Of the TTC’s many routes, 501 Queen is the longest and the subject of ongoing complaints about service quality and reliability. Two standard explanations are offered to the long-suffering riders: we cannot operate a reliable service thanks to traffic congestion, and we have no equipment with which to operate more service.
I have published detailed reviews of individual months of operation in past articles, but an accumulation of data for various periods and conditions now makes a retrospective look at the route’s behaviour possible.
The data used in this analysis come from the TTC’s vehicle monitoring system which collects GPS information on the fleet every 20 seconds. The raw data are transformed by several programs I have developed over the years so that they can be presented in a consolidated format. Interested readers should see Methodology For Analysis of TTC’s Vehicle Tracking Data for details of this process. The data were provided by the TTC, but the analysis and interpretation are entirely my own.
Service History
The last significant change to 501 Queen schedules occurred in Spring 2013 when weekday services were adjusted to address overcrowding. Since then, there have been only two basic schedules used on the route:
- The standard schedule provides service between Neville Loop in the east and Long Branch Loop at the city’s western edge. Half of the cars are scheduled to short-turn at Humber Loop, and except for overnight service, from that point westward the scheduled service is half the level of that east of Humber.
- On some occasions, construction has required that the line operate in two segments. One is from Neville to Humber, and the other (using buses) is from Humber to Long Branch. Service east of Humber is similar to that on the standard schedule. To the west, scheduled bus service is more frequent to allow for the capacity of low floor buses versus the two-section streetcars (ALRVs) used on 501 Queen. (A variation on this includes a shuttle service from Humber Loop to the condos east of Park Lawn, but it does not alter the service provided on the main part of the route east or west of Humber. This shuttle is not part of the service analysis.)
This table shows the two service designs for 501 Queen including the headways (scheduled time between vehicles), numbers of vehicles, end-to-end trip times and “recovery” time.
This last item deserves comment because it is not, as the name implies, intended to give operators on this extremely long route a break after their journeys. Instead, its primary function is to make the schedule work out so that the round trip time is a multiple of the headway. Because of the difference in trip times on the two branches of the route, this can produce long recovery times at periods in the day when they are not badly needed simply to make the schedule work out properly. I will turn to trip times and reliability in the second part of this series.
This article covers the following periods of operation on 501 Queen:
- August-October 2013 (service split at Humber Loop after Thanksgiving weekend)
- January-April 2014 (service split at Humber Loop for April)
- September-October 2014 (service split at Humber Loop)
- March-May 2015
As a general observation, service on much of the Queen route is very unreliable and, in some cases, to the point where it exists more in theory than in practice. Bunching is commonplace, and there is no evidence of any attempt to keep cars spaced apart from each other even long before they enter the most congested section of the route. If there is an operating discipline, its aim is to keep operators on time, with service to riders coming as an afterthought. In principle, if all of the service is on time, then reliability will take care of itself. However, in practice, the service routinely operates well off of its scheduled headways. This cannot be put down entirely to “traffic congestion” given how pervasive a problem this is and has been on 501 Queen for years.
Service on this route, particularly on its outer portions, has been an issue for as long as I can remember, and the TTC always has an excuse. If only they would expend one tenth of the effort to manage headways on this major route as they do to tell us about their latest of clean subway stations and other “customer service initiatives”, there would be many happy riders, and an incentive to bring even more. The route is developing medium and high intensity buildings along its length, but the service levels are unchanged since 2013 (and with only minor changes before that).
The TTC plans to introduce new schedules on Queen later in 2015 (or possibly early 2016) to address some of the reliability problems. However, without the will to ensure that vehicles on this very long route maintain proper spacing, the concept of reliability, let alone the “ten minute service” network of which Queen will be a part, will be meaningless.
Reading the Charts
The charts linked below show the average headways in hourly increments throughout weekdays with each week having its own data point (column) and each hour having its own plot (coloured horizontal lines). The solid lines show the averages, and the dotted lines show the standard deviations (SD) in the average values. Typically, about 2/3 of the actual values will lie within one SD of the average.
Where the time is given as “6:00 am”, this means that the values are for cars that crossed the measurement point within the hour starting at that time.
The TTC’s own performance target is to be ±3 minutes of the scheduled headway 70% of the time on streetcar routes. This equates roughly to an SD value of 3 minutes provided that the average value actually is the scheduled headway. However, when the average rises because of short turns, even if the SD value stays small, many individual data points will lie outside of the target band. The further the gap between scheduled and average headway, and the wider the SD value, the less the service is operating as advertised.
When the SD value and the headway are close to each other, a large proportion of the service is actually operating as pairs of cars. This is an important issue at the terminus where service originates and should be expected to be well-spaced, at intermediate points where one might expect supervision to intervene and hold cars as needed for spading, and at points where branches or common short-turns merge and, in theory, should produce a properly blended service.
Weekday Service
Service at Neville Loop
For the purpose of this analysis, headways are measured a few blocks west of Neville Loop at Silver Birch Avenue. This corrects for a problem where multiple Queen cars arrive at Neville, but won’t all fit in the loop and to take layovers on street. The “arrival” time at Neville eastbound is therefore not indicative of the service experienced further west.
501_101_SilverBirchAve_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_201_SilverBirchAve_HeadwayHistory_EB
[A note about file naming: The prefixes “1xx” and “2xx” refer to westbound (100s) and eastbound (200s) respectively. This eliminates problems on routes which do not head in the same “direction” over their entire journey such as 504 King. The number “xx” signifies that position of each point on the line where I have measured headways. As we move across the route, this number rises. The purpose of this convention is to allow filenames to sort automatically by direction and location independently of the street names.]
Service on 501 Queen is supposed to operate roughly every 5 minutes during peak periods, and every 6 minutes at midday. However, the behaviour of service at the east end of the route is substantially different from the schedule.
The first page of charts shows the period from 6:00 to 9:59 am. What is particularly striking here is that the averages for 8:00 and especially for 9:00 are considerably higher than the scheduled value. Moreover, the SD values rarely dip as low as 3 minutes and are much higher than the scheduled headway at times. This shows an extremely irregular service from 8:00 to 10:00 am. There is little difference in the eastbound data (arrivals) and westbound (departures) indicating that little or no effort is made to even out service leaving from the terminal.
Through midday, the average values show less variation hour-by-hour, but they remain above the scheduled levels, and the SD values lie mainly in the 5-6 minute range well above the TTC’s target. Put another way, with the average running at 8-9 minutes, and the SD running at 5-6, much of the service is operating within a band of 3-15 minutes. Midday service was noticeably worse during fall 2014 when the streetcar service all terminated at Humber.
Through the PM peak from 15:00 to 18:59, the situation continues with average headways well above scheduled, and SD values generally above 4 minutes.
The evening period is only marginally better, and of particular note is the higher average headways late in the evening during the months when streetcars were all turning at Humber.
Throughout the day, the averages and SD values bounce around a lot from week to week showing that service to Neville is hard to predict. Note that if the data are examined at a more finely-grained level, this behaviour is even more marked (for example by half-hour subdivisions or by individual days), and the hourly/weekly averaging masks the worst of the situation.
The averages show a common problem for this and other routes. The AM peak starts off well enough, but in the later peak, and certainly in the transition to midday service, the headways at the outer end of the line are much worse than advertised. This occurs because of the amount of short-turning used to recover from peak period conditions. A similar situation occurs after the PM peak.
Service at Greenwood Avenue
By the time service reaches Greenwood westbound, additional cars have joined in from short turns at Woodbine Loop and from vehicles entering service at Russell Carhouse. If any attempt is made to regulate headways passing the carhouse with onstreet supervision, this should show up with good headway reliability a few blocks away at Greenwood.
501_104_GreenwoodAve_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_204_GreenwoodAve_HeadwayHistory_EB
Throughout the day, the average values at Greenwood are noticeably closer to scheduled headways, and the week-by-week numbers do not bounce around as much.
For the morning period, the SD values stay around 3 minutes except for the 9:00 data. Even though the average headway stays roughly where it should be (unlike the situation at Neville), the SD values are higher indicating a less regular service.
Moving on to midday, the averages stay roughly at scheduled levels, but the SD values do not settle down until after 13:00. During the PM peak, headways and SDs are better behaved. Later in the evening, the service is a bit less reliable and the SD values have risen again into the 4 minute range or beyond.
Eastbound service is quite another matter. SD values throughout the day remain well above 3 minutes showing the cumulative effect of the route’s operation across the city. This contrasts with the westbound service, at least for part of the day, showing that by the time cars reach Greenwood westbound, the service is in better shape than it was eastbound. [Note that eastbound averages in the 6:00 period are higher than westbound because the service builds up eastbound from Russell carhouse to Neville and the cars crossing Greenwood left the west end of the line almost an hour earlier on a wider early morning headway.]
Service at Yonge Street
Average headways both ways at Yonge stay mainly at the scheduled level, but the SD values are generally above 3 minutes and often overlap with the averages showing a good deal of bunching. With scheduled service running at 5 minutes during the peak period, bunching of cars can lead to gaps of 10 minutes or more rendering the “10 minute service” level that will be advertised on this route later in 2015 an empty promise.
501_108_YongeSt_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_208_YongeSt_HeadwayHistory_EB
Service at Lansdowne Avenue
Service eastbound at Lansdowne lies roughly at the level of scheduled headways but with higher SD values than should be seen particularly fairly close to a point, Roncesvalles, where headway management would be easy to implement. Westbound service is also more or less at scheduled levels, but with a higher SD value showing the effect of the trip from the east end through the city (compare to the chart eastbound at Greenwood) and the resulting bunching.
501_115_LansdowneAve_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_215_LansdowneAve_HeadwayHistory_EB
Service East of Humber Loop
Inbound service from Humber Loop shows a similar pattern at the end of the AM peak to the one we saw in the east end at Neville with headways after 9:00 being well above scheduled values thanks to westbound short turns. This is particularly bad during the Fall of 2014 when there is no Long Branch service to fill in gaps at Humber, and the short turns affect a higher proportion of the service.
Unlike the east end, the service really does come unglued by midday with average headways well above the scheduled values, and SD values at 5 minutes or higher. This shows that even inbound from a point where the through Long Branch service should mesh with the Humber trips, headways are not managed to produce a smooth interval between eastbound cars. The situation is somewhat better in the PM peak, with average headways closer to schedule, but still with a high SD value. This is particularly troublesome for periods when all streetcars turned back from Humber because it implies that they were tending to leave, if not in pairs, then with a long gap followed by two closely-spaced vehicles.
Evening service did not improve until 2015, and even then, the SD values are well above the level one would expect from a location where properly-spaced service could easily be dispatched.
Westbound service data generally mirror the eastbound values although the SD values are higher reflecting increased bunching outbound. For much of the evening, cars are routinely arriving in pairs as seen by the overlapping average and SD values. This is a condition that existed from the downtown part of the route, not one that developed as cars fought their way from Yonge to Roncesvalles (although that could add to the problem on busy nights). The fundamental issue here is that service is irregular coming into downtown from the comparatively uncongested east end, and there appears to be no attempt to smooth things out. Headways are much wider than advertised, and the Long Branch and Humber services tend to operate close to each other.
501_117_QueenswayHumber_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_217_QueenswayHumber_HeadwayHistory_EB
Service at Royal York and Lake Shore
Service eastbound at Royal York should be roughly every 10 minutes in the AM peak dropping to 12 for the midday. The averages lie mainly in this range, but the SD values are also high, especially after 9:00 when the combined effect of daytime headways and variability could routinely produce gaps close to 20 minutes.
The periods of bus operation are quite clear from the lower, and better behaved headways when the line operated as a Long Branch to Humber shuttle. However, even with this simplified arrangement, the SD values lie above 4 minutes almost all day suggesting that close attention to headways was not much of a priority.
The westbound data are noteworthy because the SD values are higher than their eastbound counterparts for period of streetcar operation showing the cumulative effect of the long trip from Neville. However, the eastbound values are good only by comparison, and SD values above 6 minutes are quite common.
501_119_RoyalYork_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_219_RoyalYork_HeadwayHistory_EB
Service at Long Branch Loop
Service at Long Branch runs less frequently than at Royal York thanks to short turns at Kipling. This is easily seen by comparing eastbound headways from the terminus to those at Royal York (east of the short turn point). The late AM peak behaviour of wider headways due to short turns that are “fixing” the service further east also shows up as it did for westbound service at Neville. A comparable PM peak behaviour shows up at Long Branch as well with wider than scheduled average headways inbound.
As at Royal York, the SD values inbound are lower than they were for outbound service arriving at the loop showing some leavening effect of the recovery time, but the values are still well above the target range of 3 leading to wide gaps in service.
501_121_LongBranchLoop_HeadwayHistory_WB
501_221_LongBranchLoop_HeadwayHistory_EB
Weekend Service
For weekend service, the values are consolidated by month rather than by week because there are many fewer data points, but the chart layouts are otherwise the same. Saturday and Sunday data are shown on separate charts broken into the same four hourly segments as on the weekday charts.
Service at Neville Loop
At Neville Loop, the average headways are well behaved early in the day for both Saturdays and Sundays, although even then, some SD values do not stay below the 3 minute line. As the days progress, the averages and the SD values both rise showing the degree to which short turns affect actual headways operated to Neville, and the unreliability of the service. On Sunday evenings, SD values of 6-8 minutes are common on a 9 minute scheduled headway with averages routinely above this value.
501_101_SilverBirchAve_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
Service at Greenwood
The situation at Greenwood westbound is somewhat better with average headways similar to the scheduled service. However, the SD values are routinely above 4 minutes except for early morning service showing that headway reliability does not meet the TTC’s target.
Eastbound at Greenwood, the averages and SD values are indistinguishable except for early morning service. This shows that much of the service is running in pairs eastbound, and the effective headway experienced by riders is double the advertised value.
501_104_GreenwoodAve_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
501_204_GreenwoodAve_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_EB
Service at Yonge
The situation at Yonge Street shows bunched service with SD values close to or equal to averages during most periods all weekend. In other words, a common situation will be for a Humber and Long Branch car to cross the city close together giving much worse actual service (most riders will see the gap, not the considerably better “average” headway) than is advertised on the schedule.
501_108_YongeSt_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
501_208_YongeSt_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_EB
Service at Lansdowne Westbound
With the service already bunched at Yonge, it is no surprise that the same situation exists westbound at Lansdowne. This situation continues further west.
501_115_LansdowneAve_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
Service East of Humber Loop Eastbound
In theory, the service from Humber Loop should consist of regularly spaced cars from Humber and from Long Branch (during periods when the entire line operates with streetcars). In practice, except for morning periods, SD values creep up into the range of headways, and service east from Humber is not well spaced despite this being an ideal location to regulate headways.
During Fall 2014, when all streetcar trips terminated at Humber, there is little difference in headway reliability compared with other periods. Erratic headways came east from Humber even without the need to mesh two services.
501_217_QueenswayHumber_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_EB
Service at Royal York
Weekend service outbound at Royal York is very unreliable. Not only are average headways at times above the scheduled values, the SD values can be 10 minutes or worse. Eastbound service is somewhat better with SD values that stay below the average values, but are still well above 3 minutes.
In this context, a “target” of ±3 minutes is laughable and from a rider’s point of view, there is no sense of when a car might show up. This is particularly bad when headways are already wide on the schedule, let alone the service as experienced on the street.
501_119_RoyalYork_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
501_219_RoyalYork_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_EB
Service Arriving at Long Branch Loop
Service arriving at Long Branch is even worse than service westbound at Royal York, notably in early 2014 when Toronto was in the grip of a bitter winter (for example, compare Saturday afternoons). This shows the effect of short turns at Kipling.
501_121_LongBranchLoop_HeadwayHistory_Wknd_WB
Detailed Data for May 2015
Of the data for the 2013-15 period, the “best behaved” is from Spring 2015. However, “best” is a relative term, and severe problems with wide variations in headways remain. The charts below show the scatter of headway values for the month of May 2015 to give a visual sense of what is happening at various points on the route.
Each set of charts has 10 pages with the data subdivided into four sections:
- Four pages show the headway data for weekdays, one page per week. Each day has its own colour, and a trend line is interpolated between each day’s data points.
- One page shows all of the headway data for weekdays on a single page to give a sense of the dispersal of values overall. To meet the TTC’s ±3 minute target, the values should lie mainly within a band 6 minutes wide.
- Two pages show the Saturday and Sunday data in the same format as the weekdays. Victoria Day is included with the Sunday data.
- Three pages show the averages and standard deviations by hour for the data. Note that the weekday values are for the entire month, while on the Headway Histories earlier in this article, they are calculated for each week separately.
Service at Neville Loop
For westbound service at Silver Birch, just west of Neville, note how consistently the weekday trend lines lie at values of 9-10 minutes even though the scheduled headway is 5-6 for much of the day. This is an indication of how pervasive short turning at Woodbine Loop (and further west) is on this route. One might argue that all of the service is not required so far east, but this is a chicken and egg situation. Service is so unreliable at times that only die-hards (or those who luck onto a passing streetcar) will use it. Poor reliability drives away demand and, perversely, creates political support for parallel, if infrequent, premium express bus service.
The “cloud” of weekday headways (page 5) shows many values well over 10 minutes and several over 20, not to mention many that are well below 5. This is service just as it has left the terminal, and it is irregular from the outset.
Weekend service is even worse with headways in the 20-40 minute range not uncommon.
Eastbound values are more spread out with many, many cars arriving on headways of under 5 minutes (effectively right behind the car ahead). Weekend headways are also spread over a wide range.
Quite clearly, there is no attempt to provide reliable service on the east end of 501 Queen during the weekends.
501_201505_101_SilverBirchAve_MonthHeadways_WB
501_201505_201_SilverBirchAve_MonthHeadways_EB
Service at Yonge Street
At Yonge street in both directions on weekdays, headway values are smeared out over a range from 0-10 minutes, and with several above that range. This is reflected by an “average” that matches the scheduled service, but an SD value almost as high because of the range of values. On weekends, many cars arrive on very short headways, and gaps of 20-30 minutes or more are common. Even here, in the middle of the route, the TTC provides very unreliable service.
501_201505_108_YongeSt_MonthHeadways_WB
501_201505_208_YongeSt_MonthHeadways_EB
Service East of Humber Loop
At Humber Loop, the effects of short turns further east start to appear because the trend line values are above the scheduled headways. Individual values continue to lie over a considerable range, and very short headways inbound again show the complete lack of management of the through Long Branch and turning Humber cars.
501_201505_117_QueenswayHumber_MonthHeadways_WB
501_201505_217_QueenswayHumber_MonthHeadways_EB
Service at Long Branch Loop
At Long Branch, the service is truly appalling. The weekday headways are spread over a range of 0-30 minutes with some values beyond even the 40 minute line. By the weekends, headways are even more dispersed. Inbound values are somewhat more compact than outbound, but the SD values are still very high with Sunday values of 10 minutes routine through the day. As with the service at Neville, but on an even wider scheduled base, it is quite clear that no attempt is made to provide a reliable service on this part of 501 Queen.
501_201505_121_LongBranchLoop_MonthHeadways_WB
501_201505_221_LongBranchLoop_MonthHeadways_EB
Steve Munro 
Clearly still having problems with gating vehicles at terminals … this should be so basic … and since nobody is doing it.
The Commission should put together a request on the funding required to do the following – call it the Streetcar Reliable Service Project.
1. Run enough vehicles so that:
– There are enough spares stationed at end-points to provide the advertised headway 75% of the time (this would likely require an extra vehicle at each end of the line + a staff member, and for the longer lines likely two) … specifically they would be used when large gaps appeared in service, they would also likely be used to extend break times to reasonable lengths.
– In the case that extra streetcars can’t be found, that extra busses be used to run this service (filling in gaps).
– On longer lines that other locations to for spares to fill in gaps be found along the route.
2. End-point modifications to store the extra vehicles, and provide somewhere for the staff.
3. End-point modifications to ensure staff know when they need to leave (a count-down timer, or stoplight etc. both in the loop and in the break room).
I’d be interested to compare the number of extra/gap trains that are used on the subway’s longer lines (I seem to remember there are 4 specifically from Davisville for the Yonge line).
Steve: Actually it would be quite difficult to find a location at Neville to store cars (or buses) to fill gaps, and that’s not the best use of equipment considered on a system-wide basis. As for the gap trains at Davisville, they were merged into the regular service and the running time was extended.
One big problem that the TTC has always had is in recognizing that running times are not consistent, and they wind up giving too much time after the peaks are finished leading to terminal queues unless trains run out of service in the middle of the line (e.g. eastbound into Greenwood). This will only get worse with ATC and much shorter headways where there is less elbow room for trains to scrunch together.
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The TTC should reroute 508 Lake Shore to operate from Long Branch to Dundas West station and operate 10 minutes all day, every day and cut back 501 Queen to Humber Loop.
Steve: I proposed a variation on this at least a decade ago, and the TTC has consistently claimed that it’s not a workable scheme. They objected to the “duplication of service” between Ronces and Humber, and yet that’s an essential part so that even short-turning Queen cars will connect with a through service to Long Branch rather than leaving the gap from Sunnyside to Humber.
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I can remember entering the stop number for the stop at Kipling and the Lake Shore one day back in May. The next streetcar was in 27 minutes – more than twice as long as what the service level was. I had time to go to the Tim’s there, use the facilities, grab a coffee, and finish the coffee before the streetcar came.
Steve, I know you, and others, have supported the restoration of the 507 Long Branch to Dundas West – something that needs to be done. It would also provide assistance for the 504 King. Perhaps every second King car could be short turned at Sunnyside.
The “duplication of service” excuse is just an excuse — there’s duplicated service along Queen St. between McCaul St. and Kingston Road (501 and 502), between Long Branch Loop and Roncesvalles (501 and 508, when the 508 is restored), on Broadview north of Dundas (504 and 505). Any excuse not to try something new.
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Why couldn’t Westbound Queen cars turn either through Roncesvalles or using the loop that if I recall correctly is immediately West of the intersection? I have long thought that Humber is not a very useful location for a loop (although I assume there are good historical reasons why it is where it is).
Steve: Loops between Roncesvalles and the Humber have been at various locations, but the Humber we know was created as part of the whole Sunnyside/Gardiner/Queensway reconfiguration in the 1950s. Remember that service into what we now call southern Etobicoke was originally provided by a separate “radial” line to Port Credit, and Humber Loop used to be east of the river on Lake Shore. There was an earlier loop at Parkside.
If Queen cars were scheduled to end at Roncesvalles carhouse or Sunnyside Loop, many of them would not actually reach this destination thanks to short turns, and riders looking to transfer to service to Long Branch would have an extra, unpredictable transfer in their trips.
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It seems to me there doesn’t need to be a separate storage area. Instead just have normal operation involve a car or two bunched right at the terminal (which is frequently seen anyhow) but require them to leave on headway. So there wouldn’t be a distinction between a normal car and an extra car, but if service were running slowly the extra cars would disappear from the terminus and if it sped up again they would re-appear.
This also suggests to me an alternate way of operating the 501: operate it as two routes, dividing at Roncesvalles. However, if a car arrives on schedule/headway and the other route is due to depart, it would just continue on. Essentially, we can observe that when things are operating normally, it will be roughly the case that a car from each half of the route arrives at about the same time. These then exchange through passengers and both turn around. But obviously it makes much more sense for both vehicles to just continue on and save the passengers the trouble.
If, however, one of the routes gets delayed or even blocked entirely, cars for the other route can start turning instead of running through. In principle this is not really that different from short-turning, but with a different attitude: instead of saying the route goes through except when it doesn’t, we say there are two routes, but when things are running smoothly they interline for the convenience of the passengers.
Steve: There is already a severe problem with “on street storage” at some locations around the city thanks to long terminal layovers. It is quite common at Broadview Station for one or more cars to be unable to enter the station and sit on the street blocking northbound traffic. What might be tolerable out in the sleepy Beaches end of the Queen car does not work on the system as a whole.
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Obviously this is just looking at Google maps (full technical analysis to be done by the TTC at a later date 😉 ) – but there is a parking lot at Silver Birch that is about the size of the loop – and could easily store busses, or even have a separate loop to store an extra streetcar…as well as the entire front lawn of the RC Harris water treatment plant (obviously maybe they have water under that lawn – and there would be some structural as well as historical issues) – but some sort of work could be done to extend the loop to that side of the street if it would improve service…
Likewise there could be some sort of siding at june callwood way or some other site closer in to the city to send vehicles east or west if things get busy in the core…
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Long-time follower. Not an expert, but there’s something I don’t understand. Based on your analysis above, the answer seems to be (1) release service from the ends of the line at regular intervals and (2) increase service. The latter will take time, money, and political will, which, fine, I understand. But, if I understand things correctly, the former is something you’ve advocated, Steve, for awhile. Why doesn’t the TTC adopt it?
This concerns me because it is exactly the unreliability of streetcar line management which makes subways seem so much more attractive by comparison. I think people wouldn’t scream (as loudly) for a subway on every street if the streetcar actually arrived every 5 minutes.
Also, would more buses make the line easier to manage in any way?
Steve: Yes, I have advocated dispatching service on a regular headway for some time, and the TTC did actually try this to a limited extent on St. Clair with supervisors at each end of the route. The headways were quite regular, although things got a bit screwed up westbound from Bathurst because of variations in layover times in St. Clair Station. This sort of dispatching should not require someone standing on a street corner, and indeed someone central could see where the gaps were and adjust things accordingly. The subway runs regularly (a) because it is dispatched automatically and (b) because it has frequent service all day even when the loads would not, as a surface route, justify so many trains.
Bus routes can be a mess too as 29 Dufferin shows all too well. It’s less the vehicle than how the service is managed. Buses run more often relative to demand because they are smaller (that’s why people love buses replacing streetcars for construction projects), but headways can still be a mess.
A combination of more service and better management brings the best of both worlds as there are routes and periods where even if everything ran like a clock, there would still not be enough capacity. However, ragged service wastes capacity with full cars followed closely by empty ones. The typical rider sees only the long waits and the full cars even though, on average, service is running as scheduled. This is called “customer service”.
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The Broadview situation is ridiculous at times especially when ALRVs show up on the 504 run. It is not uncommon to see 1 car north of Danforth and 2 south of Danforth. All waiting their turn in the station. Don’t know how they will ever manage the Flexitys.
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The parking lot (Silver Birch) BELONGS to the supermarket, Valumart and I doubt they would sell it to the City. It is their only parking lot (full when the store is open) and doubles as garden centre and food truck deliveries.
Major water tanks are immediately beneath all the lawns of RC Harris and as a matter of fact, the reason TTC did not expand Neville Loop east a bit some years ago when all of east Queen was re-tracked was that Nursewood had, to quote TTC man, a million utilities underneath it right by Queen, so it was deemed too expensive at the time to move them out of the way.
Silly neighborhood complaints will not even allow the last EB streetcar stop to be moved east close to the loop (like it always had been) so the last EB stop is way back by Neville South.
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There is a simple solution to this: Stop assigning operators/drivers to a specific streetcar and use a drop back process. That way when a streetcar arrives at a terminus, the operator/driver gets off the streetcar and another operator/driver takes over. That way the operator/driver gets a break but the streetcar keeps moving.
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I see three options for cutting the west end of the 501 Queen run off from the rest of the route:
1) Restore the 507 Long Branch, preferably to Dundas West station.
2) Run the 507 Long Branch to McCaul Loop, while continuing to run the 501 to Humber.
3) With a short addition of tracks from York St. west along Richmond, and then north to Queen, the 507 could run to University Ave. This addition of tracks would also allow for westbound 502 and 501 cars to short turn and head east again.
#1 and #2 are the cheapest options for the TTC as no new tracks are required. #3 would allow for the most options for the TTC and allows streetcars from the west end to connect more ‘directly’ with a subway line than option #2. I would prefer option #1, although I would support operating the 508 running off peak as well so that there is still a ‘direct downtown’ option.
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Yes, there is a parking lot there, but it appears (looking at it via Google) that it is a private parking lot for the Valumart, not a municipal lot, and I don’t think Loblaw’s would want to lose it.
As for RC Harris, even if there is no reservoir under the lawn, that lawn is significantly higher than the current loop – you can see a staircase with 15 steps at its northwest corner; Queen slopes up just after Nursewood. Even if RC Harris was willing to allow the streetcars there, adding a loop would be an extremely expensive undertaking for the rather small benefit.
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The solution is very simple
Get rid of the on-street parking and give streetcars their own lane with no other traffic permitted on it.
Steve: Easier said than done in many locations/times, and unnecessary in others. Definitely should be done more than it is now (with even wider “peak” periods), but enforcement of what’s now posted is the huge, gaping hole.
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Since we seem to be celebrating National Stupid Idea Week, restore the east end routes to the pre-1937 configuration. The bus drive at Bingham is no longer used, dump it, restore the original second track removed in 1954 and you could lay over 4 Flexity’s in there. That suggests flip-flopping the 501 and 502 terminals (which could, FINALLY, rid us of the 502’s silly and no longer relevant DOWNTOWNER name and be called BEACH, as the McCaul-Neville base service was known before mid-1937). The 502 10-minute service should satisfy eastern Queen customers (two cars can sit in the loop at once, if needed, at least until Flexity’s are assigned), especially with the express bus service in peaks.
Likely to happen? Nah, same chance as all the other dumb ideas. End of rant.
Steve: The only problem with the 502 is that the service is quite irregular, and some of it doesn’t get west of Church or east of Woodbine Loop. Another great example of a route organized around keeping ops on time while avoiding actually carrying passengers. When I get through with the 501, I will turn to the 502/503 services.
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Quick note to John Bromley: The bus drive at Bingham is in heavy use always for NB 12 Kingston Rd buses. SB 12’s avoid the loop, but NB buses still go north on Bingham, layover in the loop and then NB on VP to the subway.
Steve: Thanks for clarifying that. I thought that’s how the loop worked, but didn’t have a chance to verify this.
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Long ago I commented on this site that these extremely long new streetcars will be a nightmare in mixed traffic (I always knew that these could be successful in their own lanes like on Spadina and St Clair West and so I NEVER opposed these as long as they had their own right of way) but as we see now on Bathurst, my fears have proved unfounded and these extremely long new streetcars can be successful in mixed traffic.
You see that’s the difference between people from Scarborough like me and people from Downtown like Steve as us Scarborrowers are willing to admit that we were wrong when we realise that we were wrong but Downtowners like Steve will NEVER admit that they are wrong. The new streetcars have proven to be successful and I no longer oppose them but I am still upset about the many years late delivery even though we paid our taxes on time and also upset about relentless streetcar track construction and reconstruction and re-reconstruction and so on and on and on.
Steve: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. If this keeps up you will be demanding an LRT network for Scarborough!
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A lot of the headway problems come from drivers running on their own schedules. Every night even though traffic is minimal, so many streetcars are running right behind each other and that is due to lack of supervision late at night (this happens far less frequently during day time when there is supervision). I know that YRT fines drivers for being unreasonably late and zero tolerance for leaving early. Is TTC heading in the same direction? Does TTC have sufficient tracking technology?
Steve: TTC could track, but with current technology it is a challenge. They are in the process of specifying and procuring a new vehicle monitoring system, and it will be intriguing to see if they include this capability. At the very least, there should be an automated alert for Transit Control to flag bunching if only for the purpose of managing it better.
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Some operators will open all doors at most stops while others force everyone to board through the front door at most stops except for the subway interchanges. I’m curious as to what kind of effect this has on service.
Steve: I’m sure it has some effect, but this is impossible to measure with available data as info on boarding patterns and times is not included. Also, all door loading has less of an effect at comparatively minor stops provided that the car is not packed and adding those “last few riders” doesn’t cause delays.
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It would be great if they would actually start to use it as a baseline for dispatch, and actually make sure that vehicles do not leave the dispatch point ahead of headway, or too far behind.
Steve: Yes, although first they have to settle the internal debate about whether dispatching by schedule or by headway is preferable. To me, the schedule should be realistic without giving excessive time, and under those situations, dispatching to schedule ensures a reliable headway. However, when conditions require an alternate strategy, there should be a standard way to operate the line such as short turning every other car and ensuring that a headway is maintained especially to the termini. The TTC’s problem is that they just short turn, but don’t manage the result.
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Amen Steve, however, I would have thought this would be fairly easy debate to have and resolve. Do people actually pay attention to schedules on a route with a scheduled headway of 12 minutes or less? How about with a headway of 6 minutes or less?
Would this route make more sense if they eliminated the Humber loop turn backs (or reserved this for unscheduled short turns) so that all service completed the entire route, and instead allowed for a short hold (or not depending on position) at Parkside (where it would not be in traffic)? This would involve running a few extra cars – but when they are available would this not make both for better service, and easier route management? Of course better would be a route for the west end that managed to skip Queen Street entirely – but that seems to be the realm of fantasy {especially as there is no allowance at Union to run that kind of combined service frequency if Queens Quay was used}.
Steve: Whether or not there is a scheduled short turn (or even occasional unscheduled ones such as at Woodbine Loop in the east end), what matters most is ensuring that through and short turn cars leave on a headway, not just whenever they show up.
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Agreed – however – even at that turning half the cars, means that west end users are either waiting for a car that is scheduled to go through (and pray it is not short turned) or riding to the loop and waiting. Either way this strikes me as discouraging use for users riding to/from beyond Humber.
Steve: Just as short turns at Woodbine (or further west) discourage riders bound for the east end of Queen. It does not matter whether it is a scheduled or unscheduled move — if it a common practice it should be managed to minimize the negative side-effects.
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At minor stops it’s not an issue but on inbound trips (during PM rush hour no less) it’s a little more than aggravating when the operator decides to force the 10+ customers waiting at each transfer point to board via the front doors only.
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So the new service standard will be, “Always a car in sight”?
Big sigh…
Steve: I wouldn’t count on it. The extra time may cut back on the short turns which should eliminate the worst of the wide headways at outer ends of the line, but this must be coupled with a desire to manage the headways. Otherwise, the slogan might as well be “Sometimes two cars in sight”.
At Long Branch there used to be headways of 3’00”. And if that wasn’t envy-inducing enough, between Broadview and River the headways were 0’28”. Yes, that’s every twenty-eight seconds. [Source]
Of course, those were the days when the city was for people, not cars.
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Rather than short turns etc – would it make sense to insert a hold point. In the case of this route would there be logical points at which the cars could hold for a minute or so to make some sense of the headway?
Steve: Yes, but it requires the support to manage those headways. Dashboard displays of “on time performance” are useless when cars are rarely near the actual schedules.
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Granted – this does make is seem much more like putting vehicles on the road at times, than a serious attempt at reliable service. I found that the sudden drop in headway at 9:00 am at Royal York in a couple of the sample periods interesting – almost as there was a decision to manage the line for the last couple of weeks of the period – that had not been there previously.
I continue to hope that the TTC will make a real management tool out of the new vehicle tracking system, to help them actually dispatch service appropriately. I also hope that they try harder to look it from a service perspective – Even if you are trying to maintain schedule (as opposed to headway) – it is important acknowledge that if you are 28 minutes behind on a 30 minute service, just acknowledging you have in effect missed a run and adjusting accordingly is better than trying to drive service to being only 25 minutes behind, or averaging things out by sending out 2 runs 14 minutes ahead.
The other thing of course is adjusting – getting to – why did you miss the run – and doing the how do you make sure it doesn’t happen tomorrow – rather than spending the rest of the day trying to paper over the miss. This requires a more appropriate service metric.
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I finally went through the analysis.
So many comments could be made. Though probably not much point. What will be interesting to see is how this all looks once the long-promised change to 501 management to utilize the lessons learned from 512 and 504 changes. In September, or January … or whenever this finally happens.
Steve: I understand the new schedules on Queen are coming in September. BTW I have a second article about running times in the works. All of this is to set up the “before” comparator, and to establish how long-running and consistent the situation has been.
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Really? Lawrence East to Starspray is pretty long. Bloor Night is too. I wonder whether reliability is so much to do with length vs road conditions. Although surely more route length must make it more difficult for operators to keep at the schedule. I used to ride the Bloor night bus just before the subway opened. It was scarily on time each time and I never had to worry about missing my connection at Islington. So what about the Queen night car? I’ve never taken it regularly. Does that give us an idea of how reliable Queen can be when traffic is light?
Steve: The night services, especially on Queen, are not the most reliable of the TTC’s services. As for length, the 501 is 24.43km from Neville to Long Branch, the 54 is 26.95km on the Starspray branch. The Pearson airport branch of the 300 Bloor Night Bus is 38km.
A few years ago, I published an analysis of 54 Lawrence East, and it was subject to many of the same problems with erratic headways and a failure of its branches to blend together properly. This is as much a management and “corporate culture” issue as it is one of route conditions. Queen has the additional problem that its running times are often inadequate for actual conditions on the route, as we will see in the second part of my 501 analysis coming soon.
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Oy. Here’s my entirely serious proposal:
At each of the termini, buy an electric eye, a parking-garage-style gate, and a loud bell. Hook them up to a small electronic board with a clock. When the outgoing streetcar passes the electric eye, it starts the stopwatch. The gate is lowered behind it. After a certain number of minutes, the gate is lifted to allow the next streetcar through. After a small amount of additional time (fixed in advance), a loud bell starts dinging to tell the streetcar operator that he’s late.
It doesn’t seem like rocket science to manage headways. I mean, I could build this for a couple of hundred dollars. I could even include spiffy features like determining proper headway from time of day and resetting the headway remotely from the central command center.
Steve: Ah! But you will require multiple gates to allow for varying car lengths, winterization lest they seize in cold weather, and some way to mitigate the effects of the bell in quiet residential neighbourhoods such as at Neville Loop. I am sure this could turn into a major procurement with job spinoffs and the possibility of export markets for this made-in-Ontario technology, not to mention the possibilities for private sector participation and lots of photo ops for the ministries involved.
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Or you could just have a green/yellow/red signal. Green you’re good, yellow you’re late and red, hey hold on. Of course this would need to be coordinated between the branches of the line, a decision would need to be made as to whether (and dynamically when) to run on schedule or headway etc.
Steve: You have no sense, no imagination, no concept of the possibilities for political … oops … industrial development … we could call it the Ontario Transportation Dispatching Company and waste … ooops … invest a fortune to bring this to market … good transit service is only a decade away!
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Sadly your point is a very good one – good management and the simple delivery of high quality service seems less likely to win elections than flashy high visibility projects – even when they do not actually deliver real service. Most of the real fixes – will have too little show – for those who must win the next election. If only we would vote for good management over mega projects.
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Once the switch to pantograph operations is complete, would it be practical to resurrect the idea of streetcar wyes for the storage of gap trains on side streets? I’m assuming that the legacy Flexitys retain some residual capability for double ended operation, even though they lack the controls and doors for it, which would allow them to handle reverse moves better than the CLRVs and ALRVs.
I’ve often wondered why the TTC doesn’t make better use of Russell for headway management since the yard has two through tracks parallel to Queen which would be ideal for spreading out streetcars when not needed for yard movements. I’m sure riders in the east end would prefer waiting a few minutes at Russell rather than getting short turned at Woodbine loop.
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I would think it would be worth the investment to also place the track and electrified switches to permit routing cars onto side tracks in a few spots to permit continuing forward and rejoining the main run. There few hold spot, good planning and relatively short lengths of track could really improve service. This would require actually making moderate investments, and having a strong focus on supporting service however.
I do not even want to think about how including an allowance for substantial capacity in the Streetcar loop at Union and 4km of track could have transformed streetcar service to the west end, and how the East Bayfront LRT could be the foundation to long term support for strong Streetcar support for the east end and the beaches – even as congestion gets worse. Really should have been allowed when Union was reopened.
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I’ve felt that the bridges over the Don would be the best place for “streetcar sidings”. On them, you have long straight sections with virtually no vehicles parked on the side of the road with no worries about vehicles entering/exiting traffic. The only question is whether you could hold streetcars on the bridges or whether those side tracks would be limited to only reorganizing a group of streetcar so that the fully loaded one that’s at the front gets moved to the back to improve service.
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The mere use of a siding of any kind would permit this. Although your point with regards to having no traffic of worries certainly is important, I wonder whether there are a couple of other spots along the line where side streets could be used. The leading car merely has to pull off the mainline long enough to allow a trailing car to pass. Also permit a spot for a car that was empty to be placed to act as fill to run into a gap – so as to avoid overloading in the first place. The entire approach however, requires both a serious investment – and a real drive to provide a higher level of service, including the higher operating costs associated with having an extra vehicle in waiting with a driver aboard – however a couple of vehicles so deployed could avoid a lot of short turns.
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If regular service stopped going to McCaul you could some cars in the loop. Do cars actually stop in the loop anymore? The street’s usually pretty quiet too. I see cars parked there sometimes and on Bay as well. I say “parked” but I’m usually going by so they might just be stopped momentarily.
Not that I’m advocating for the removal of the 502. They could always (re?) extend it to Bathurst.
Steve: OK. I have stayed out of this thread for a while, but I don’t think this is a reasonable proposal for several reasons, not the least of which is the amount of time it would require to get cars into and out of sidestreet storage tracks, and the fact that this would effectively block a street. However, it would be a “typical” TTC response — build some new infrastructure rather than addressing the problem of line management.
Any future comments about this scheme will not be posted.
And, yes, McCaul Loop is still used, and not just by 502 Downtowner cars but also by short turning 501 Queens.
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I caught a few short turned 502’s waiting on Victoria turning back on to the mainline and into the flow right behind other 502’s. I can’t wait for the next article series to see what new information we’ll get!
I’m hoping the new CAD/AVL system will stop this type of BS from happening.
Steve: I’m working on a 502/503 article now. It will be out soon. The amount of short turning on that line is disgusting, and a great deal of the “service” serves nobody properly.
As for a new vehicle location system, the TTC could fix this problem today. The “new” system is just another excuse to not engage the issue which is a combination of bad scheduling and appalling line management.
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Exactly – stop and write a schedule that reflects the real running time peak, off peak, and other known running time issues, and leave a little fudge, and then manage headway to that – and make a real attempt to run all vehicles as through service. If you know you do not have the vehicles to support a 5 minute headway on a 110 minute round trip, then don’t write a schedule around a 5 minute headway for a trip you know takes 110 minutes. The people who do service planning need to consult with or even be drawn from route management, and be familiar with all the daily issues. A real scheduled, based on real running times – would also reveal the real need for vehicles.
Steve: It’s not quite that simple. The standard response from the Operations management is “give us more running time”, but the “after” versions of the service show many characteristics of the “before” version. More vehicles pile up at terminals taking longer layovers, but headways remain irregular. At least the number of short turns goes down. The premise is that if it is possible to run “on time”, then headways will take care of themself. Would this were true.
King has operated with revised schedules for several months now and, if anything, the times are too padded to the point where ops must dawdle along the route to avoid running early. Other routes are getting extended times, and Queen is rumoured to be “coming soon”, probably in conjunction with the 10 Minute Network rollout.
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There has been a slow zone between Windermere and Humber loop for months now. Some operators sort of slow down, but others take this very, very seriously. The result is a five-minute trip for a section that has no intersections one one lightly-used stop.
I assume the schedules aren’t adjusted for this, or for stop-and-proceed at any switch, trailing or facing. Some operators follow the letter of the regulations on this; perhaps they are short-turned as a result. Others proceed in more brisk manner. At least they will get me home in a reasonable length of time.
All these operating procedures seem to increase the gap between fast operators and slow operators, with the slow ones particularly prone to take their sweet old time, while the fast operators sometimes get to Long Branch loop five or ten minutes ahead of schedule. No wonder service is erratic.
Steve: No, there is no adjustment for the slow order. If Queen had padded schedules like King, this would be less of an issue, but as I have shown, even without the slow order, the running times are not enough to handle typical conditions. (See part II of the article for details.)
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Maybe this should go with part 2, but it would be interesting to see if the variations in running time indicated by the SD is strongly correlated with run numbers. From riding the route so much, there seem to be at least three classes of operators. The average are average. The slow can be really slow (even when they’re behind schedule they don’t speed up). The quick can be very quick. The interesting thing is that the slow operators are often (apparently) old-timers with not a care in the world. (There was one notorious, very senior, operator who would always lollygag his 508 run. I took care to avoid that run.) I can understand it when a new operator falls behind. I assume that, with experience, they can speed up. However, schedule padding seems to act as catnip for these old operators, while the fast operators enjoy an additional ten minutes of layover above and beyond what is on the schedule.
One subway train will run much like another, but on surface routes the operator’s style makes a big difference — much too big a difference if the goal is reliable service.
Steve: You hit on a point here that always makes the “we need more running time” argument problematic — there are some ops who will take whatever is available and still run behind schedule. Meanwhile, on King, they were supposed to review the operation of the padded schedules and tune them based on actual behaviour, but the constant queues of streetcars at Dundas West and Broadview shows (a) just how much extra time is in the schedule and (b) that this has not been corrected.
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