Fourth Quarter 2014 Update: Results for fourth quarter of 2014 have been consolidated into a new table below.
Route_Performance_Summary_2014Q4
The headway reliability numbers for many routes continue to lie well below the TTC’s targets for bus and streetcar operations.
Routes which have improved by more than 10% since 3Q14 are:
51 Leslie, 60 Steeles West, 125 Drewry, 126 Christie, 172 Cherry Street, 198 UTSC Rocket, 301 Queen Night, 322 Coxwell Night, and 512 St. Clair
Routes which have declined by more than 10% since 3Q14 are:
35 Jane, 36 Finch West, 55 Warren Park, 66 Prince Edward, 87 Cosburn, 88 South Leaside, 97 Yonge, 109 Ranee, 111 East Mall, 122 Graydon Hall, 133 Neilson, 141 Downtown via Mt. Pleasant Express, 160 Bathurst North, 161 Rogers Road, 162 Lawrence-Donway, 195 Jane Rocket, 224 Victoria Park North, 502 Downtowner and 508 Lakeshore
A few items worth noting:
- Service quality has declined considerably on both of the Jane routes despite a recent reorganization into local and express services, and adjusted running times to match actual experience.
- Reliability of the Blue Night services continues to be poor at a time when (a) there is no “congestion” on most routes as an excuse for delays, and (b) reliability is of particular importance to riders.
- The 501 Queen car at 52% (nothing to crow about) is more reliable than the Downtown Beach Express Bus at 45%.
Looking at the data over a two-year period, a very long list of routes has seen a decline of more than 10% in headway reliability. Only a few routes, mostly night services, have improved by more than 10% since 1Q13:
- 10 Van Horne, 52 Lawrence West (which has been reorganized since 1Q13), 90 Vaughan, 102 Markham Road, 117 Allness, 171 Mount Dennis, 301 Queen Night, 303 Don Mills Night, 308 Finch East Night, 309 Finch West Night, 311 Islington Night, 322 Coxwell Night, 353 Steeles East Night and 385 Sheppard East Night
Third Quarter 2014 Update:
The statistics have not changed much from the second quarter. One issue with many routes operating on wide headways (night services and express routes) is that they have consistently low performance values. Such routes should, of course, be measured for on-time performance, not headway adherence, because missed vehicles have a far graver effect on would be riders than on a route that operates every 5 minutes. Express-to-downtown routes (the 140 series) should be measured for on time performance in their catchment areas. Their headway once they are on the express leg of their journey is of no consequence to riders.
Second Quarter 2014 Update:
There is little change in the route performance statistics for the second quarter despite our having emerged from a bitter winter. The change from Q1 to Q2 is less than 10% for most routes with some improving and others falling behind. Those that are beyond the 10% mark can, in some cases, be explained by route-specific issues such as construction, but not all of them.
Two new routes appear for the first time, 172 Cherry and 195 Jane Rocket. It is mildly amusing that the Cherry bus, which must fight its way through construction downtown, manages a 69% reliability score while the Jane express service manages only 58%.
In this quarter, the 58 Malton and 52 Lawrence routes were combined. Their former scores in the mid-50% range have astoundingly improved to 81% on the consolidated route. I will follow this up with the TTC to see what magic they have wrought here.
First Quarter 2014 Update:
Route_Performance_Summary_2014Q1
The reported reliability stats continue to be dismal. Although it is tempting to say “ah, yes, but Toronto had an appallingly bad winter”, there is a basic problem here: the statistics reported by the TTC didn’t change very much and many routes actually improved relative to the end of 2013.
I will not rehash my critiques of this method of reporting service quality (see the original article below) beyond noting the the TTC’s targets show that irregular service will be the norm — 1 in 3 trips can exceed the target, but service remains acceptable. This means that in a typical day, a rider can expect to encounter at least one “off target” service in their travels.
Finally, a long-standing issue has been the inability to maintain reliable service on the Queen car due to its length and the mixture of Humber and Long Branch services. Although April 2014 is not included in these statistics, the CEO’s report for June 2014 notes an improvement in that month’s streetcar average:
The increase in performance was attributable to the turnback of the 501 Queen route at Humber Loop for the Gardiner bridge work. This shortened the route and promoted a more reliable eastbound service. [Page 10]
The original article from October 24, 2013, follows below.
The TTC has just published its headway reliability results for the third quarter of 2013. These numbers purport to show the percentage of service that operates within 3 minutes, give or take, of the scheduled headway on each route. The goal is that bus service does this 65% of the time and streetcar service 70% of the time.
On a daily basis, these numbers are rolled up to the system level, but this hides wide variations by route and time of day. Weekends are not reported on at all.
The system barely manages to achieve its goal on good days, and has little headroom to absorb events such as bad weather.
To simplify browsing the route-by-route data, I have consolidated the three quarterly reports into one table. The information is listed both by route, and ranked by the reliability index.
[The table originally linked here has been replaced with an updated version at the start of the article.]
There are many problems with these numbers:
- On routes with short headways, it is easy to be within 3 minutes of target. Indeed, it is difficult to get beyond that target, and even a parade of buses or streetcars may count as one “off target” and several (the parade itself) “on target”.
- There is no measure of bunching, nor is there any indication of whether all or only part of the scheduled service actually operated over most or all of a route.
- There is no definition of what part(s) and directions of the route are measured, or how this might skew reported values. Performance at locations beyond common short-turn points may not be reported, or may be masked by data from central parts of a route.
- There is no time-of-day reporting. From service analyses presented on this site, it is clear that across the system, service at evenings and weekends is much less well-managed (assuming it is managed at all).
- On routes with wide headways, on-time operation is more relevant to riders than headway because they must plan journeys based on the schedule. This is particularly important where connections between infrequent services are part of a trip.
The TTC acknowledges that the headway adherence measurements are inadequate, and they are working on “Journey Time Metrics” based on the scheme used in London, UK. This approach looks at typical trips and the time required including access, waiting, in vehicle and transfer times to better reflect service as seen by a rider. For example, a frequent service with well-regulated headways is useless if the buses are full. An advertised headway is meaningless if half of the service is randomly short-turned and wide gaps are a common experience. The effect of a big delay in someone’s trip is much more severe than a short one because this adds to the unpredictability of journey times.
How, exactly, this will be boiled down into representative journeys while still preserving a granular view into system operations will be interesting to see. I believe that a combination of metrics will be needed, and the managerial penchant for a single index to report the behaviour of a large and complex system is dangerous because of what it hides. (I say this also from personal, professional experience in another field.) Without the details, the organizational goal becomes one of “gaming” the system to ensure a lovely column of green tick marks on a scorecard that masks pervasive problems.
Steve Munro 
Steve could not an emergency vehicle make use of this right of way. Is there not locations they could practically jump the curb if required? not to mention emercency services breaks and openings at every major intersecton.
I am not convinced the row could not be designed to improve response time.
Steve: Emergency vehicles do make use of the rights-of-way, although this is more easily done where the TTC has not planted poles down the middle. This is as much a problem for the Fire Department as access to the lanes from their station. But the TTC was stubborn, and try as we might, those centre poles remain. At least on Queens Quay, the conventional side poles and span wires rule.
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FOI Request?
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So in essence a properly designed ROW, should actually speed emergency vehicles to destination by getting them out of general traffic. This sounds like it is again issue of things being done in silos, instead of seeing where improvements can be made for multiple services at the same time. Seems to me that Toronto is now large enough that it is in dire need of public transit improvements, and having to have a dysfunctional city bureaucracy.
Honestly transit done well is something that should never suffer from NIMBY. Getting the Waterfront LRTs across the bottom should enable notable high quality development and improved access to the best services Toronto has to offer.
I understand the concern with regards to the narrow ROW possibilities in some areas of the western waterfront, and the issues in getting into the Union, but concern about bad design choices and that creating panics about emergency services is really bad. The various city departments need to be sitting and looking at how things they are planning will really impact them.
Steve: At the risk of suggesting that the emergency services have a political axe to grind, the situation depends a great deal on the local circumstances, including encouragements from the relevant members of Council. There is also a great deal of misinformation “out there” even among people who are supposed to be advocating for the project.
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I found a video, and I find myself inspired. Unfortunately I suspect that too many of Toronto’s blocks are too tight, but running outside the core, these would provide much space for any current surface line in the city.
Can you imagine seeing this moving down the street through the core. Again in a closed ROW, or a street with long enough blocks it would be amazing. This kind of streetcar, would provide plenty of capacity for massive development if used on the Waterfront.
Steve: That street looks to be at least 6 lanes wide (two auto lanes each way plus the streetcar, oops, LRT lanes). No good for Queen Street, but on Sheppard or Finch, another story.
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Yes Steve, but the visual of it moving down Queen. Although, I must admit even the new car will be quite imposing on Queen and King. Practically it would be a very hard thing to make work, especially on blocks where this would in essence be the block.
The question would be, could someday, if required, this type of car be practically put in service on Spadina or St Clair ? If so it should certainly resolve the issues of full cars. Could even the 43 metre Bombardier car be used?
Steve: There are already stations where the new Toronto streetcars will require a major change in platform operations: think of St. Clair West for starters. I think we should be content with 30m cars.
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Malcolm. if you think they look impressive on their route, you should see them running into service on a curving street the width of McCaul. To paraphrase the Olympics They Own the Podium, err road. I hope everyone noticed the headways they are running. There are two routes that run these cars but 90% of their route is the same. At the east(?) end they split into 2 branches for about 1 – 2 km.
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I think they would be imposing on any smaller roadway. However, I think that if we could actually get a real Waterfront LRTs going, it would excellent for that type of service, and would permit other services to feed that one with being too concerned with overload, somebody just needs to figure out how to route and fund them.
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The relatively low score of 71 for St. Clair seems hard to fathom, compared to any other period. It’s no more reliable than Bathurst (which also hit its worse ever score).
Steve: Bathurst is just recovering from a long-running water main replacement that blocked the southbound curb lane from last fall through to late spring.
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The 52 Lawrence West has 81%? The TTC got to be kidding. I’ll give them credit that the busiest section between Scarlett and Lawrence West Stn. would have decent performance. The bus is always there but for the other sections on Dixon, Westway and between the two stations don’t perform as well.
The route only seem to perform so well is because +/-3 minutes is deemed on time. The combined service always gets very frequent service, twice as frequent as the old 52 and 58. Instead of a 7 minute headway, we have a 2’30” headway. Steve, you know all about this crap.
In fact service on Dixon is horrible in Q2 when the 52A/B ran with 10′ PM rush hour headway. Bunching has almost always made it into a 20′ headway. In late June, half of the 52G buses from Westway moved to Dixon. While service improved on Dixon and between the two stations, The Westway got worse. Now, the 52G has a 13′ headway that becomes over 20′ when they bunch together. Considering the headway was 5′ before the change, it’s quite a downgrade in service that the TTC doesn’t deserve that pat on the back. The PM rush is the worst service period provided on this route.
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One hates to reject “facts’ but, frankly, I find the figures rather meaningless and, as you say, all too easy to be made to look good (or better) by combining all times and days. You noted they were working on a better methodology, I assume it is still in (slow) process or possibly even short-turned.
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I take it that despite the continued lack of improvement that Byford’s performance metrics are all ticketee-boo?
Steve: I am still waiting to see the new Byford-era metrics published. The ones we have now are the same ones the TTC has used for years.
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I don’t know how to describe the recent article (July 17th) in the National Post about Queen streetcar service. Sad, is one conclusion. It features a rush hour ride on the Queen Car westbound from Yonge to Spadina and return with a reporter. Rick Leary Chief Service Officer (new position?) ex MBTA 25 years and more recently YRT. John Morrison “head of streetcar operation” is the way he is identified. Is that his title? And, is this another new position? Never heard of either person.
In any event after this short ride no doubt everyone has a handle on this service! Leary’s one observation is that sometimes your trip will take 20 minutes and sometimes 25 minutes. You have to allow for that. Very astute observation. I am betting regular riders allow a lot more variance if they want to get anywhere on time. In fact the car they rode was obviously late as a second car was right behind it. There are many more comments about the Queen Car but ALL are in the future, WAY in the future. I’ll bet riders would really like to see something done NOW! One ride from Yonge to Spadina and back won’t do it. Being out there DAILY might, just might do something. Its called _management_ and it requires on the spot observation and _action_ to get things done. Crack heads, kick ass, do whatever is necessary to get peoples attention that the status quo is not satisfactory. Like I said: sad.
Steve: Leary’s comment about a five minute variation is the sort of out-of-touch remark that tells every reader how little he knows about the Queen car (or other routes) where long gaps are commonplace, and a variation of only 5 minutes in travel time would probably cause riders to fall to their knees in prayers of thanks to the transit gods.
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That means that St. Clair was less reliable than Bathurst! But how can that be the case? This is TTC’s showcase line that suffers from neither the undercapacity that kills Spadina, or the perennial construction of Harbourfront. It should have the best numbers going! It certainly shouldn’t be deteriorating!
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I was walking by Queen and Kingston Rd on Saturday and noticed two 501 Humber cars going west in a convoy. Then a third 501 Long Branch pulled out of the loop right behind them. Must be magnets that makes them pull together like that.
Steve: Maybe an early test of wider headways with longer cars. The TTC talks a good line on service management, but on the street, we all know what really happens. Saturday evenings are particularly bad because of the combined effect of entertainment-related congestion and far fewer supervisory staff “minding the store”.
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Steve I would hope that there would be some reasonable attempt to approach this as a service metric for themselves. The on-time notion with a 3 minute variation and a low target achievement rate, however, does sound very much like creating a pat on the own back opportunity. I would hope that they would publish distribution information at the start, centre and end points on a line for each major line, and the number of vehicles not completing the route.
This should be used highlight short turns, as these are very disruptive to service. This sort of metric should be a focus for the TTC, along with the types of numbers you have produced for the Bathurst bus, as you cannot fix what you cannot or will not see.
However, I hate to say it, on some routes, the lack of support they receive in terms of budget for vehicles will compound the issues they have in basic line management. They need to be have the loading data able to identify regular surge loads (as you have pointed out in the past), schools, factory shift starts and ends, and the vehicles in service to meet them.
The political decision to use high average loading standards as targets for fleet size and availability, begs for service disruptions, no load conditions and poor adherence to schedule, even if there was active management. Finer grained data is really required to make these decisions, and the city needs to make sure that it is included in the planned staff requirement and capital spending decisions.
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195 Jane Rocket is a BIG improvement over the 35E Jane Express. When will the TTC introduce other Rocket express service on heavy routes such as 41 Keele?
Steve: I know they are looking at express routes, but a lot depends on the balance of demand and the scheduled frequency. There is already an express branch on Keele, but obviously you want something more.
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Tonight at 9pm (September 16, 2014) I took notice of a NVAS sign on the 506. It said the next vehicle was due in 55 minutes.
The NextBus data shows 7 CLRV’s on the route that are supposed to be (in theory) providing “frequent service” (scheduled for 7.5 minute headway).
Instead I saw several 20 minute gaps, a 30 minute gap, and a portion of the route where NextBus says there were no predictions available.
I pray this was an anomaly with vehicles missing from the data but it’s sad that I’d almost believe it. According to the TTC twitter account there was a stalled streetcar on the route but that was over 90 minutes ago.
Steve: I passed through Broadview Station just before 11 pm, and the NVAS sign showed immense waits for the King and Dundas cars. The online maps matched the displayed times. As I write this at 11:15pm, the NextBus map shows only 4 cars on the entire King route, 5 on Dundas, 5 on Carlton and 2 on St. Clair. This sort of thing happened once before when the schedules that are fed by TTC to Nextbus were out of sync with actual operations, and Nextbus did not recognize most of the vehicles on the street as having valid run numbers.
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Steve: These routes are beyond bad.
What is up with these routes, to be allowed this to be that bad? (Given how wide the standard for adherence actually is)?
Steve: In the case of the 14x series, as I said, a better measure would be on time performance at the origin areas of their trips as headways are meaningless once they leave these areas. As for Keele and Bathurst North (among others), they are bad because nobody cares enough to fix them.
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63 Ossington and 512 St Clair very unreliable. 63 Ossington especially needs new supervisor/s. It might be worth our while to start contracting out individual routes to private contractors. York Region has done this with VIVA as well as many YRT routes and the result is that buses in York Region tend to be on time and NEVER have I seen seven or eight buses in York Region show up at the same time which is not too uncommon with the TTC. Also I wanted to say, why don’t we build LRT where there is support? If Sheppard, Finch, etc don’t want it, then use the money to build elsewhere like on Jane, etc. The provincial Liberals are willing to finance LRT on Sheppard, etc where they know that the residents don’t want it but they are not willing to support it in places like Mississauga/Brampton, Hamilton, etc where they know that the residents want it, sounds like a plan to not spend anywhere (perhaps to cut the massive deficit in Ontario).
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The question however, would be while the schedule would be better, in effect to some degree does not this poor performance also mean poor schedule adherence as well. Also would it not mean very hard to predict waits.
Steve: Self evidently if the headways are off target, the buses cannot be on time, but for an infrequent service it would be possible to be 10-15 minutes off schedule but still within 3 minutes of headway. Not much use to a would-be rider. We should measure and report on the factor that affects a rider’s perception, and for infrequent services, that is on time performance because people depend on specific trips at specific times. Imagine if GO trains left stations as erratically as TTC services do.
This is the sort of thing that does very long term damage to the attractiveness of transit, and the general support for it. You cannot expect people who have come to believe the bus will not be there for them to support transit. I hope that the new mayor will make this a top priority.
Steve: There are the usual excuses such as construction and congestion, but these are used to justify long-standing practices. When the average over 3 months stays bad for the better part of two years, this suggests that something is wrong with either the schedule or the ethos of bothering to keep to it.
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Hmmm … I would go out on a limb and say that many (possibly a majority of) residents in those communities named above do not want LRT … they might want better transit and they might be willing to vote for a mayor or councilor who supports LRT but once construction starts and taxes rise, there will be significant public objections.
It’s probably a bit more accurate to say that the Provincial Government at one time decided to pay the vast majority of the capital costs for LRT expansion in Toronto … and they have regretted that decision ever since. In Hamilton and Mississauga the message has been very clear, that if Toronto gets “free” rapid transit paid for by the province, they should get “free” rapid transit as well. The province, on the other hand, would probably prefer to go back to something like the arrangement in Waterloo, with 1/3 funding from each level of government.
Either way, this still does not address the operating funds issues which will plague all transit agencies … and which are probably not going to be resolved anytime soon since the money in the Big Move proposed for existing transit service has quietly disappeared.
On that note … Steve, many of the 905 transit agencies have GPS tracking and GPS tracking data. Have any agencies contacted you for information/feedback/advice on carrying out the same route by route data analysis that you are doing in Toronto?
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: Re your last question, I’m not sure, but none of them has contacted me.
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It’s not uncommon for non VIVA routes to have headways of 45 minutes or 90 minutes. It’s hard to have bunching on routes where there might only be 1 or 2 buses.
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I love the quote from the CEO’s Report about the turn back at Humber for the 501 because of the work on the Gardiner. I tried using the current service twice now going eastbound, and I won’t be doing it again. I waited 20+ minutes both times for a streetcar after getting off the shuttle bus. How is this better service? There should be just as many streetcars as there are when the streetcars go through to Long Branch.
Steve: Yes, in theory, but they short turn at Sunnyside.
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Funny story. The Seattle Monorail had a collision due to bunching. Apparently it has two tracks, each with one train (similar to the Pearson Link). One would assume that collisions are therefore impossible. However, it seems the tracks effectively form a gauntlet at one end — both tracks load from the same side at that station, and in order to minimize the size of the gangway structure needed to access the farther track it comes closer to the other track in the station.
Sure enough, the two trains collided in that station one time in 2005. Of course, the level of incompetence required to have both trains at the same end of the line when there are only two trains is truly breathtaking. Not caring about route management isn’t exclusive to the TTC.
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In your comments on the Q2 results of this rather meaningless TTC survey you said:
Clearly they were paying attention as the 172 reliability has now sunk to 46%. I am also “horrified’ that the 508 now has a 14% reliability – up from 11%. (I do not think I have ever taken a 508 – probably just as well!)
BTW. I understand that the TTC continues to dither about the 72-172 split and whether these routes will ever be merged again and are also undecided as to whether the 172 part of the route will continue to pass in front of King Station – where it provides a very useful alternative to the 504. (It is probably indicative of the TTC’s efforts at ‘customer service’ that the two routes – 72 & 172 – seem to be completely uncoordinated with no way to see connection times. Splitting the route has also removed a very useful way for people living south of King to get to the Bloor-Danforth subway.
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Why don’t they green the streetcar right of way tracks with real green grass? That will make streetcars more acceptable. Surely, emergency vehicles can travel on a bit of grass.
Steve: Such has been a proposal both for QQ and for part of Eglinton, but the emergency services don’t like the idea.
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This is the sort of area where I start to give up on Toronto. No where else is this sort of arrangement a great problem, and nowhere else do the emergency services get an effective veto on urban design, and yet we here again and again that various things are impossible because the fire department doesn’t like it and doesn’t want to negotiate. At some stage we are really going to have to tell TFS to figure out how to work with the city they have if we want standards of design that aren’t based on making all areas maximally convenient for large trucks.
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In my experience waiting for a 14x bus at Jarvis/Adelaide in PM rush is that the spacing and schedule adherence even there is dreadful. If anything the travel time from there to the first suburban stop was more predictable than when the bus would actually pick you up downtown!
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I think Toronto has the idea that all problems it has are unique to Toronto. In reality all large cities have the same problems, and perhaps the TTC chief simply needs to ask some of his co-conspirators in other cities how they deal with issues.
There are two types of routes, routes where headways are greater then 10 minutes, and routes where headways are less then 10 minutes. Routes where headways are greater then 10 minutes, should be allow to be up to x minutes late, but NEVER early. Routes that are less then 10 minutes should be that if you arrive at the stop, a bus will come by within 10 minutes.
Part of the problem is that if a problem occurs at 6am, nothing gets done about it, until it sorts itself out during a slow passenger traffic period later in the day. Big brother should be reporting that a vehicle is behind schedule to control, so that a supervisor can get out there and fix it. For routes with headways longer then 10 minutes, 3 minutes late is acceptable, I’ve seen a route where there was a 20 minute headway and waited 20 minutes for a bus, took 20 minutes to walk home, and still had not seen a bus.
For routes with headways less then 10 minutes, the tolerance should be 3 minutes or one headway period, whichever is less. A bus on a 2¾ minute headway should not exceed 2¾ minutes late. It’s simple a supervisor should find out from the driver what the problem is, so that it can be fixed. Sometimes it’s changing a route and making it more difficult to stay on time. Like forcing a bus into a left turn lane that takes 10 minutes to get around a corner.
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The answer is probably is something like grasscrete … there is an approximate 30% price premium but there is the added benefit of reducing rain/storm water runoff and reduced need to invest in storm water collection.
How that works in winter on a structure that sees lots of vibrations … would probably need to be tested.
Cheers, Moaz
Steve: The idea of grassed right-of-way on Eglinton is still alive. See my Council motion extracts in a reply to a following comment.
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As well as all the other benefits, I believe there is a minor safety advantage with grass. I would probably not have thought of this now except that I was on the 510 westbound tonight and we encountered a car heading eastbound on the other track. This is something I have seen several times on St Clair. It is not that hard for someone unfamiliar with the street to miss the ‘keep right of divider’ sign and mistake the streetcar RoW for another lane. This would be much less likely to happen if the tracks were imbedded in grass rather than what looks like a road surface.
I have never seen this mentioned, and it might work as a (minor) lever with the city.
P.S. The last meeting I was at for the Crosstown, Metrolinx was definitely planning a green median on Eglinton East, and it was, as I recall, enthusiastically supported by the attendees, with strong pleas to maintain this plan. Since the city is not paying for any of this line, Metrolinx may be able to keep the plan in spite of the usual objections.
Steve: Council has approved the “green trackway” on Eglinton at its May 5, 2014 meeting (item EX41.2):
An attempt was made to undo this by Councillors Thompson and Berardinetti at the June 10, 2014, meeting (Item MM52.21), but this failed on the vote to reopen the previous motion.
I am quite sure that another attempt will be made by the new Council, possibly with the support of the new Mayor Tory who is not generally supportive of Eglinton Connects.
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Another problem is the large vehicles that are used by the fire department, garbage, works, and others. Bigger is better for them. Yet in Europe and Asia, they use smaller or narrower emergency vehicles. No problem with their narrow streets. Yet here in Toronto, having a green right-of-way is frowned upon.
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Steve, the premium express buses are supposed to be premium. I don’t know where on their routing they are failing so badly on their headway adherence. Wherever it is, riders who have paid extra to ride these routes are going to be unhappy — except in the small-probability case that they are well ahead of schedule on the limited-stop runs.
Mark Grimes, Ward 6 Councillor, has argued that there are no problems with transit in south Etobicoke, because the Humber Bay express bus isn’t packed with riders. The logic, best as I can figure it, is everything is fine everwhere in South Etobicoke because otherwise people would be selecting the premium route. This is the route that managed 31% headway adherence in Q2 and 29% in Q3. Apparently he is advised on transit by Dr. Pangloss, or possibly Pollyanna; the possibility that people don’t care to pay extra to be stuck in traffic on Lake Shore has not occurred to his office.
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I would put to you that, unless another bus happens along far enough ahead of its schedule, that it appears to only be a couple of minutes behind the one I just missed, I would be at least equally upset. Early would make for as bad a condition in an infrequent service, as I am now waiting for the next bus, or having to show up even earlier to ensure I do not miss the bus. Or if I have the choice drive … If a service is every 25-30 minutes, and it could be 10 minutes early, or 15 minutes late, when do I reasonably appear at the stop? Am I supposed to show up 12 minutes early to make sure I make it? To me put a bus at the stop when it is supposed to be there, or perhaps a up to 5 minutes after, and allow people to plan around it, otherwise the people who have an option are much more likely to exercise it (which is bad for all).
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“express routes=poor” is news to all us in the Beaches? For at least the last year all 143’s are pretty much on the money in the AM peak, both departure from Neville and downtown arrival times so if there is a problem I would assume it is downtown.
Steve: I’m just reporting the numbers straight from the TTC’s website.
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Malcolm N, these are express buses that load at one end, run non-stop, and then unload at the other end. I agree, if they are early at the loading end, that’s very not good. Once they’ve loaded up, no one would be upset if they took off like rockets and ran ten minutes fast at the unloading end.
William Paul, the Beaches express has one of the better express route reliability numbers. I would also guess it’s well-used. Neither is the case for the Humber Bay express. I have yet to see one in the express portion of its route with standees, or even all the seats full.
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It’s too bad that Toronto may not even look at Zurich to see how they control traffic entering the city.
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The pick up point time, to me is more controlled by the TTC. I would agree if you can shorten my ride by 10% I will be a happy camper. However, I think they have less control over the run time. If they have under-scheduled it (or selected a poor route) so they are consistently longer than time table, well that is their issue, and it should be corrected, so that I can at least attempt to board the right bus. They should have a reserve and flex (and a budget to cover it) to allow covering buses on the dispatch end when they do not have a bus to run the route as or at least close to the scheduled time, there is little they can do about accidents etc.
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As has often been noted here, the question of ‘reliability’ is actually composed of several parts and to provide a reliable service all need to be in place – at least on most days. Vehicles need to depart on time; be scheduled to depart at spaced intervals and to have a scheduled run-time that allows them to arrive ‘on time’ at the destination. The TTC clearly has problems with vehicles departing in convoys (so, on the assumption that the TTC tries to space departures, some are departing early, some late). From many of Steve’s detailed route analyses there is often an unrealistic expectation of normal running times which results in vehicles arriving late or, more commonly, being short-turned. I suspect that most customers do not care if vehicles come a bit less often as long as they come when they are supposed to and not as part of a convoy – part of which may then be short-turned. Route management is crucial and clearly needs MUCH attention and if route supervisors see persistent problems then run times probably need adjustment. (An interesting experiment would be to tightly manage one route (504?) 24/7 for a couple of weeks – even if this took route supervisors off other routes – and see how running a properly managed route with realistic run-times would look. I suspect customers would be happier.)
Steve: You assume that the TTC knows how to “tightly manage” a route, that is to say, what exactly the goals might be of such an exercise.
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Steve, I would suggest that this start with a review of what comprises good service and the metrics required to deliver it. Start with dispatching the service on time/headway, with a down and dirty measure of success, every dispatch that is more than 1 minute off headway adds 1 to a count (1 to the count for each additional minute – either way, so early also counts as +). Make a short turn with passengers aboard count as a 5.
At the end of the day if you had 200 scheduled runs and your count is less than 20-30 well I think that would likely count as a home run right now. (Remember minute early or minute late each adds 1).
This target is likely tighter than what the TTC could make on any route right now, but a medium term goal should be to dispatch something above 90% of service within 1 minute of time (note not arrive, just depart) without using short turns. I think trying to focus on just such a goal would make it very clear where they did not have the correct run times and recovery times to make service work.
They could then work on the metrics for their operations across the rest of their route. Start looking at what is required to hold that headway/schedule along the route.
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