet plans called for old streetcars to be retired at least as fast as new ones could replace them, but the plans were flawed on two counts:
- ALRVs (the two-section cars used mainly on Queen and King) are the least reliable, and would be the first to go. The published fleet plan would have actually seen fleet capacity go down even while new cars were entering service because the plan made no allowance for reassignment of the smaller CLRVs to take over the work of larger ALRVs.
- The implementation plan contained no provision for improving service on routes that were later in the rollout (e.g. King, Queen, Carlton) until new cars finally went into service there.
Fortunately, the TTC may have seen the error of its ways and a revised fleet plan is expected in the 2015 budget. (See page 25 of the August 2014 presentation on the low-floor streetcars.)
The problem with streetcar route capacity is compounded by schedules that do not give cars enough time to make their trips under today’s conditions. The King car recently saw extended running times, and changes are likely needed elsewhere in the network. Longer trips require more vehicles if service is to remain at the same scheduled level.
There is no reason that the TTC could not begin improving peak streetcar service in 2015 as the new fleet increases total system capacity. This will require work to keep older cars running for a few more years, but providing service is the TTC’s job and they need to figure out the best way to achieve this goal.
As with the bus network, nothing prevents the TTC from improving off-peak services.
Where Do We Put The Vehicles?
An issue raised by the TTC is that they have no garage space, indeed that their current fleet strains the capacity of the system. If old vehicles are not retired or if new ones arrive faster than space is available, supplementary space will be needed.
The question for the TTC is whether they should lease land or use city-owned space (including commuter parking lots) for bus storage. Wherever this is done, the extra space must be near existing garages to simplify servicing, fuelling and dispatching.
An attitude that “we can’t do anything” dooms Toronto to declining service and is an abdication of management’s responsibility to make the best of a bad situation.
What Must Be Done
At its August meeting, the TTC Board passed a motion asking staff for information on the requirements to run more service. The text of this motion comes from a deputation I prepared for that meeting (in case anyone wonders why it aligns so closely with the sort of thing I have been recommending).
This information will be vital to inform the debate about what can be done, and how soon Toronto can see improvements.
The next requirement is quite simple: there must be a will both by TTC management and by Council to actually work as hard as possible to improve service, especially in the short term when there will be challenges thanks to fleet constraints.
All in, capital and operating, this will cost more than $15m/year, and Toronto should be prepared to pay more. We sit through interminable shouting matches with candidates who happily draw multi-billion dollar maps as their “solution” to our problems. We can only dream of future decades when riders might see better service. That’s not a pro-transit platform, but simply a game of smoke and mirrors to buy votes.
Any mayoral candidate who is serious about improving transit has to start with a program that will improve transit now, not after one or two more election cycles. Rapid transit is important, but without better service on the existing system, as soon as possible, the credibility of transit as a real travel alternative will wither, and political support for any improvements will evaporate.
Steve Munro 
TTC will then transfer the cars they are taking off Spadina to King and Queen? On King if they do use the cars off Spadina, Bathurst and Harbourfront (rather than retiring them) would that be enough to actually affect anything? Would it be possible to run some of the CLRV units as multi unit on King prior to the conversion, to start to see some of the effect of larger cars?
Steve: The TTC should be planning to move cars displaced from the early Flexity routes over to King and Queen for service increases, and I hope to see some sense of this in the fleet plan for 2015. Until now, the assumption was that no service improvements would occur on any route until it got new cars, an utterly ridiculous, pig-headed management position. But I won’t believe it until I see the 2015 budget.
As for MU CLRVs, they would need to put couplers back on these cars (assuming they are still stored somewhere) and verify that the MU circuitry worked. This is hardly the sort of thing one would do for only a few years’ service.
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I hope that they can get King enough service, and that the LFRV delivery starts to get a little more speed to it, otherwise, I worry that the delivery and service to King will be further delayed. Also I still worry that the fleet on order will not be large enough to meet the needs, especially if they do go forward with a Waterfront LRT.
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Hi Steve:-
I believe that those couplers went to equip the Mexico City LRT project a number of years ago. I remember seeing skids of couplers sitting outside the south side of Hillcrest shops after being removed from the nearly new CLRVs. They weren’t there a tremendous length of time.
If memory serves, Mexico City’s PCCs were cannibalized for reusable parts and built into locally built, new LRT bodies.
Dennis
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Does the TTC not realize that the Bombardier contract only lasts for 3 years? And yet they can’t think of moving old streetcars to routes that aren’t served by LFLRVs? TTC does realize that Bombardier will strike 3 years later right? I expected better management from Byford.
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Why did they remove the couplers? I can understand them not wanting to run them in chains of 4, 5 or 6 under normal operations due to considerations for side streets. However, 2 long would have made sense in a situation where demand required sub headways that were less than a couple of light cycles.
Steve: At the time they were removed, the best headway on the system was nowhere near MU territory. Moreover, there was a political issue that the open fronts of the cars were considered threatening to motorists, notably to Councillor Esther Shiner (mother of Councillor David Shiner). She prevailed on the TTC to remove the couplers and install panels (of dubious actual value in a collision) in their place, and these are known as “Shiner Skirts”.
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Most suppliers that are unionized have contracts that will expire at some point. Do you want the TTC to only buy from companies that are non union or from countries that do not allow their employees to withdraw services? What is the main purpose of your post; to trash unions, Bombardier or the TTC for not keeping extra CLRVs and ALRVs around while breaking in the LFLRVs?
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Oddly enough I wonder if the TTC does not now regret this choice. I can easily see the situation where more capacity in a single unit may eventually be require in Toronto that is represented even in the new cars. I wonder on King if the ideal capacity might soon be larger than the new cars, if only the street and stations could handle that. I suspect based on running cars to allow for TSP to work best would mean running the equivalent of 2 + CLRVs together at a frequency of something like the length 2 or 3 signal cycles.
Steve: 2 CLRVs coupled are roughly the same length as 1 of the new cars. Given problems with vehicle size at terminals, there is a limit on how big an individual car or train could be. I don’t think the TTC regrets the decision one bit.
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Hi Steve:-
It always struck me as odd that the new CLRVs didn’t get fitted with HB lifeguards as all TTC cars, including the adopted TRs, had had from 1921. ‘Shiner Shroud’ indeed. The MU PCCs didn’t need them.
Dennis
Steve: The large couplers left no room for HB lifeguards. As for the MU PCCs, they had smaller couplers and the “maw” at the front of the cars was smaller.
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The thing about comparing the plan’s of the Mayoral candidates, that is extremely interesting is that it is fairly clear who is actually has a realistic plan, and who is electioneering.
Doug/Rob Ford, appear to have drawn some lines, that are close to where LRT would go, plus a couple of fantasy lines, that are known to be popular, and called it all subway. Buildable, well frankly that is not important. Does it work, in terms of election campaigns, yes, at least moderately well, because he is polling second, while being the most hated candidate in living memory.
John Tory – well lift provincial RER, modify it a little, call it SmartTracks and surface subway. Can it be built, and run? well maybe perhaps some of it. Can it really do what it claims? Not the way he suggests. Does it really work? Well if your goal is to win an election, yes it would appear it does work, at least based on current polling, and polls prior to this announcement.
Olivia Chow – Lift all the best devised plans, that are currently believed to be most likely to actually work and be deliverable – in terms of rapid transit, suggest that basic service needs to be improved, and low ball the cost and call operating costs investment in order to not offend. Since her announcement of supporting the best laid real transit plans, her poll numbers have collapsed. Clearly supporting real transit that is actually buildable, and would deliver real service, is not a formula to helping her poll numbers.
In summary, to those of you who want to critique John Tory’s plans, or even those of Olivia Chow, as Kim Campbell discovered many moons ago, calling a spade a spade during an election is tantamount to committing electoral suicide.
The reality is for those like Steve, unfortunately, is that we have created a world in which the pols know, or at least should, that being frank and honest with the electorate, is a quick formula for losing elections. There is a real need for an honest open, public discussion of what is realistic for both the city and the region, which needs to be led by real information, not whim. Those who will but vote, or worse, answer polling questions, do not have the time, or the inclination to be that well informed.
If John Tory actually wins, I sincerely hope that he does not feel bound by the sketch that he had drawn. RER is required, but is only one small part of an overall answer in Toronto. Frankly, what Olivia Chow has proposed, is by far the closest to what is required, of the proposals of the remaining candidates.
The TTC needs to keep its existing fleet as long as it can, and be permitted to start ordering expansion now. Whether we can MU CLRVs on King or not, they need to be pressed into service as they are available in order to get King close to the level of service that it will have with the new vehicles as soon as possible. The issue of extending the streetcar order, needs to be done on the basis of being able to see the full extent of pent up demand. If the TTC ran CLRVs on a one minute headway on King at peak, it might get the nasty surprise of discovering that these are very nearly full. If this were the case, it would be an early indication that the level of service proposed for King with the new cars would not suffice.
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Main purpose is TTC bro.
Cheers John
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A number of people are wondering about the possibility of putting couplers back onto the CLRVs and keeping them for a few years longer to augment service. Couplers are not necessary. In Europe there are many cities that use draw bars and jumper cables, like railway MU cables to connect cars. Some even hard wire them together and they only have an operator in the front car, POP. The lack of couplers is not the problem but rather the condition of the cars.
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To me there are basically 2 issues here,
1. Get to the level of service that will be present with the new cars as quickly as possible, at the least to see the impact on ridership. Of course providing some customer service would be good as well.
2. Come as close to mimicking the nature of the new service, to see the impact on route management, and start to study what else can/has to be done in order to make the route run as smoothly as reasonably possible with service that comes as close to the proposed service as possible. ½ car (CLRV) every minute, is not really the same as 1 full (new) car every 2 minutes. What else can be practically done with large cars in terms of signal cycles, conditioned Transit Priority (behind or ahead of headway, and condition of route ahead), enforcement, lane exclusions, making sections of the street for local use only etc. Approaching these issues as early as possible would be good, so as to make the improvements seen with the new cars as great as possible.
It will take time to work out what else can/has to be done. It would be nice to see all improvements possible as the new cars come into place, as opposed to having to wait many additional years.
Of course as Robert points out, there is no point in approaching this if the cars are in such a state that pairing them will not meet with a very high rate of success. I would like to see the TTC start to resolve issues like dispatching cars properly, and finding solutions on headway management.
Steve: Some of the capabilities you describe for traffic signal priority are not possible with the technology now in place. This requires upgrades on both the city and TTC side, some of which are in progress, but still quite some time away.
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Understood, that a much improved vehicle tracking system, communications as to route each vehicle was running, and a lot more is required. However, I think there is a need to start to look at what impact each minor change might have, and to do this, they are going to need to have a service extremely like what they are proposing. Ideally I would love to see them start with a higher level of cooperation with enforcement, where the TTC used vehicle travel information and driver reports to try and spot the worst areas on any given day, and dispatch a police officer to help mitigate issues. Likely these areas would change regularly, and would require a high level of cooperation between police and TTC to make that work.
To make signal priority work, we cannot approach the issue of absolute signal priority (too many TTC vehicles in the core for one) but where priority is given to those transit vehicles that need it most. This will clearly require a very sophisticated system. However, it might (with a lot of work) actually complement a TTC system for route management, and actually make headway management easier (although more active TTC management will be required).
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Big news today which I’m sure is going to get its own post (maybe a Part II of this post) though it has been mentioned here already.
Double step-back crewing, trains going directly out of service rather than continuing on to occupy terminal track space, more trains and better scheduling…all surrounded by the big question of “why did it take so long to do this?”
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: These changes were mentioned, but with less fanfare, in the article about the October schedules. I believe that the press reports are overblown as to the actual benefits, but I declined a few media interviews on this topic because too much depends on actual operation of the new scheme. Specifically:
There is no change in the scheduled headway. If the service is running “normally”, there will be no change in the actual capacity provided. Where the idea that the trains/hour will rise from 21 to 25 comes from is a mystery.
The move to step back crewing will definitely improve terminal operations, especially when the service is late or irregular because the business of crews changing ends and taking a washroom break will be decoupled from train turnaround. This should allow service to depart promptly, and should ensure better reliability even when the service is on time. It’s worth noting here that the layout of terminals does not place washrooms in convenient locations to minimize the amount of walking a crew must do between trips.
Although the running-in trips have been cut back to avoid terminal congestion, this is only during the transition from the AM peak to the midday service. Queueing at the end of the PM peak may actually worsen.
With the extra running time, queueing at terminals will be a bigger problem than it is today except during the height of the peak when all of the trip time is actually needed. This can only be avoided by adjusting running times between the dispatch points along routes and, possibly, creating queues at several locations.
This is definitely a case where “the devil is in the details” at the operational level.
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Most of the other rapid transit lines I have ridden have car barns and yards at the end of most of their lines. The TTC had this at Wilson when it was the end of the line but now it is lost. Perhaps if any city wants Toronto to extend the subway into their boundary they should provide an end of line storage facility. The Bloor Danforth could be extended east instead of north and share Metrolinx new east end rail maintenance facility (Just kidding, I think.)
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Do we really need more service, or do we need to make more efficient use of existing service? When you’re on a line where you see a bus that’s packed to people hanging out the windows, followed by a couple of buses where all seats are occupied, and 4 or 5 empty buses you wonder if we really need to add extra buses to the line.
The real issue for the TTC, is that it’s lousy at efficient use of its runs. The first key is to get rid of herding. This could be done by making use of the headway. If a bus/car route headway is 3 minutes and you’re more then 3 minutes late, then big brother (the radio unit) should be informing control. Control should be monitoring this, and rather then short-turns, the call the operator to put the run into a semi-express mode. The driver then changes the destination sign to “Not in service”, and continues stopping only to drop passengers, until they get caught up. If you get a construction or traffic issue that causes a lot of vehicles to be late, you put a supervisor on site to sort it out. Keeping vehicles on headway would solve a lot of the problems. I don’t know how well this would work on the subway, but they have much better control of vehicle spacing on the subway.
Steve: Subway train spacing is enforced by the signal system which prevents trains from getting very close together, and by automatic dispatching from various points along the line. The latter has its limitations especially when service is running late and irregularly.
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Steve, I realise that subway spacing is enforced, so there is no herding. I suspect much of the problem is resolved by the new trains, where the passengers can spread more evenly through the train, even while it’s moving.
I think the issue with the automatic dispatching is that Control and the Tower Supervisors have no way to alter it, so they must use short-turns to make conditions underground fit the program, rather then being able to fit the program to conditions underground.
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I have not noticed very many people walking any distance through a TR train, even when the train is pretty empty. When it gets crowded, it becomes as much of a battle as moving back in a bus or streetcar when the barnacles have packed the front. It’s not worth the battle to move down the car, and anyway you can’t really tell if there’s room at the far end.
By the way, I first rode open-gangway subway trains in Santiago Chile, and I didn’t see a whole lot of inter-car movement there either.
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Another example is the elevated rear section of the low floor buses, or spaces in general in the back of low floor (and low-floor articulated) buses that are inaccessible because people in front are blocking them.
MiWay has done something interesting however with their new 2013 (Flyer Xcelsior) fleet … the same buses Brampton Transit received in 2010 for their ZUM fleet. The articulated buses now has retractable seats in the articulated joint which are normally in the “up” position. They have also reduced the number of seats in the section immediately forward of the joint. The next step would be to put a Presto card reader in the back and allow all-door boarding.
Another interesting thing is that the emergency exit hatch in the roof is made from clear polycarbonate and the buses have rear windows again since the HVAC unit has been moved to the roof.
Minor changes, certainly, but they make it easier to use the whole of the bus and the back of the bus is a lot brighter and more inviting than it used to be. I expect this will be the future of bus design and I’m looking forward to these new buses in Toronto’s fleet (beyond the NOVA artic buses that arrived late last year).
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: The TTC plans to move to all door loading across the system, provided that the tightwads on Council approve the extra money needed for fare inspectors.
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That can be a problem as far as insurance is concerned. I was told by an official at YRT that a bus displaying “Not In Service” cannot carry members of the public as their insurance does not provide coverage in this circumstance.
I’ll admit, it did sound like a bit of a BS answer (I have seen the odd YRT bus near the end of its run have its sign changed while passengers were on board, but this could just be an operator that was not properly informed/trained), so I cannot say for sure. Additionally, I once heard that the TTC is self-insured. What that actually means is a mystery to me, as I suspect that it only applies to the issue of vehicle insurance requirements under the Highway Traffic Act, and not general liability coverage which could very well involve an insurance company that may or may not have an exclusion when it comes to “Not In Service” status of the vehicle.
Someone in the know hopefully can confirm this.
Steve: I have seen TTC buses running with passengers and “Not In Service” displayed on the sign. This is particularly frustrating when the bus is still “signed on” to NextBus and shows up as an approaching vehicle in their predictions. I have never heard that this would affect their insurance coverage.
The TTC has a subsidiary Insurance Company set up to handle claims, but carries third-party insurance for amounts over $5-million. See footnote 8 to the TTC’s Annual Report for 2013 (page 23 of the PDF).
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Not believable. Well, okay, strictly believable, in that I am not an insurance expert etc. etc., and maybe the specific text “Not In Service” shouldn’t appear on a bus with passengers, according to the exact literal meaning of all the various words.
But it is inconceivable that they wouldn’t be able to have a roll sign display that means what you mean — perhaps as simple as “Off Only, Wait for Next Bus” (too long?), or add “(Express)” to the end.
So perhaps the YRT person was correct strictly speaking, but a responsive answer to the suggestion would be to say something like “it would have to be a different sign aspect”. That is, actually engage with the core of the suggestion, rather than latching onto the first technical objection that arises as a reason to dismiss immediately the idea from further condition.
I had a somewhat similar experience when I suggested there should be a cross-platform transfer from the Waterloo LRT to the tourist train: “Not enough space in the right of way”. The space in question looks pretty open to me however — no nearby buildings, just grass. Sure enough, the expropriation list shows up, and an LRT electrical substation is proposed on what was formerly private property immediately next to the right of way at that location. So why couldn’t they expropriate a platform-width strip of land next to the right-of-way for my idea?
Now obviously I don’t really know if that would be cost-effective. But an immediate “No” based on the existing right-of-way width is not an appropriate response. Similarly in your case the potential insurance problem should be viewed as something that needs attention, not a definite and permanent barrier.
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Pardon the stray from the main topic, but when I read this, I couldn’t help but think of the time I was on a tram in Melbourne and it was to be replaced with another when it reached the East Preston Depot (“Depot” is Australian for “Carbarn”, so to speak!). The tram pulled into the depot and stopped next to its replacement and passengers made an across the no-platform change.
Steve: On my first visit to Boston in 1966, I was amused to watch operations at Riverside Terminal where there is a large carhouse and yard. In those days, an announcment came over the PA saying “Train for Boston now boarding on Track Five” (or some such) and riders would dutifully trundle out into the yard (think of passengers wandering through the yard at Russell of Ronces) to board a two or three car train of PCCs. There was no runaround track, and so the morning peak simply built up by gradually emptying the yard and having waiting riders walk out to whatever track the next train would be on.
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While I think this approach has limitations in terms of application, depending on the gap behind the bus in question. However, that would also be important, if that bus is very close well, it kind of makes sense.
I think the big thing the TTC has to address is dispatching on headway. As Steve has pointed out before this is a major issue. This is one reason why I would like to see the TTC itself publish graphs of actual headway distribution, along various points in lines. It would help a lot if they at least started the run at the indicated headway. I ideally would like to start to talk in terms of targets in terms of distribution, around target headway. Also need to be flexible enough to realize there will be times when they will (and should) have what appear to be convoys, although perhaps that front running bus that is out to address a specific super peak load can be excluded from normal headway somehow.
So the TTC could look at targets where for instance 60 % of service could be within 1 minute of headway, 75 within 2, 90% within 5. The target number at dispatch should be 90+% within 1 minute of headway, with the exception of special dispatch vehicles that would be shorter than headway. This type of service target would mean a large decrease in success, but, would also mean that the particular type of failure and its impact on riders would be highlighted. If you cannot dispatch 90% + of your service on headway, there is another issue, that needs to be addressed.
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