Finance

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NextBus Adds More Routes

The information in this post just appeared on Facebook, and so I no longer feel bound to treat it as “pre release”.

The NextBus TTC displays now include the St. Clair, Bathurst, Carlton, Dundas and King routes in addition to Spadina and Harbourfront which have been publicly visible for some time.

Real time predictions for next vehicle arrivals are available as well as maps showing vehicle locations and movement.

Now you can monitor the quality of service from the comfort of your own computer.  Warning!  Some images may be unsettling, such as the view I had earlier today when all but two St. Clair cars were between Oakwood and Bathurst.

The NextBus site works with PDAs and will detect the type of device you are using.  This access has its own URL, although you can navigate down simply by going to the home page at nextbus.com and drilling down to the TTC from the selection of locations and systems.  Maps on PDAs are available, but they don’t refresh automatically, and they are much simpler as befits the small screen.

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TTC Announces Customer Service Advisory Panel

The TTC has announced the makeup of its customer service advisory panel.  According to the TTC’s press release, the first work of this panel will be to review the scope of work including:

  • A review of Operator, Collector and other frontline employee initial training, as well as recertification training;
  • A review of the commendation/complaint process;
  • A review of the selection and hiring criteria for frontline employees;
  • The introduction of a customer Bill of Rights that would include employee as well as customer expectations;
  • A review of current TTC plans to address customer service;
  • Conducting public consultations/meetings/focus groups;
  • Conducting employee consultations/meetings/focus groups;
  • A public report on recommendations; and
  • Advising on expertise/resources needed to achieve success, e.g. external consultants, organizational changes that could include members of the Commission, members of management, as well as private citizens to address specific areas of interest.

The panel is expected to report by the end of June.

From my own point of view, a review of how the TTC interacts with its customers is only one part of a three-part problem.  Two others must be addressed in parallel.  If they are ignored, then this panel’s recommendations won’t go very far.

First of the two is the relationship between the Amalgamated Transit Union and the TTC, and through them with the public.  Recent media reports and “gotcha” photos of TTC staff in less-than-productive poses, coupled with public furor over the botched fare increase procedure, raised antagonism between frontline TTC staff and the public.  My gut feeling from riding the system is that this is dissipating, but wouldn’t take much to become a major issue again.

If the ATU has specific issues regarding working conditions (the protocols re work hours and breaks, for example), then these need to go on the table in a public forum.  If we, the public and the larger political framework in which the TTC operates, don’t know the nature or the scope of the problems, we cannot possibly assess their importance, priority or how they might be addressed.

The contentious nature of public statements by ATU leaders only serves to undermine support for the frontline workers.  This may “play to the house”, but it alienates the public whose support is essential.

Second of the two is the nature of TTC management.  Far too often we hear what cannot be done, not what can be achieved if only we have the will to do it.  Some of the issues are financial, others are organizational.  If there are ways to improve the quality of service, we need to have a public debate about how this will be achieved and at what cost, if any.  The Ridership Growth Strategy was based on the premise “tell us what you can do” while placing the policy decision for what we considered “good” in the political realm where it belongs.

Meanwhile, the TTC needs to examine everything it does through a customer service lens.  Will proposed changes in fare inspection annoy riders and frustrate operating staff?  Are operating and management procedures for surface routes appropriate for provision of good service?  Can customers and route supervisors benefit from widespread availability of real time displays of service conditions (eg: Nextbus)?

Whatever changes are made, they must not be superficial, but should bring a real sense of improvement for the riding public and for TTC staff.  Riders must feel in their bones that the system is improving, and staff must feel that they can actively contribute to this process with the support of TTC management and the Commission.

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GO Transit To Raise and Standardize Fares (Updated)

Updated February 22 at 4:00 pm

As expected, the Metrolinx Board approved the proposed increase in GO Transit fares at its recent meeting.  The contrast with the debates about TTC budgets and fares was quite striking.  The greatest potential for discord came with the presentation of an anti-increase petition.

The bottom line for this increase is “to ensure fiscal responsibility and meet the needs of a growing market of commuters” (presentation to the Board, page 2).  That’s shorthand for keeping the subsidy requirement under control, paying for the operations we have now and giving us some headroom to do more.

GO customers are, after all, from a very different market than the TTC.  Their median family income is $100k, they live well outside the core, and auto travel is already an established part of their lifestyle.  85% are fully employed, 9% are students and 1% are seniors.  They are travelling on GO overwhelmingly by choice and good service, in all aspects, matters.

40% of GO riders use monthly passes and another 40% use 10-trip tickets.  This is not unlike the TTC where the monthly pass accounts for over half of the adult trips, and a large majority of those remaining use token fares.

The purpose of the fare increase was to raise revenue by $14.6m in fiscal 2010.  Provincial subsidy will also jump for 2010 from $52.6m to $72.1m, but over half of this changes adjusts for one-time revenue in 2009/10 that allowed for a lower subsidy in that year.  GO’s total operating budget is $386.7m, and they expect to carry 56m rides.

By comparison, the TTC’s fare increase is project to raise somewhere between $36m and $50m depending on which figures you believe.  In 2010, the City will carry the entire $430m TTC subsidy while Queen’s Park spends its way through this budget cycle propping up Ontario’s economy.  The TTC’s proposed total operating budget is $1.37b, and they expect to carry 462m rides.

GO’s workforce, including contract staff, is 1,938.  The TTC’s proposed “conventional system” workforce for 2010 (as discussed in another thread), excluding contractors, is 10,491.  This number omits Wheel Trans, Capital Projects and Toronto Coach Terminal.

The TTC’s budget is only 3.5 times GO’s, but there are far more staff (5.4:1) and riders (8.2:1).  The subsidy per rider on GO is $1.29.  On the TTC it is about $0.93.

Earlier, I mentioned the potential for discord at the Metrolinx meeting.  The protocols for these meetings accept the public’s presence only grudgingly, unlike meetings for municipal agencies such as the TTC where in camera discussions are allowed on only a handful of grounds.  There are no deputations at Metrolinx, unlike the City of Toronto where a long history of public involvement would be impossible to silence.

The Directors, with few exceptions, ask no questions in the public session, and everything has clearly been worked out beforehand.  They’re just one big happy family.

Alas, thanks to an email slip-up, Metrolinx’ attitude slipped into view.  An internal email from Rob Prichard, Metrolinx CEO, was cc:ed to the petion’s originator in error.  From this, the clear intent was to give the petition as little exposure at the meeting as possible and assume that the Board would ignore it.  They did.

The original article from February 12 follows the break.

Continue reading →

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How Many People Work For The TTC? (Update 2)

Updated February 21 at 8:20 pm:

I have now assembled data on the TTC workforce going back from 2007 to 1990 and have, I believe, created as good a presentation of this as we are likely to see.  Some readers may not agree.  That’s their option.

There are two problems in going back over a long series of data like this:

  1. There were fundamental changes in the way the TTC reported its staffing over the period 1990-1996.  Some of this arose from structural reorganization, some from changes in accounting practices.  The numbers must be adjusted to place them on an equal footing.
  2. Many people worked on capital projects on a contract basis either directly for the TTC or for companies engaged by them.  This is particularly the case for major design projects such as subways and new buildings.  These people do not show up in TTC headcounts.

I have produced two charts which show the relationship of staff, budget allocation area and riding over the period 1990-2007.  (2008 and 2009 will be added when I dig out details for those years.)

TTC Workforce and Riding 1990-2007

The first chart shows the major groups of employees:

  • Operations:  These departments are responsible for running service and maintaining vehicles and infrastructure.  For 1990-91, the engineering staff are included in this number.
  • Wheel Trans (W/T):  There is an anomalous drop in 1995 which I suspect is an error, but the value used comes from the budget for that year.  The staff reappear in 1996.
  • Administration:  These departments are a separate branch only until 1993.  Thereafter, they are rolled into the respective branches which they support.  The jump in “operations” in 1994 reflects the assignment of most of “administration” to that group.
  • Capital:  Starting in 1992, the engineering staff were reported separately from plant maintenance, and I have assigned them to “capital”.  A few years later, the capital staff for all departments were identified explicitly in the budgets.
  •  Toronto Coach Terminal Inc. (TCTI):  This is the Bay Street bus terminal whose staff were formerly reported separately.  TCTI is all that remains of the old Gray Coach Lines Ltd.

The second chart shows the annual ridership and the ratio of riders to “operations” staff.  A few important points:

  • For the years when “administration” was a separate branch (until 1993), the headcount is included pro-rata in “operations” for the purpose of calculating the ratio.  (The “pro-rata” allocation is based on the apparent redistribution of the admin staff in 1994, a year when nothing else changed much.)
  • Ridership follows a long decline to its nadir in 1996 by which time the TTC had managed to lose 100m riders relative to its high point in 1988.  Reports from the early 90s when management talks about stopping the downward spiral make sobering reading when we consider what actually happened.
  • The ratio of rides to operations staff followed the same trend from 1990-92.  This indicates that riding was falling, but staffing was not on a proportionate basis.  Thereafter, due to staff cuts, the ratio rose until 2,000.  From 2003 onward, both ridership and rides/staff have grown indicating that staff is not increasing as fast as ridership.
  • The ratio of rides to operations staff in 2007 is slightly higher than in 1990.

During this period, new groups were formed to deal with a number of safety issues and transit policing.  Moreover, there was a recognition after the 1995 subway crash at Russell Hill that “state of good repair” needed serious attention.  This corresponds to the point where the capital workforce begins to grow.  More recently, other projects such as the subway extensions, Transit City and station renewal have come into play.

Another issue is the distribution of increases between management and front line staff.  A 2007 TTC report on workforce history gives this breakdown for 1997-2007.  It also includes a description of the additions to salaried positions (broadly speaking management and administration) over the decade.  (The report in question is part of the TTC meeting agenda for September 12, 2007.  However, these appendices are not included with the online version.)

1997-2007 Workforce

1997-2007 Salaried Staff Increases

In the Operations group, the number of salaried staff rose from 1,553 to 1,805, or 16%.  During the same period, the number of hourly-paid staff (union positions, almost all operators and maintenance workers) rose from 6,963 to 8,030, or 15%. 

The proportionate increases in the Capital group were larger (55% in management/admin, 249% in hourly).  Some may argue that “operations” staff and costs are being hidden in the Capital budget.  Some shift may be happening, but I don’t believe that is the entire explanation.  Without a detailed review of TTC staff allocations over many years and the assignment of projects as “operations” or “capital”, this is a very difficult question to answer.  Certainly, it is worthwhile understanding how these numbers evolve for future years’ budgets.

The original material in this post follows the break.  It should be read with care in light of the more detailed figures I have presented above. Continue reading →

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City Finds Rabbit in Hat: Balances Budget and Funds TTC (Updated)

Updated February 17:

The City’s Budget Analyst report on the TTC is now available online.  I will comment on it in more detail when I have time, but a few points warrant immediate attention.

The big issue in TTC budgeting is always the ridership projection and the anticipated revenue from fares.  This number has been jumping around a bit.

In the February 15 Budget Presentation, the City shows increased fare revenue from the TTC as providing $50m reduction in the original estimate of the City’s shortfall (see page 15).  However, in the Analyst’s notes, a value of $48.4m is cited on page 29 as a gross number.  From this, the Analyst deducts a charge of $12.125m to account for fare revenue “lost” to Metropass users giving a net figure of $36.805m.

The reason for this is that the Analyst uses budget numbers, not real numbers.  Therefore, to get from 2009 to 2010, one must first remove the $12.125m from 2009 to get an adjusted base, and then add in whatever benefit a fare change will bring.

On page 3 of the Analyst’s report, we learn that the TTC’s preliminary year-end report showed that the 2009 revenue shortfall was almost exactly matched by underexpenditures due to lower energy costs and an accounting change in treatment of future accident claims.

Today, TTC Chair Adam Giambrone updated his Facebook page with this information:

It has just come up that ridership is up 1% over last year despite the fare increase in January. And we reviewed the point that TTC actually recorded a SURPLUS of $300,000…amazing especially that at one point we were $23 million behind. It took a lot of work, but we did it. [Posted at about noon on February 17]

The TTC has not yet published stats for December 2009, but based on strong results in January, one might expect that December was a good month also, relative to budget expectations. 

The 1% increase in ridership (which applies to the first three weeks of January) is quite different from the expected riding drop after the fare increase.  Whether this will be sustained through the year remains to be seen, but it is a pleasant sign.  Having said that, a sustained increase would give full year results of about 476m riders, not the budgeted 462m.  Whether the service budget based on the lower ridership can handle more riders will depend on where the increases come and whether they can be absorbed into the service actually operated.

On the budget side, 14m more rides than budget translates to a tidy pot of unexpected revenue.  We do not yet know how many of these new rides are full adult fares, increased use of passes or greater riding at concession rates (students, seniors, children).  By the end of April, when the City budget comes to Council, the TTC should be required to provide an updated projection of its ridership, revenue and funding needs so that the subsidy level can be adjusted accordingly.

When TTC staff proposed the fare increase last November, they projected that there would be a $106m shortfall in 2010 before any budget adjustements in the new year.  Various scenarios were presented, and the one recommended included a 25-cent adult fare increase (pro-rated to concession fares) and a two-trip increase in the Metropass multiple.  This scheme was projected to bring in $50m net of the effect of lost riding.  (see page 8.)

However, the Commission actually improved a 25-cent adult increase, but no change in the Metropass multiple.  This is clearly shown in the staff report as generating only $38.9m in revenue net of losses in ridership, and this does not include the cost of an adult student pass rate starting in September 2010. 

Neither of figures includes the net effect of the $12m in “lost” Metropass revenue.  The Budget Analyst has flagged this in the “Issues for Discussion”, but the City’s budget does not reflect the lower net figure for new revenue compared to the 2009 budget.

Much of the confusion arises from the comparison of budget-to-budget figures, rather than using probable actuals as a base reference, and of citing gross effects of proposed changes such as new fares rather than net effects.

In summary, the TTC (and the City) appear to be overstating the net revenue benefit of the fare increase at the budgetary level, but may be rescued from their errors by stronger than projected ridership.

The original February 16 article follows the break.

Continue reading →

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Service Changes For February 2010 (Updated)

The following service changes will occur effective Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Updated to include a table comparing service levels on 512 St. Clair.

305 Eglinton East Night Bus & 354 Lawrence East Night Bus

These routes now operate separately from each other, with three vehicles on each route, and have difficulty maintaining schedules.  To give both routes more running time, one bus will be added, and the routes will be interlined to give each route an additional 15 minutes for a round trip.

Buses will alternate trips on each route.

44 Kipling South

Saturday afternoon running times will be increased, and service will be improved, to counteract reliability problems.  The existing 15 minute headway with 2 buses will change to a 12 minute headway with 3 buses.

116 Morningside & 86 Scarborough Service Blending

Midday headways on the 116 will be widened from 8’30” to 9’00” to provide extra running time.  No buses will be added to the route.  Midday headways on the 86 will be widened from 8’00” to 9’00”.  One less bus will be needed on the 86.

In both cases, the average load will rise from 36 to 38, within the offpeak service standards.

Early evening headways on the 116 will be changed from 7’45” to 7’30” to match the existing 86 headway.

512 St. Clair

Running times will be increased during many periods to reflect actual requirements for this route.  No cars will be added, but scheduled headways will be widened.  The affected periods are:

  • Weekdays afternoon, pm peak, early evening
  • Weekends morning and afternoon

The table linked below compares the April 2007 schedule (just before the west end of the line closed for construction), the original January 2010 schedule, and the revised February version. 

2010 vs 2007 Service Comparison

Zoo Services

The 85 Sheppard East and 86 Scarborough schedules will be adjusted so that the last trip from the Zoo matches its later closing time (7 pm) beginning in mid March.

Driving Time vs Recovery Time

One of the oddities of TTC schedules is that many routes have “recovery time” that is, in fact, little more than a rounding factor so that the headway will work out to an exact integer.  For example, on the 44 Kipling South change above, the new schedule has a 12 minute headway, but this is achieved with 34 minutes of driving time and 2 minutes of recovery per round trip.

A few routes have schedule adjustments that consist of nothing more than reallocating time from recovery to driving.  This means that the actual time provided for a vehicle to make a round trip is unchanged, but the “recovery” which might be used for a break at a terminal is squeezed.

This affects:

  • 34 Eglinton East (peak)
  • 16 McCowan (weekday early evening)
  • 116 Morningside (peak)
  • 224 Victoria Park North
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The Mythology of Benefits Case Analyses

Among my many “things to do” on this site is an evisceration of the concept of the “Benefits Case Analysis” as practised by Metrolinx.  These analyses purport to judge the value of project options by reducing many aspects of the process to a monetary value.

This scheme is born of an era when nobody cared about the soft, social benefits and costs of doing or not doing something, when “businesslike” behaviour was the goal for all right-minded public enterprise.  Sadly, we never had a discussion about what “businesslike” actually means.  Recent private sector examples appear to involve raiding not only your own cookie jar, but getting the government (ie: you and me and our descendents beyond count) to keep refilling that cookie jar to save the starving plutocrats.  I will generously assume that this is not the sort of behaviour Metrolinx has in mind.

[The above paragraph is for the benefit of readers who decry my left-leaning stance on many issues.  Now and then I have to throw them a bone, a quote they can use to prove their point.]

In a future post, I plan to review one or two of the Metrolinx BCAs.  Their most glaring failure lies in the scope of the analysis.  The Big Move is a network, but each BCA considers only an individual component of that network, not its role in the overall picture.  Moreover, construction spending is actually treated as a benefit because of the employment and other economic effects it would generate.  This completely misses the larger picture of public sector spending (might a hospital be more valuable than a new transit line), not to mention the future implications of the public debt (however it might be hidden in public or private sector accounts) for the viability of transit systems and governments.

Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog has an interesting article on the evolution of Benefit Case Analysis and the flawed philosophy underpinning the methodology.

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Walking the Talk

Today, the TTC issued a Media Advisory containing a letter for all TTC staff from Chief General Manager Gary Webster.

Our Customers Deserve Better

February 6, 2010

I don’t know about you, but I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not; and tired of stating the obvious: that much of the behaviour being reported is, indeed, unacceptable.

You have heard me say that I am proud of the TTC. I still am, but I am not proud of what we have been dealing with over the last several weeks.

Two weeks ago I said that the vast majority of TTC employees care about the organization and do a good job, but we can all do better. I asked everyone to respond well. Some of you did. Clearly, some of you did not.

We all have to accept responsibility for allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline. In other words, we have deemed it acceptable for some employees to not do all aspects of their jobs.

We have two choices. We can continue to react to issues, deal with individual employee problems, and hope that the rest of our employees get the message, behave themselves and not get caught doing something they should not be doing.

The other choice, and the one we are going to take, is a much broader approach. Expectations need to be clear, especially for frontline employees. And employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance.

We are in the customer service business, but some of the behaviour our customers have encountered recently would suggest otherwise. Our customers pay a fare and the City provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the TTC. This public transit agency belongs to the very people we serve.

As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you – and you alone – are accountable for your actions. The culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end. I hold all of management responsible to make this happen. Reviews and plans are under way to address systemic issues regarding customer service, but real change starts with you.

Gary Webster

Chief General Manager

On the same day, Joe Clark, who writes about many issues including transit, but from a design, signage and accessability perspective, was on a Queen car where the operator clearly was wearing earphones.  When Joe challenged him, the situation escalated including calls for assistance to Transit Control, and officious behaviour from a TTC Supervisor.  Both TTC staffers persisted in claiming that photography on the TTC is illegal (it isn’t, and there is a specific section both in the bylaw and on the TTC website on this subject).

TTC staff may feel under siege from the hordes of camera-bearing riders, but I have absolutely no sympathy.  If they are doing their jobs properly, there will be nothing to photograph.

Joe Clark can be a pain in the butt, but his valid messages are too often ignored by the TTC.  (Even I have been the target of his less than decorous comments.  Some folks consider a mention on his site as almost a badge of honour.)  His frequent letters and deputations to the monthly meetings are almost always “received” (thanks, now bugger off), and hardly anyone at the meeting table pays any attention while he speaks.  That is precisely the sort of treatment that sends guerilla photographers out into the streets looking for the most embarrassing shot they can find.

Good manners start at the very top, even when the customers or deputants at TTC meetings have messages you don’t want to hear.

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TTC Trip Planner Available For Beta Testing (Updated)

Updated February 3 at 10:55:  The TTC added another server to the trip planner last night, and this may explain some of the outages during the evening.

The TTC has announced a trial version of its online trip planner.  Those of us who have played with earlier versions know it has some warts, and the TTC wants your input.  There is a feedback form linked to the planner pages.

The TTC wants feedback from users about the beta version of its trip planner as it continues to develop this tool. When complete, the TTC trip planner will include alternate route suggestions, an expanded points of interest list, a mobile application, the ability to create profiles, and complete integration with e-alerts and service changes. Later this year, the TTC will make its trip planner data openly available to the public and outside organizations, such as Google, so applications can be developed that will be useful to TTC customers.  [From the TTC’s press release]

Please direct technical notes about what it does or doesn’t do to the TTC, and keep track of your submissions (I’m sure the dedicated among us will have many).  The real test will be how quickly changes and fixes are implemented.

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Help Avoid Short Turns (Updated)

Today I received a note in another thread from Drew who said:

I was riding the 512 home last night, and noticed a sign that read:

HELP AVOID SHORT TURNS – EXIT FROM THE REAR DOORS.

There. Short-turns are our fault.

Of course, exiting through the rear doors is written all over every surface vehicle —  it does make boarding/alighting much faster … it could be done without the inference that we cause short-turns.

Now we KNOW on St. Clair, it can’t be traffic causing short-turns (or where, aside from St. Clair West Stn these turns take place), so it must be us.

I too saw this notice on a 504 King car.

Update:   Joe Clark has supplied a photo of the sign.

I was sorely tempted to start a guerilla campaign of my own with signs saying “Manage headways, not schedules”, but I would probably be arrested for defacing TTC property.  I won’t say anything about loading delays caused by three cars leaving the end of the line in a pack with the first one having to wait forever to board passengers at each stop.

Yes, passengers do need to move back, but that’s not the whole story.