Author: Steve

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Seasonal Service Reductions?

Several people at the TTC must be asleep at the switch these days.  Imagine my surprise to see at Broadview Station a brand new poster advertising “seasonal service reductions” for the summer starting September 4.  Obviously, someone has changed the banner date on an earlier poster but not bothered to fix the text.

These posters were printed.  These posters were installed.

Does anyone at the TTC read them?  This may explain, indeed, why so much out of date bilge is left on the walls of our stations.

It is bad enough that the TTC does not take the simple step of printing “remove after xxx” on their posters, but when they put up signs that are just plain wrong, one senses that a remedial reading course is in order.

At times when we have people calling for quick fixes by simply cutting wages and firing staff, gaffes like this give the TTC’s critics the sort of ammunition they need.

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How Do We Wait?

I have received a request for assistance with research on how transit systems make passengers wait.

Hello,

I’m a researcher at the Institute of Railway Studies at the University of York in England, and I’m looking at the way transport systems force people to wait.  A lot of your comments about Toronto are interesting, but not specific enough for me to use.  If anyone wants to find their views about waiting in line, fat fares, smart cards etc incorporated in research please contact me.  My research e mail address is Davidsd@skynet.be. 

If you want information about England (or Belgium) in return I’m happy to trade.

David Stewart-David

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Transit Priority on King at Community Council

The King Car will be up for discussion at Toronto & East York Community Council next Monday (September 10), just two days before the TTC itself meets to decide what may happen with fares and service in 2008.  Item TE8.41 on the agenda includes both the TTC’s original request which was met with some considerable opposition by area merchants and some counterproposals that were tabled for discussion (item TE8.41a).

These proposals, viewed jointly with the work I have done analyzing operations in the route, raise a number of questions. Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Part IX – Headway Reliability and the Two Minute Wave

So far, we have been looking mainly at data one day at a time over the route as a whole.  In this discussion, we will look at service at specific points for every weekday in December 2006.  This allows us to compare the behaviour of service, the experience of a rider who tries to use the system for a regular work trip.

On King, the TTC claims to run a two-minute headway and this is true, but only for part of the line and only in the morning rush.  For roughly an hour, from 7:30 to 8:30 am, there is a “wave” of two-minute service scheduled to come east through Parkdale and the Bathurst/Niagara district.  Riders in these neighbourhoods complain of erratic service and overcrowded cars.  What is actually going on? Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Part VIII – Those Pesky Short Turns

By now, you are probably getting tired of looking at charts of individual days, and they’re starting to look the same.  On the other hand, you probably have a fairly good idea for the sort of thing that is “typical” as opposed to an unpredictable event.

Now, I will turn to views of the King Car that show the entire month in a summary format, and will begin with the long-standing problem of Short Turns.

Back in 1984, the Streetcars for Toronto Committee conducted a review of streetcar operations using volunteers on street corners to track the movement of cars, and we came up with plots similar to the graphic timetables shown in other posts here.  Today, however, we have CIS technology and much more data.  It’s a lot better than standing out in the rain for hours on end. Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Coming Soon

As you will see below, I have posted detailed information on several days’ operation.  These are extracts from a much longer paper that covers many aspects of the route in detail.  Please don’t ask me to send you one because this is (a) still a work in progress and (b) the full collection of data and charts is quite large.

Still to come are:

  • Charts comparing link times for various parts of the line over the month showing the similarities and variations by segment, time of day, and day of the month.
  • A review of vehicle allocations (CLRV and ALRV) and change-offs.

In case you have lost the thread of where this is all leading, my aim is that the TTC make substantial improvements in understanding how it actually operates and manages its services.  As a management tool, the information available from CIS for all routes has been more or less ignored for the decades since the system went into operation.  Daily reviews of operations on major lines should be a matter-of-fact way to run the business, and strategies should be developed to deal with chronic and emerging problems.

Far too often, the catch-all excuse of “traffic congestion” and “mixed traffic operation” is used to justify inaction.  Yes, there are traffic problems, but some of them can be addressed if only the TTC and politicians who claim to support transit would actually expend some of their “support” on changing the operation of traffic signals, parking regulations and enforcement.

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A Better Survey …

Over at the Torontoist blog, there is an alternative to the TTC’s survey.  I had a hand in its construction along with several others.

Although some early commenters are of the “we can’t find anything nice to say about anything school”, the survey attempts to find out what riders’ experience on the TTC is now, what sort of impact the proposed TTC cuts would have, what sort of alternatives to TTC travel people might resort to in the face of service cuts or higher fares.  This is vital info the TTC didn’t bother to ask themselves.

For those who missed the link buried in all of the comments on the first “My TTC Is …” post, there is a map provided by Ian Trider that shows where the proposed cuts are in the network.  That’s something else the TTC didn’t produce.

What we’re still missing, and alas don’t have the raw data for it, is the list of service improvements that were planned but cancelled because of Council’s pig-headedness about the new taxes. 

Transit advocacy is something the TTC and pro-transit Councillors really need to take seriously.  It’s not enough to say “the TTC is the green way” and “I get to work faster than my boss (who drives)”.  The first is almost meaningless in the choices people make about taking transit, and the second is a joke.  You can drive just about anywhere faster than you will get there on the TTC.  [A friend who leans over my shoulder as I write this suggests that the real trick to arriving by transit before the boss is to leave an hour early.]

The authors of this inane copy need some serious lessons in reality.

The TTC is doing a terrible job of showing what might still be if only we get on the right track with new TTC revenues.  Why is this left to the bloggers, to the TTC fans, to the riders who feel they are abandoned by gutless politicians who won’t raise the money needed to pay for all their transit dreams and promises.

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Walk Left, Stand Right Revisited

Oh gentle reader, you may remember that the TTC, in an unusual show of speed, removed all of the “Walk Left, Stand Right” signs on all of its escalators virtually overnight.  For an organization that can leave up public notices months after they are current (often with two conflicting versions of the same notice in the same place), this was truly breathtaking.

You may also remember that the TTC claimed the reason for this move was that the signs encouraged people to walk on the escalators and this was a safety hazard and we don’t want any of those on the TTC.  In this dubious stance, the TTC was supported by the TSSA, the regulatory body that watches over escalators and elevators.

Today, I noticed a poster on the subway about escalator safety, no doubt a matter of burning interest to riders especially in those cases when the escalators are actually running.  You can look at it yourself on the TTC’s website.

Notice point three:  “Stand Right”.  I’m not sure what you are supposed to do on the left, although point 5 tells us not to rush other passengers, complete with a photo of two people “standing right”.

One of these days, the TTC will learn to check out their own promotional materials before putting out bogus explanations for taking down signs that encourage people to follow an international standard in escalator behaviour.

Now for extra points, class, how long will it take for all of these “safety” posters to disappear from the system and the PDF to be pulled from the website?  No fair stealing them yourself as souvenirs!