Coxwell Bus

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TTC Headway Reliability on Small Routes (Part I)

Many of the service analyses on this site concern larger, major routes like the streetcar lines and bus routes crossing substantial distances in the suburbs. The picture of service quality is not a pretty one. Starting with this article, I will review service on several of the shorter routes, many with infrequent service, to see how the TTC fares. Short routes get frequent stops at terminals where headways can be reset, but irregular service can mean long waits for riders.

Many of these routes show very irregular service and one cannot help asking how this affects ridership. The TTC talks about improving service on major routes with interventions such as reserved lanes, but seems incapable of managing headways on relatively minor routes. There is a parallel here with declining maintenance quality where issues with the “little things that don’t matter” start to bleed into the major services and the system drives away as many riders as new services might attract.

Common problems seen on most of the routes reviewed here are:

  • Headways do not generally stay within a narrow band, but can be badly scattered especially for evening and weekend service.
  • In spite of this scatter, it is quite possible that the routes meet the TTC’s service standards which merge performance over an entire day, and provide a wide margin for data points outside of the target range (40%).
  • Review of the detailed tracking data (not included here in the interest of space) shows that some of the widest gaps occur because of missing buses. There is a metric in the service standards for missed trips with a goal to “minimize” them, albeit with no target. Trips can be missed because no operator or vehicle is available, or because of a short turn before a bus reaches the terminal, or because of such extreme lateness that it might as well not have operated. This statistic has never been reported in the monthly service quality metrics.
  • Bus bunching occurs even on routes with scheduled headways of 20-30 minutes, and this can persist for multiple trips showing little effort to space out service. Where the quality metric is “on time performance”, spacing service to compensate for bunched or missing vehicles can actually work against a “good” score even though what riders see would be more reliable.

Routes included in this article are:

8 Broadview
15 Evans
19 Bay
22 Coxwell
23 Dawes
26 Dupont

31 Greenwood
49 Bloor West
50 Burnhamthorpe
62 Mortimer
64 Main
65 Parliament

An additional 13 routes will be included in Part II of this series.

65 Parliament
70 O’Connor
72 Pape
75 Sherbourne
83 Jones
88 South Leaside

91 Woodbine
92 Woodbine South
111 East Mall
112 West Mall
114 Queens Quay East
154 Curran Hall
168 Symington

After the “more” break, data for one route, 8 Broadview, are shown in detail as an introduction. Further routes are shown only in summary, but with links to PDFs containing all of the charts for readers interested in them.

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TTC Service Changes Effective Sunday, September 3, 2023 (Preliminary)

This is a preliminary version based on GTFS data (the standard format for transit schedules used by online services) and some Service Advisories on the TTC site. I expect to receive the full list of September service changes early in the week of August 28 and will update this article accordingly including the usual detailed comparison of service levels.

Updated August 26 at 9:15 pm: 512 St. Clair updated to reflect complete bus replacement for work at various locations on the line.

Updated August 27 at 4:30 pm: At 10:30 am on August 28, the Mayor, TTC Chair and CEO will hold a press conference at STC Station to “outline how the TTC will increase service beginning September and into the fall.”

Updated August 29 at 5:30 pm: Due to changes in the Metrolinx schedule for work on the Lake Shore East Queen Street bridge, there has been a further revision of planned service. Please see this post for details.

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Preliminary List of Service Changes July-September 2023

At the TTC Board Meeting, management presented plans for coming service changes to the Board.

When I receive the detailed plans for coming schedule periods, I will post the usual omnibus articles.

Updated July 13, 2023: The eastern terminus of the 506C bus has been corrected to Victoria Park Station.

Updated July 14, 2023: The 506 Carlton street service will resume on Gerrard East to Coxwell on Monday, July 17.

Updated July 15, 2023: The map of the revised 506 Carlton routing has been posted by the TTC.

Week of July 17 (Updated)

With the completion of water main and track work at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard, the 506 Carlton cars will be extended east from Broadview via Coxwell to Woodbine Loop on July 17. Service to Victoria Park Station will continue to be provided by the 506C Carlton bus.

Through bus service on Coxwell from Danforth to Queen will be restored on July 30 when 22 Coxwell return.

July 30

Several changes will occur on Sunday, July 30 including adjustments in response to demand levels, scheduling improvements and construction work.

The 31 Greenwood bus route which has been operating temporarily via an expanded south end loop will be permanently extended to Queen & Eastern Avenue.

The 506 Carlton route will be shifted to Dundas West Station as its western terminus to permit water main construction on Howard Park Avenue.

September 3

Streetcar service will return to Long Branch with 501 Queen cars running to Humber Loop, and 507 Long Branch cars from Humber to Long Branch. The peak period 508 Lake Shore (via King) will also return.

Streetcar service will return to Upper Gerrard and Main Street Station with completion of construction work there.

Streetcars will be replaced on Queen East and on St. Clair for construction.

On 501 Queen, the Ontario Line work at Degrassi (east of Broadview) will require bus service in place of streetcars. As previously announced, the temporary 505 Dundas service to Woodbine Loop will be routed via Gerrard and Coxwell due to the Metrolinx work on Queen.

On St. Clair, reconstruction of St. Clair West Station Loop will require buses over the entire 512 route. This will also affect 33 Forest Hill and 126 Christie (which will interline rather than looping at St. Clair West), and 90 Vaughan which will be extended south to Bathurst Station.

Reconstruction of Dufferin Loop will alter the south end loop arrangements for the 29/929 Dufferin services, and the 504B King to Dufferin service will be extended to Roncesvalles.

The duration of these new construction projects has not been announced.

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Service Analysis of the 505 Dundas/Bingham Diversion (Part I)

On May 7, 2023, the eastern terminus of 505 Dundas shifted from Broadview Station to Bingham Loop due to sewer work, track construction and road paving on Broadview north of Gerrard. This will continue into at least the late Fall 2023.

This operation was not a success by any measure with extremely erratic service on Kingston Road where the 505 replaced the 22 Coxwell bus and the 503 Kingston Road streetcar. Service on the main part of 505 Dundas from Broadview to Dundas West Station has also become less reliable.

July 4, 2023, service changes (505 Dundas was cut back to Woodbine Loop and 503 Kingston Road buses (running as unscheduled extras) provided service to Bingham until 8pm to correct this problem, but riders endured almost two months of bad service. This affected not just Kingston Road but the entire 505 Dundas route.

This article reviews service during the May-June 2023 period when 505 Dundas cars ran to Bingham with comparisons to the “before” conditions on routes 505, 503 and 22. It is a long article with many charts for those who are interested in the details of how this service has behaved over the past six months. In Part II I will turn to reviews of operations on a sample of days in May-June.

In brief, the May schedules unwound improvements made in February that adjusted travel times to better match conditions. Moreover, Februrary saw major service cuts to the 505 Dundas route which compounded with less reliable service to make for much wider gaps between cars. In many ways, this was an “own goal” by the TTC.

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Where Is My Diversion Notice (July 2/23 Edition) (Update 2)

Oh the irony! The TTC’s Annual Service Plan consultations are all about how to handle a few (but not all) of the construction projects coming in 2024, but the elephant in the room remains bad communications and changes on the fly.

The new routes implemented in May and June 2023 were in cases impractical thanks to a combination of unduly optimistic running times in schedules, less than adequate transit priority and line management whose priority was not the provision of well-spaced, reliable service. Several changes will take effect on July 4 and 5 to correct some of these problems, but the information is scattered through the TTC’s website, if you can find it at all.

First, a summary of the changes:

  • The 501/504 shuttle bus (an ad hoc service implemented to cover for the absence of the 503 Kingston Road car to King Street downtown) will be rebranded as “503” and will serve Kingston Road to Bingham Loop until 8pm every day. This will become a scheduled bus service at the end of July, and will revert to 503 streetcars likely in October.
  • The 505 Dundas car will only operate east on Queen from Broadview to Woodbine Loop, except after 8pm when service to Bingham will be provided by streetcars.
  • The 506 Carlton car will only operate to Queen and Broadview and will return west to route via Queen and Parliament Streets without running east to Woodbine Loop.
  • The 512 St. Clair car will be restored, temporarily, west of Lansdowne to Gunns Loop. While it lasts, this will correct for the erratic service now provided there by the 47 Lansdowne extension.

The challenge is to find out that this is happening to your route. The TTC website is very poorly organized with information in many places that is inconsistently placed and linked (or not) to the main route pages affected. Some items are out of date, but remain in place to confuse riders. Some items describe major changes but are hard to find if you don’t know the site in detail.

These are the hallmarks of a site maintained by many groups each with its own (probably jealously guarded) responsibility for providing information. Nobody appears to care about overall site consistency and ease of navigation, or if they do, are in any position to change what is a clearly broken process. Some information is just plain wrong indicating that whoever created or updated the page was either sloppy, or does no know what is actually happening.

Updated July 4, 2023 at 7:10am: Changes to the TTC website since this article was posted are noted in various places below.

Updated July 5, 2023 at 4:30pm: Changes to the TTC website since the July 4 update are noted throughout the article.

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Construction on Broadview, Gerrard/Coxwell, Main Station and Queen East (June 2023 Update)

This article describes the transit services affected by various construction project in the east end and the changes that will take effect on Sunday, June 18, 2023. This is a follow-on to my original article, and some of the information there is out of date due to changes in the TTC’s plans.

Information and maps in this article are taken from a presentation to the TTC Board meeting of June 12, 2023.

Updated June 14, 2023: Information about the 304 King Night Bus added.

Construction projects affecting streetcar service are summarized in the map below. Some of this work is underway or completed already.

  • TTC overhead upgrades for Flexity streetcar operation with pantographs on King and Kingston Road was completed in the Spring. All routes in the system now operate with pans, although there are selected areas that have not been modified yet and operators must switch to trolley poles if cars run there.
  • Repairs to the Queen Street Don Bridge were completed a few weeks ago, and streetcars are now operating over the bridge, albeit only for carhouse moves and short turns.
  • Repairs at Main Station are underway and will continue through the summer.
  • The sewer work at Coxwell & Gerrard has completed, and work will now shift to track replacement.
  • Sewer work on Broadview is underway.

Changes Effective June 18, 2023

Here is a map showing the route configuration from June 18 to July 29, 2023.

The major service change is that there will be no north-south service on Broadview from Danforth to Gerrard due to track and road reconstruction. Work in this area includes:

  • Reconstruction and expansion of Broadview Station streetcar loop to accommodate two streetcars at a time on both the 504 King and 505 Dundas platforms. The first phase of this (June 18 to early July) will require Broadview to be closed to traffic from Erindale to Danforth for track replacement. Work will shift into the loop in a second phase to allow streets to re-open. The planned expansion of the loop has been deferred.
  • Track reconstruction between Gerrard and Danforth. The first phase (July 4 to early August) will run from Victor to Sparkhall with track storage between Gerrard and Victor. (See maps in the original article linked above.)

The affected routes are:

  • 504/505 Broadview/Parliament shuttle bus: This route will not operate and there will be no bus service on Broadview between Danforth and Gerrard and beyond to King & Parliament. This will be replaced by:
  • 72A Pape: This branch of the Pape bus now operates to Pape and Eastern Avenue, but it will be redirected and extended effective June 18 to operate west from Pape on Queen and King to loop as Parliament the way the 504/505 has been doing.
  • The 304 King Night Bus will operate to Pape Station via Queen, Carlaw, Riverdale and Pape.
  • Not shown on the map but also effective on June 18:
    • 100 Flemingdon Park: This route now operates to Broadview Station, but it will shift east to Pape Station effective June 18.
    • 8 Broadview, 62 Mortimer and 87 Cosburn will remain at Broadview Station, but looping arrangements have not been announced for the various stages of construction.

In the previous article, based on maps in a March 2023 presentation regarding Main Station, there was a new route “519” that would split off the west end of the 72B Pape to Union Station service. This proposal is not part of the June 18 package, and the 72B will continue to serve Union Station.

The 501B Queen shuttle bus will be modified to improve its westbound connection with the 501 Queen streetcars. Before June 18, the 501B loops north on Broadview to Gerrard, west to River and south to Queen. This loop will be changed so that buses run south on River only to Dundas, and then return east to Broadview and south to Queen. This will provide an overlap between the 501B and 501 services at Broadview in both directions.

The 501 and 505 streetcars will continue on the same diversions and schedules:

  • 501 Queen cars will operate via McCaul, Dundas and Broadview to bypass Ontario Line construction, and thence east to Neville Loop.
  • 505 Dundas cars will operate via Broadview, Queen and Kingston Road to Bingham Loop at Victoria Park.

The 506 streetcar diversion will be changed westbound:

  • 506 Carlton cars will operate eastbound from Gerrard and Broadview via Broadview and Queen to Woodbine Loop at Kingston Road.
  • Westbound 506 cars will change their route. Until June 17 it is (officially) via Queen, Broadview, Dundas and Parliament to the regular route at Gerrard. This will change on June 18 to run via Queen and Parliament to Gerrard. Many cars do this already.
  • The schedule for 506 Carlton has not been updated and is still short of running time. Many cars will likely continue to short turn at Broadview and return west rather than going east to Woodbine Loop.

The pseudo-503 Kingston Road service will continue to be provided by 504/501 buses running from Kingston Road & Queen to York & King. These buses are now scheduled as part of the 501 service and should appear on tracking apps. Current plans call for the 503 service from Bingham Loop to King & York to return as a bus at the end of July, and as a streetcar in the Fall.

Track reconstruction at Coxwell & Lower Gerrard will cause changes in three routes:

  • 22 Coxwell, which has been operating between Danforth and Queen with diversions enroute, will be suspended.
  • 31 Greenwood will operate from Coxwell Station (its current terminus during reconstruction of its home station for accessibility) to Woodbine Loop via Danforth, Greenwood and Queen. The routing at the south end via Eastern Avenue is not known as I write this.
  • 506C Carlton bus service will continue to run between Castle Frank and Victoria Park Stations, but it will divert via Greenwood, Danforth and Coxwell to Upper Gerrard in both directions. 506C buses will make on street stops at Coxwell & Danforth. They will not enter Coxwell Station.

There will be no service on Coxwell between Upper Gerrard and Queen. The normal 22, 31 and 506C routes will resume on July 30.

Reconstruction of Main Station continues through the summer. All of the bus changes with route interlines and extensions to Victoria Park Station will remain in effect.

The TTC has three key messages about the pending changes.

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Construction on Broadview, Gerrard/Coxwell, Main Station and Queen East

Updated June 13, 2023 at 2:50pm: The proposed expansion of Broadview Station Loop has been deferred to an unspecified date. Street trackage at the loop will be replaced this year as planned. The planned removal of most bus service from Broadview Station will not occur. Routes 8 Broadview and 62 Mortimer will continue to serve the station. Route 100 Flemingdon Park will be rerouted to Pape Station where it will interline with 72A Pape to King and Parliament.

Other changes have been made in future plans and this article should be used only for historical reference to the original plans. See also:

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TTC Service Changes Effective February 13, 2022

In the February 2022 service changes, the TTC will begin to restore some of the pandemic-era service cuts. Many of the affected routes are comparatively short and operate on headways where the removal of one or two buses made a big change in the level of service. At the same time, running times on some routes will be adjusted for reliability including some cases where service is improved by reducing round times.

The total amount of service remains below the budgeted level by 1.8 per cent in light of reduced operator availability.

About 20 crews remain open at each division, and they would be staffed using spare operators or overtime.

Vehicle occupancy standards will be changing for the purpose of planning service levels. I will discuss the TTC’s plans for the timing of service improvements in a separate budget update article to be published soon.

The TTC will be modifying the vehicle occupancy standard in the February board period in preparation for projected increases in ridership in Q2 2022 (50% of pre-pandemic levels) and Q3 2022 (70% of pre-pandemic levels). The vehicle occupancy standard will be adjusted to 80% of pre-pandemic levels or approximately 40 customers per bus in the AM and PM peak periods (measured at the peak point, peak direction, peak hour for each period). In addition, to accommodate this increase in customer demand, service hours are also budgeted to increase in Q2 2022 to 100% of pre-pandemic levels.

Subway

There is only one change on the subway. The step-back crewing for One Person Train Operation (aka OPTO) on the Spadina Subway at St. George Station will be changed to a double step-back to give operators more time between trains and reduce delays.

Streetcar

The following changes will occur on streetcar routes:

  • 501 Queen:
    • Streetcar service is restored via Queen to Wolseley Loop at Bathurst Street. It will be further extended to Sunnyside Loop in May.
    • The travel times on the bus service between Broadview and Humber/Long Branch will be reduced. No buses will be removed from the schedule, and headways will improve.
  • 505 Dundas:
    • The temporary extension to Woodbine Loop has been removed.
    • Four AM bus trippers from Broadview Station that originate from 100 Flemingdon Park have been restored.
    • Service to Broadview Station will resume with the schedule change in late June. (Presumably this will also see 504 King return to Broadview Station as well, although it is not explicitly mentioned in the TTC’s service change memo.)
  • 506 Carlton:
    • Streetcar service is restored over the full route following sewer construction on Coxwell Avenue.
    • Four AM peak bus trippers from Main Station that originate on 23 Dawes, 24 Victoria Park and 67 Pharmacy have been restored.

The total number of buses operating on streetcar routes has been reduced:

  • AM peak: From 88 to 83 (net of 8 restored trippers on 505 and 506)
  • PM peak: From 81 to 66

The TOInview infrastructure project map now includes the reconstruction of streetcar track on Adelaide from Charlotte Street to Yonge Street as a 2022-23 project. This is part of the Ontario Line diversion, but it also will give eastbound service a bypass for events on King and Queen between Spadina and Church. The addition of a southbound track on York Street is not yet listed on TOInview.

Buses

The following routes will see changes, most of which are service restorations to fall 2021 levels.

  • 8 Broadview: Schedules changed for reliability. Late evening headway increases from 20 to 30 minutes on all days.
  • 9 Bellamy: Service improvement weekdays during the peaks, midday and early evening.
  • 11 Bayview: An AM peak tripper removed in error in December has been restored.
  • 12 Kingston Road: Service improvements during weekday peaks, Saturday morning, Sunday morning and afternoon.
  • 20 Cliffside: Service improvements during all periods except Monday to Saturday late evening, and Sunday evenings.
  • 22 Coxwell: Running times increased and service reduced during most periods.
  • 23 Dawes, 24 Victoria Park and 67 Pharmacy: Trippers interlined with 506 Carlton restored.
  • 25 Don Mills: AM peak trippers removed. School trips restored.
  • 42 Cummer: Peak period service improvement. 42C Victoria Park service restored.
  • 45 Kipling: Service rebalanced between Steeles and Belfield branches so that matching headways operate on each branch.
  • 50 Burnhamthorpe: Service improvements during all daytime periods and weekday early evenings.
  • 57 Midland: Service improvements weekdays all day except midday, Saturdays except late evening and Sunday daytime.
  • 61 Avenue Road North: Service improvements weekday peak periods and midday.
  • 76 Royal York South: School trips restored.
  • 78 St. Andrew’s: Service improvement during weekday peaks.
  • 100 Flemingdon Park: Four AM peak trippers interlined with 505 Dundas restored.
  • 161 Rogers Road: Service improved during all periods on weekdays, offset by service reductions in some periods on weekends.
  • 168 Symington: Service improved during all periods on weekdays, offset by service reductions in some periods on weekends.
  • 925 Don Mills Express: Weekend operation restored.
  • 600 Run as Directed: Weekday crews reduced. Weekend crews substantially increased. Although this is not explicitly mentioned, weekend subway shutdowns for maintenance and construction will resume in February.
  • 300 Bloor-Danforth Night Bus: Several trippers have been added, especially on Sundays, to deal with crowding on trips in the period before the subway opens.

Details of these changes are in the spreadsheet linked below.

2022.02.13_Service_Changes
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Service Reliability on 22 Coxwell: Part I August 2021

This is the first of a series of articles reviewing service quality on short routes. A fundamental problem across the TTC network is that service is unreliable with bunching, gaps, missing vehicles and crowding all contributing to making transit less attractive than it could be.

Many routes that get a lot of attention are quite long, and there is a raft of standard explanations for their problems. Traffic congestion and construction are chief among these, along with road accidents, ill passengers and “security” incidents. However, there are severe problems with service reliability on short routes where most of the standard explanations simply do not apply, and where the TTC should be able to maintain service like clockwork.

These routes are short enough that the source of problems is easily spotted in the tracking data for TTC buses. The two most common problems are:

  • Buses are missing from service probably because no operator is available to drive the vehicle, and a near-embargo on overtime leaves scheduled work unfilled.
    • Where buses are missing, service is not always adjusted on the fly by Transit Control to space out the remaining vehicles and the result is large gaps where missing vehicles should be.
  • Some operators simply prefer to drive in packs even though they are reasonably close to their schedules. At times, pairs (or worse) of vehicles will make multiple trips close together showing that there was no attempt to space service.

There is a distinctive difference between missing and bunched buses in the data.

Where a bus is missing, headways will widen either where that bus should have been, or overall if the remaining service is spaced out. Where buses are bunched, there will be corresponding short and long headways where two or three buses arrive together followed by gap much wider than the average headway.

In worst-case situations, which happen too often for comfort, most or all of the route’s buses run together in a convoy. These are eventually broken apart, but the convoy should not have been allowed to develop in the first place.

In brief, there are times when nobody is minding the store and riders suffer. In the two months of data reviewed here and in Part II to follow, these problems are not one-off instances, but repeated events.

On 22 Coxwell, the service on the weekday shuttle between Danforth and Queen is usually well-behaved, but come evenings and weekends when the route extends east via Kingston Road to Bingham Loop at Victoria Park, the service can be very erratic.

In this article, service will be shown at three locations:

  • Coxwell south of Danforth, southbound. This is the service shortly after it departs from Coxwell Station.
  • Coxwell north of Queen, northbound. This is the daytime service shortly after it departs Eastern Avenue for the trip north. On weekends and evenings, this is a mid-point of the route.
  • Kingston Road west of Bingham, westbound. This is the evening and weekend service after it leaves the eastern terminal.

To save space, the charts are presented as galleries which readers can open at any page and scroll back-and-forth to make comparisons. Full sets of charts, including illustrations not included in the body of the article, are linked as PDFs after each gallery.

In the text describing the charts tracking vehicle movements, I refer to buses by the colour of the line rather than the run number because this saves readers from having to translate via a legend. Each day’s colour allocations are independent of the others, and they occur in order of vehicle numbers in the underlying data. For example, the “pink” bus is a different run number each day depending on the vehicles assigned to the route.

For those who have not encountered these charts before, there is an introductory primer. For those who want to know how the underlying machinery to produce these analyses works, there is a detailed article about methodology.

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