Finance

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The War On Metropasses (1)

The National Post reports that the TTC is going to spend $1.5-million to install fare validation equipment in stations and vehicles.

The devices will be similar to the metropass slide readers currently in use at subway stations and will be mounted on top of fare boxes. If a fake pass or token is swiped or dropped in, the devices will beep and a screen will tell operators that a counterfeit has been detected, said TTC Chair Adam Giambrone. The machines will spit fake tokens, he said.  [Full article]

The TTC never rests in finding new ways to slow down service.  One huge advantage of the Metropass is that one simply waves it in the general direction of an operator.  They may nod or say “thanks” or just go about their business, but people can pile onto a vehicle.  Imagine if each pass holder has to swipe their card on entry.  Pay-as-you-enter slows TTC service enough, but Metropass validation?

What will they do for all door-loading at busy stops?  What will they do once streetcars board at all doors and fare handling is self-service?

By the way, the project cost according to the Capital Budget (page 1,179) is $5.368-million, of which a smaller amount is budgeted for 2010.

The TTC may save money on counterfeits, but how much will they lose in service delays?  Do they even care?

If the TTC is looking for cuts in their Capital Budget, this is a prime example.

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TTC Capital Budget 2010-2019 (4): Trimming to Fit

In response to long-term funding constraints at the City of Toronto, the TTC has amended its Capital Budget  to remove about $548-million from the 2010-2019 plan.

“Remove” is not quite the right word, but to explain what is going on, I will first give a short tutorial on how TTC capital planning works.

Above and Below the Line

Capital projects are classified into major groups with the following hierarchy:

  • State of Good Repair & Safety
  • Legislated Requirements
  • Capacity Enhancement
  • Improvement
  • Expansion

In theory, expansion comes last, at least if it has to compete with funding for groups that rank higher in the list.  However, much of the provincial and federal funding is project-based, and this tends to focus on major expansion projects.

“Below the Line” projects are those without funding.  Originally, this category was reserved for large projects, such as the Richmond Hill Subway, that were a gleam in someone’s eye, but for which funding had not yet been committed.  However, this clear distinction has blurred, particularly starting in 2010.

There is a major problem with the term “State of Good Repair and Safety” because, in some cases, a project may be a “nice to do”, not a “need to do”.  If everything is lumped into this category, we are back to the old budgeting style where there is really no distinction made, everything is “top priority”, and funding cutbacks require politicians to perform line-by-line budget surgery.

Continue reading →

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TTC Capital Budget 2010-2019 (3): Bus Fleet Plan (Update 3)

Updated October 28 at 12:45 pm:  A revised fleet plan appears on the Supplementary Agenda for the TTC meeting on October 29 as an appendix to a report regarding the purchase of new buses for 2011 and 2012 delivery.  This version differs from its predecessors mainly in the removal of vehicles for the Transit City Bus Plan, offset by the additional vehicles required due to deferral of the Transit Signal Priority project for the bus network.  Accounting for maintenance spares and contingency buses has also changed.

The net effect is that bus purchases originally planned have been scaled back by 50 and the remainder are rescheduled:

  • from 40 to 35 in 2011,
  • from 105 to 60 in 2012,
  • from 35 to 60 in 2013,
  • from 85 to 40 in 2014,
  • from 55 to 75 in 2015

An order already placed for 120 buses for 2010 is not affected.

I will comment on this in detail after the Capital Budget Update report also on the October 29 agenda is available.

Updated October 24 at 10:00 pm:  A postscript has been added with notes about other known or possible events affecting the bus fleet.

Updated October 24 at 3:45 pm:  Provision for bus route changes triggered by the Spadina Subway Extension have been added to the projection.

The TTC’s proposed 2010-19 Capital Budget includes an ongoing plan to rejuvenate and expand the bus fleet.  While these may seem to be laudable goals, the actual plans leave much to be desired.

The Bus Fleet Plan is a marvellous document that changes in every iteration.  Barely is the ink dry on one version when it is revised again.  There are three different versions of this plan within the Capital Budget documents alone, and these are a substantial revision from the version shown in the 2009 Capital Budget.

Bus Fleet Plan [From Appendix E of TTC Capital Budget Report, September 24, 2009]

However, two different sets of numbers appear in the version of the plan in the Capital Budget “Blue Books” (the detailed report of all capital projects).  One is in the project covering purchase of new buses, and another in a project for temporary accommodation of an enlarged bus fleet (about which more later).

A major change in the TTC’s fleet planning came earlier in 2009 when, with little fanfare, the TTC decided to get out of the Hybrid Bus business for new purchases starting in 2010.  The special subsidies available to “encourage” hybrid purchases are no longer available, and at the time of the decision, the hybrids were problem children in the fleet.  A project to replace the original lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion batteries will complete within the next half year, but TTC staff have not yet reported on the improved reliability and performance, if any, of vehicles with the new batteries.

Rather than paring the capital cost of future purchases down, the Capital Budget now uses this money to purchase more buses than originally planned.  This can be seen in comparing the projected fleet size in 2018 for different versions of the fleet plan.

  • 2009 plan:  1549
  • 2010 plan (as seen in the Commission Report, Appendix E):  1796
  • 2010 plan (as seen in the project description for bus purchases, Blue Books Page 954):  1793
  • 2010 plan (as seen in the project description for temporary bus storage, Page 927):  1748

In short, the TTC now aims for its 2018 fleet to be roughly 250 buses larger than what it projected only a year ago.  What generates this additional requirement? Continue reading →

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The TTC Responds: TTC Times 2 / Riding Around Loops

Recent comments in the thread regarding the split operations on 501 Queen, as well as a reported incident where an operator was unaware that GO Transit could be used as a “bridge” between two TTC routes, led me to send questions for clarification to the TTC’s Director of Corporate Communications, Brad Ross. 

Here, with my comments, are the replies.  The questions have been slightly reformatted so that they can stand outside of the context in which they were written. Continue reading →

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TTC Riding Up, But Not Quite Enough

TTC’s Operating Budget results for the first eight months of 2009 were published in the Chief General Manager’s Report on the Commission Agenda for the meeting of October 29.

Although riding is up 1.9% over 2008, the budgetted expectation was 2.5% and, therefore, the TTC faces a shortfall in farebox revenue.  The drop came mainly in July and August which were affected by the civic workers’ strike and other employment losses.  Although September is beyond the scope of the report, preliminary data shows that ridership is climbing back up to the projected level, and full-year ridership is now projected at 471-million (compared to the budget figure of 473-million).

The average fare is expected to come in at $1.78, two cents below the budgetted value of $1.80, because Metropass and other concession fare use is above budget.  The combined effect of the lower average fare and ridership is $15.7-million less farebox revenue for 2009 that expected.  To put this in perspective, that is on a base of about $900-million in budgetted fares, or less than 2%.

Expenses for 2009 are expected to be almost on target due to a mix of overruns and savings that are roughly in balance.  These arise mainly from unexpected factors such as the severe winter and lower than projected utility costs.

Overall, the TTC projects a deficit $22-million higher than its original budget. 

Continue reading →

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Trial Split of 501 Queen Car (Updated)

Updated October 22 at 10:25 am:

Brad Ross, TTC’s Director of Corporate Communications, advises that effective 9:30 am today all Queen operators will carry passengers around the Shaw/Dufferin and Parliament/Broadview loops, and tell passengers of the layover that may occur.

Also, for those who like to know the internal trivia, the east and west ends of the route are known as “500” and “507” respectively so that they can be scheduled and managed independently.

Original post:

Today, the TTC begins a five-week test of operating the Queen car in two overlapping sections, weekdays only.

  • East end cars will operate between Neville and Shaw, looping via Shaw, King and Dufferin.
  • West end cars will operate between Long Branch or Humber (alternate cars) and Parliament, looping via Parliament, Dundas and Broadview.

Without rehashing many previous posts on this topic, here is a preliminary look at the issues:

  • The design of the overlapped routes may not be ideal, and I hope that it will work well enough that TTC staff don’t reject any alternative arrangements.  Part of the problem is a tradeoff between the number of cars and operators available and the amount of additional service on the route.  A long term arrangement may require a different route configuration and/or even more service.
  • Scheduled service to the outer ends of the line has been cut to provide for the overlap.  The premise is that with more reliable headways and fewer short turns, the actual service provided to Neville and Long Branch will be better than on the unified route.  However, the AM peak is not, for the most part, affected by congestion and short turns were comparatively rare.  Will the reduced service be able to handle demand outside of the overlapped section downtown?
  • Overlapped TTC services have a long history of badly managed integration.  This can be seen with the  behaviour of 502 Downtowner cars that often pull out from McCaul or Kingston Road right behind a 501 Queen and carry as few passengers as possible.  How many times will we see pairs of east and west end cars travel across the central part of Queen together?
  • Both turnbacks involve on-street loops.  Cars waiting for their scheduled departure times may be pushed out by other services, or may simply create congestion of their own while laying over in the middle of the street.
  • On the brighter side, both scheduled turnbacks are  far enough away from Yonge Street that even a short turn (say westbound at Bathurst or eastbound at Church) will maintain service in the heart of downtown.

With shorter routes, the need for recovery time should be reduced as operators won’t face a 90-minute more trip between termini.  For the east end service, recovery times are no more than 4 minutes (peak periods). 

In the west end, recovery times are longer, but these are mainly intended to make the schedule merge at Humber work properly — the difference between Humber and Long Branch trip times must always be a multiple of the headway.  For example, in the early evening, the Long Branch cars get 13 minutes “recovery” so that their round trips differ by one hour (four times the 15-minute headway) from the Humber cars.  Later in the evening, the difference in round trips is only 38 minutes (two times the 19-minute headway), and the Long Branch runs get only 4 minutes recovery.

This thread is intended as a repository for observations and comments about the split route operation, and I am particularly interested in hearing from regular users of the Queen car on their day-to-day experiences.

I have asked the TTC for their vehicle monitoring data for the months of October and November for the 501 and will publish an analyses of route behaviour comparing the unified and split operations.

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TTC Capital Budget 2010-2019 (2): Subway Fleet and Service Plans

The TTC Capital Budget contains many projects related to subway fleet, capacity and future operations.  Collectively, these projects amount to billions of dollars and many of them are not yet funded.

There are two major problems faced by subway planners:

  • Everything has a very long lead time, and plans made today need to balance between overspending on capacity we might not need and underspending that could produce future constraints on service.
  • Everything costs a lot of money, and unexpected additions to the budget can crowd out other necessary projects.

Large organizations and projects share issues familiar to many:

  • Left hand, right hand.  One department plans on the assumption that another project will actually happen in the announced manner and on a definite timescale.  Plans change, but co-ordination is less than perfect, and plans go out of sync.
  • In for a penny, in for a pound.  A project is “sold” politically on the basis of improvements it can bring.  However, actually achieving these improvements triggers the need for many follow-on works that are not budgeted.  Proponents of the first project in this chain innocently claim that they were simply creating the ability for some future enhancement.  Privately the attitude may be that the politicians would never approve something if they knew how much it would actually cost.  In a robust economy, the extra funding is always found somewhere, but when times are tight, budget surprises are unwelcome.

Both of these effects can be seen in the TTC’s subway fleet and service plans. Continue reading →

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TTC Capital Budget 2010-2019

The TTC’s Capital Budget Report is now available online.  I will not comment on this in detail until after the staff presentation at the Commission meeting on September 24.

Of particular note, although it is not mentioned explicitly in the Capital Budget Report, the TTC now has an “SRT Conversion and Expansion project” that is mentioned on Page 6 of the July Chief General Manager’s Report.  Presumably there will be more information about this at Thursday’s meeting.

Such a change has long been rumoured by staff at the various community EA meetings, but we have never actually seen an LRT, as opposed to ICTS, design for the RT and its Malvern extension.

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Those Too-Popular Metropasses (Update 2)

Update 2, 4:45 pm September 23:  The Chief General Manager’s Report for the period to the start of August 2009 is now online.  In this, we learn:

  • The change in average fare revenue is 2.32, not 3, cents per rider due both to higher pass sales and greater use of concession fares (children, students, seniors) (page 3).
  • Revenue loss due to ridership being below budget accounts for $3.4-million, while the lower average fare cointributes $7.6-million.  (Both of these are only for the seven months to the end of July.)
  • Yearend revenue shortfall from fares will lie between $15- and $19-million depending on ridership results through the fall.
  • Yearend revenue from advertising and other income (mainly interest) will be $3.6-million below budget.
  • Expenses are expected to be over budget due to the combined effect of:
    • Inglis building flood remediation ($1.4-million)
    • Higher service requirement from city construction ($2-million)
    • Higher overtime due to staff shortage (gapping), maintenance backlog and severe winter weather ($3.5-million)
    • Vehicle maintenance needs ($4-million)
    • Other changes ($0.3-million)
  • Savings on expenses include:
    • Lower energy rates and water consumption ($4.9-million)
    • Employee cost reductions ($2-million)
    • Planned service reductions ($1.9-million).  It is unclear whether these are reductions still to come, or if this is the saving versus budget of cuts imposed by availability problems with the bus fleet. 
  • The following actions will be taken to address the anticipated $17.4-million shortfall:
    • Some service improvements planned for fall 2009 will be deferred until mid-2010 (no list is given).
    • Overtime will be curtailed.  The effect on service availability is not addressed, but we do know that there were problems with fielding all service late in 2008 due to similar actions.
    • There will be a comprehensive review of hiring and training for operators.  This is intended to address a surge in retirements caused by demographics of the operator workforce.
    • All discretionary expenses in departments will be reviewed.
  • Page 6 mentions “the SRT Conversion and Expansion project”.  Although this is not explicitly mentioned in the Capital Budget report, we are about to see the TTC announce the conversion of the SRT to LRT technology.  This has long been rumoured, and finally has shown up in print.

Continue reading →

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Service Changes for September 2009 (Updated)

Many service changes are coming this fall to the TTC network and they fall into a number of broad categories.

Seasonal Changes

The summer service changes are, for the most part, reversed in September as tourist/amusement traffic falls off and school traffic returns.  Subway and RT services return to normal “winter” levels.

Construction Changes (streetcar lines only)

The Dundas Street watermain work between Bathurst and Dovercourt is supposed to complete by the end of August, and both the 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton routes will revert to their May 2009 routings and service levels. 

Updated September 4:  The 505 Dundas car will operate via Spadina and College west to Lansdowne and thence to Dundas West Station.  A bus service will operate from Dundas West Station to Beverley Street (the west side of the Art Gallery of Ontario).

Work at Bingham Loop will continue, and the 502/503 services on Kingston Road will continue to operate with buses until the October schedule change.

Work at Queen & Church on watermains and track will continue, and the diversion of Queen and Downtowner routes around this area remains until the roads are open for traffic, possibly in late September.

Updated September 4:  The Queen and Downtowner routes will revert to their standard routing.

Work on Roncesvalles will continue until late 2010.

Fleet Availability

In February 2009, there were many service cuts in response to the poor availability of hybrid buses.  This situation continues to some extent, but some of the February cuts have been restored with a few service improvements added.

I have formatted the information in my usual manner for this site, boiling down a much longer TTC document to show service and riding levels, headways, and the rationale for changes (or lack of them).  In this case, I have colour coded the chart to make it easier to see the types of change applicable to each route.

  • Blue:  A service restoration and/or improvement
  • Orange Italics:  A service cut that was made in February 2009 and remains in place.  Note that the headway changes shown for these cases took place in February and are simply continuing into September.  In some cases, the before and after ridership has been updated by the TTC with recent counts.
  • Red Italics Underscored:  A service cut that was made in February has been confirmed as permanent in response to lower ridership.

In theory, when bus availability improves later in 2009, the “orange” list here will see service restored at least to pre-February levels.