In the first article of this series, I reviewed the headways (time between vehicles) on route 501 Queen from August 2013 to May 2015. A pattern there is that headways on the outer parts of the route are consistently, at times extremely so, worse than the advertised frequencies. Even in the central part of the route, average headways are close to scheduled values, but the regularity of vehicle spacing is not – cars commonly run in pairs on a much wider combined headway than the schedule calls for.

With this route listed among those that will be part of the TTC’s “Ten Minute Network”, actually achieving that goal will be as important as the inevitable hype that will accompany the announcement. This is also a route destined for better service thanks to new loading off-peak loading standards.

This article turns to the question of running times – the period required for a typical vehicle to get from point “A” to “B” on a route. These are important for a variety of reasons:

• If the scheduled time is commonly less than the actual time needed, then vehicles will always be late, and there will be a strong incentive for cars to short turn.
• If the scheduled time is commonly more than what is needed, then vehicles will either dawdle along their routes, or take extended siestas at terminals.
• “Congestion” is a routinely cited reason for the TTC’s inability to operate reliable service, but it is not a consistent phenomenon across the route, by time of day or by day of the week. Some of the worst disruptions arise not from chronic congestion, but from events such as construction projects or diversions around festivals. The location of the delays is not confined to the core area.

There is a lot of material here, and I don’t expect that most readers will go into all of the detail. The first part looks at the route overall, and then I turn to individual segments. If there is any overall message, it is this: the operation of a long, busy route like Queen is affected by many factors. Some are institutional (schedules, procedures). Some are chronic (predictable congestion). Some are transient (accidents, illness). Some of the worst are from relatively short-lived events such as construction work or event diversions where the resulting service leaves much to be desired. There is no one “magic solution” that will fix all of them with minimal pain for either for the TTC or for other road users.

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