Night Service

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TTC Service Changes for March 26, 2023 (Preliminary Version, Updated)

In response to budgetary limitations, the TTC will be modifying service on several routes in two waves of changes. The first will occur on Sunday, March 26 and the second on Sunday, May 6. Details of the second wave are not yet available.

The first wave is detailed in a report to the TTC Board for its meeting of February 28, 2023.

This report shows the changes in headways and service levels on affected routes. It is not as detailed as the Service Memo that will come out just before these schedules are implemented, nor as the Scheduled Service Summary. When the fine details including changes in travel time and vehicle allocations are available, I will publish the usual breakdown.

Updated February 23, 2023 at 9:00am: A table consolidating old and new headways where changes occur has been added. The times in this table is shown in “mm:ss” format rather than in decimal minutes as in the original tables. The new version is at the end of the article.

Updated February 23, 2023 at 10:00pm: The tables in this article have been consolidated for simplicity. All times are now shown in mm’ss” format. The new version is at the end of the article replacing the version that was added earlier.

My apologies for the constant reformatting. With the widespread desire to see what the changes would be, I pushed the original tables out faster than I might otherwise, and my readers got to watch as I tweaked the format. The intent is to have a standard chart that will be used for all future comparisons of service.

Changes of Special Note

Within the list of changes, there are a few worth highlighting:

Subway Services

  • Service on 2 Bloor-Danforth will improve slightly in the AM peak, but will drop in other periods notably late evenings when trains will operate every 8 rather than every 5 minutes on weekdays.
  • Service on 4 Sheppard will be cut from 4 trains at all times to 3 with a corresponding widening of headways from 5’30” to 7’20”.

Express Services

Service will be suspended on the following routes and periods:

  • 935 Jane Express weekday evenings
  • 941 Keele Express weekday midday
  • 943 Kennedy Express peak periods
  • 984 Sheppard West Express weekends

In most cases, the local service will not be improved to compensate, and indeed there are local service cuts as well.

501 Queen Streetcar

Weekday service on 501 Queen will be reduced considerably except late evenings.

60/960 Steeles West

The 60C peak period service west of Pioneer Village Station to Kipling will be suspended.

Service Improvements

The 128 Stanley Greene bus was approved by the Board in the 2021 Service Plan, but was not yet implemented. It will begin operation during peak periods on a half-hourly headway.

The 335 Jane Night Bus will operate every 20 minutes rather than half hourly Monday-Friday (which effectively means Tuesday to Saturday).

The 336 Finch West Night Bus will operate every 10 minutes rather than half hourly after 5am Monday-Friday.

These changes are presented in the context of improvements to Neighbourhood Improvement Areas. The same cannot be said for the many service cuts affecting NIAs.

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TTC Service Changes January 8, 2023

The TTC will modify many routes on January 8, 2023, although most of the changes are small tweaks rather than a significant overhaul of service. Current changes are achieved mainly by reallocation of vehicles, modification of running times and headway adjustments.

Updated January 3, 2023 at 4:35pm: A table showing the number of replacement buses on streetcar routes has been added.

In the January schedule period, the planned weekly service is down from November 2022 levels. That is the appropriate comparison because the “December” schedules only cover the holiday period when service is reduced. All of these reductions have been reversed in the January schedules, and some school trips have been added beyond the November level.

Service in the latter part of 2022 ran below budget because riding had not rebounded as quickly as originally hoped across the system. January 2023 continues at a similar level, and a service budget has not yet been published, let alone approved.

Hours/WeekRegular ServiceConstruction ServiceTotal
Nov 2022 Budget182,0164,492186,508
Nov 2022 Planned173,2494,187177,436
Dec 2022 Planned170,7083,779174,387
Jan 2023 Planned171,8025,175176,977
Source: TTC Service Change Memos for November/December 2022 and January 2023

Subway Service

There is no change in subway service for January 2023.

Streetcar Service

506 Carlton will return to its normal route over its entire length after an extended sojourn on Dundas Street. The 306 night service will return to streetcar operation. Construction of streetscape changes on College Street is not yet complete, but this will not require a diversion in 2023.

Some streetcar routes will have new schedules:

  • 509 Harbourfront and 510 Spadina will be modified to reduce layover conflicts at Union and Spadina Stations.
  • Service on 509 Harbourfront will be reduced to match demand in some periods.
  • Sunday early evening service on 510 Spadina will be changed so that all cars operate as 510A to Union rather than a split service with 510B turning back at Queens Quay. This matches the Saturday service pattern.
  • 512 St. Clair service will be reduced to match demand during some periods.

The allocation of routes to carhouses will change slightly to balance resources. The table below includes a long absent route “507 Long Branch” and the temporarily suspended “508 Lake Shore”, but not the “502 Downtowner”. Make of that what you will.

The number of buses operating on streetcar routes for construction projects is shown in the table below.

Bus Service

Routing Changes

29/329 Dufferin

Due to construction for the Ontario Line’s Exhibition Station, the 29 and 329 Dufferin services will be rerouted as shown in the maps below.

43B Kennedy and 985A Sheppard STC Services

These routes will be modified to access Scarborough Town Centre via a different path in order to provide connecting stops with the temporary GO bus terminal.

95C York Mills and 996 Wilson Express Service to Ellesmere Station

The 95C York Mils branch will be dropped, and in its place the 996 Wilson Express will be extended east to Ellesmere Station.

The levels of service in the “before” and “after” configurations are compared below.

Buses/HourAM Pk PreAM Pk PostMidday PreMidday PostPM Pk PrePM Pk Post
95A Pt Union7.563.365.56
95C Ellesmere Stn7.53.35.5
995 UTSC5.553.83.85.55
996 Ellesmere Stn6.74.86
Total to Ellesmere Stn20.517.710.414.616.517
Total to UTSC13117.110.81111

Other affected bus routes

  • 600 Run As Directed: The number of scheduled RAD buses is deeply reduced with only 6 weekday crews and none on weekends. Divisions will assign buses locally depending on operator availability.
  • 19 Bay: An AM peak tripper to handle demand to the waterfront will be created by diverting one 503 Kingston Road bus to run eastbound as a Bay bus to Dockside Drive and Queens Quay, then deadhead to Broadview and Queen to resume service on the 503.
  • 20 Cliffside and 113 Danforth: Headways will be standardized so that an evenly blended service can operate from Main Station on these overlapped routes.
  • 25 Don Mills: The split branch structure north and south of Don Mills Station will be extended into the early evening on weekdays.
  • 925 Don Mills Express: Trips added during peak periods to match demand.
  • 939 Finch Express: Midday and PM peak service improved, evening service reduced.
  • 41 Keele: Service reduced to match demand.
  • 44/944 Kipling South: Some early express trips will be replaced with local buses. Two school trips from 44 Kipling South will interline with 76 Royal York South school trips.
  • 945 Kipling Express: AM peak service improved.
  • 48 Rathburn and 112 West Mall: PM school trips serving Michael Power Saint Joseph HS will be changed to match dismissal times.
  • 52 Lawrence West: A new trip will be added from Westwood Mall at 6:52am to accommodate demand. A new trip will be added between Lawrence and Lawrence West Stations in the early PM peak. This is a hook-up with an existing school trip.
  • 57 Midland: Service reductions to match demand.
  • 60C/960 Steeles West: Service between Pioneer Village Station and Kipling on the 60C branch will be reduced in peak periods to match demand. This will be offset by improvement to the express service.
  • 960 Steeles West Express: Early evening service reduced.
  • 63 Ossington: Service modified for resiliency and to match demand (mainly reductions).
  • 68/968 Warden: Schedules adjusted for reliability with less frequent service during many periods.
  • 79 Scarlett Road: Service reduction weekdays in peak and midday periods.
  • 86 Scarborough: Zoo shuttle will operate only on Saturday to serve Terra Lumina. Sunday service dropped.
  • 95/995 York Mills an 96/996 Wilson: 996 Express service extended to Ellesmere Station replacing the 95C local service (see map above). Service changes during many periods to improve reliability with a mix of frequency changes.
  • 102/902 Markham Road: New trips to serve school demand to R.H. King Academy and Centennial College.
  • 116 Morningside: New PM school trips from Morningside & Ellesmere to serve Jack Milner PS and Sir Wilfrid Laurier CI.
  • 122 Graydon Hall: All trips will now enter service eastbound at Don Mills.
  • 130 Middlefield: New school trips to serve Henry Kelsey Senior PS.
  • 165 Weston Road: Service reliability changes primarily through longer running times and additional buses.
  • 168 Symington: Service reduced to match demand.

Peak bus service

The Details

Details of these changes are in the spreadsheet linked below.

TTC Service Changes 2023.01.08 (Revised)

Construction Projects

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TTC Service Changes: May 8, 2022

Several of the service cuts implemented in November 2021 will be restored with the May 2022 schedules. This includes express service on several routes. Although planned service will be 6.2% lower than the original budget for this period, the TTC intends to resume restoration of full service through the fall to the end of the year.

Information in this article is taken from the May 8, 2022 Scheduled Service Summary and from a copy of the detailed memo on service changes which was provided by a source. Normally the TTC sends these to various people in advance, but for some unknown reason, the document has not officially been sent to the normal external recipients.

There are some conflicts between information in the two documents and I have tried to reconcile these with my own judgement about which is correct because it is not unusual for there to be discrepancies in descriptions of service changes.

Rapid Transit Services

There are no changes in rapid transit services.

Streetcar Services

  • The 501H/501L Queen replacement buses for service on the west end of the route will be shortened to turn back downtown via University Avenue, Adelaide Street and York Street rather than operating to Broadview & Gerrard or Broadview Station.
    • Eastbound buses will operate as 501U.
    • Bus service will be provided from Birchmount, Queensway and Eglinton divisions.
    • There is no change to the existing 501 Queen streetcar service between Neville Loop and Bathurst Street (Wolseley Loop), nor to the 301 Blue Night Bus operation.
  • Headways on 505 Dundas and 506 Carlton will be blended to allow for the shared terminal at High Park Loop.
    • The 505 Dundas routing change to High Park Loop will be officially recognized in the schedules.
    • Service will be reduced during most periods on both routes as a seasonal change.
  • 306 Carlton Blue Night will operate with buses to Dundas West Station.
  • 509 Harbourfront: Seasonal service increase evenings and weekends.
  • 512 St. Clair: Service increase on weekdays.

Bus Services

Routes With Express Service Changes/Restorations

  • 29/929 Dufferin:
    • Local service improved during most periods on weekdays.
    • Weekend service rescheduled for articulated buses.
    • Weekend express service restored using artics.
  • 939 Finch East Express:
    • Weekend service restored.
  • 41/941 Keele:
    • Local service changed from articulated to standard buses on weekdays with improved frequency of service.
    • Midday express service restored.
    • Express operation changed to articulated buses.
  • 43/943 Kennedy:
    • Minor service reallocation on weekday local service.
    • Peak period express service restored.
  • 52/952 Lawrence West:
    • Service reliability adjustments weekdays
    • Express peak period service improvements
  • 60/960 Steeles West:
    • Seasonal service reductions
    • Reliability changes
  • 68/968 Warden:
    • Reliability changes and some weekend service improvements.
    • Peak period express service restored.
  • 85/985 Sheppard East:
    • All 85 local service on weekends will now operate with standard sized buses rather than with artics.
    • Weekend 985 express service restored.

Diversions

Note: These diversions are described in the service memo, but are not reflected in the scheduled service summary.

  • 31 Greenwood:
    • Effective approximately May 18, service will be diverted to Coxwell Station while the loop at Greenwood Station is closed for Easier Access construction. This work will last about one year.
  • 57 Midland
    • Service reliability adjustments.
    • Northern terminus shifted to the Redlea cul-de-sac via Steeles and Redlea.

Other Changes

  • 365 Parliament Blue Night Bus:
    • Weekend service that was removed in error in fall 2021 will be restored.
  • 73 Royal York and 76 Royal York South:
    • Service reliability improvements
    • During some periods, the 73B Eglinton service will interline with the 76B Queensway service.
  • 83 Jones
    • Recovery time reallocated to the south end of the route to reduce conflicts near Donlands Station.
  • 95 York Mills:
    • Stops added on Durnford Road and Rylander Blvd for the 95A Port Union extension. These will be reviewed in advance of the September 2022 schedule changes.
  • Service reallocation affecting some periods on the following routes:
    • 16 McCowan (peak periods)
    • 17 Birchmount (peak periods)
    • 36B Finch West (am peak and early evening)
    • 81 Thorncliffe Park (peak periods)
  • Service reliability changes which generally widen headways during most or all periods:
    • 30 High Park
    • 31 Greenwood
    • 57 Midland
    • 62 Mortimer
    • 77 Swansea
    • 93 Parkview Hills
  • Service reliability changes rebalancing driving/recovery time with no change in service level:
    • 33 Forest Hill
    • 101 Downsview
  • Service improvements:
    • 31 Greenwood (peak periods)
    • 33 Forest Hill (peak and weekday midday)
    • 83 Jones PM (peak periods)
    • 86 Scarborough early evening Zoo shuttle (restored, seasonal)
    • 92 Woodbine South (weekends, seasonal)
    • 996 Wilson Express (weekday midday and pm peak)
    • 175 Bluffer’s Park (restored, seasonal)
  • Service reductions:
    • 75 Sherbourne: AM peak and midday (seasonal)
    • 600 Run As Directed: The number of crews/buses assigned to RAD service will be reduced by about one third as full scheduled service returns.

With the restructuring of bus service in the waterfront and the creation of the 121 Esplanade-River route, there is no existing route to provide seasonal service to Cherry Beach or Ontario Place. Two new routes, 172 Cherry Beach and 174 Ontario Place-Exhibition will operate instead.

172 Cherry links Union Station to Cherry Beach. It will operate from Eglinton Division.

174 Ontario Place links Exhibition Loop to Ontario Place. It will operate from Mount Dennis Division.

Details of the changes are in the spreadsheet linked below.

20220508_servicechanges
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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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TTC 2022 Service Plan Consultation

Updated June 28, 2021 at 6:10 pm:

The TTC has filled in some of the details on 51 Leslie, 88 South Leaside and 354 Lawrence East Night. See the individual sections of this article for details.

The TTC has launched public consultations for its 2022 Service Plan. This will be a difficult year in which ridership is expected, at best, to climb back to 75 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Budgets will be tight because the transit system plans to be operating close to 100 per cent of is former service (building up gradually on the buses for January 2022, then streetcars and finally the subway) even though fare revenue will be at a lower level. The TTC recognizes that it needs to provide good service to attract riders back to the system.

For the week of June 4-11, boardings on each of the TTC’s networks by vehicle type are still below 50 per cent of January 2020 values:

  • Bus: 40%
  • Streetcar: 27%
  • Subway: 23%
  • Overall: 31%

Trip occupancy for buses is generally below the target level.

  • 4% of trips are over 50% full
  • 0.6% of trips are over 70% full
  • 0.3% of trips are over 80% full

An important distinction about crowding measurements is that as ridership recovers, a the definition of a “full” bus will rise from 25 riders today, to 35 and then to the “standard” full load of 51. Service levels and crowding in 2022 will be measured and allocated against this shifting target. In the short term, service will be provided at a crowding level below pre-pandemic times.

Crowding levels reported now are all day, all route, all week values, and they hide problem areas in the system. The TTC still does not break out reports on crowding or service quality by route, location or time of day. Their “On Time Departure Report” has not been updated in several years, and although there is still a link to it from the Customer Service page, the link is dead.

The 2018 Customer Charter is still linked and it includes a commitment, carried forward from the 2013 Charter:

Posting the performance of all surface routes on our website so you know how your route is performing.

One might ask why Rick Leary, the man Andy Byford hired to improve service, is incapable of producing reports of service quality beyond the extremely superficial level found in his monthly CEO’s Report. The TTC have detailed crowding data and use them internally, but do not publish them. As for on time performance or headway reliability, I have written extensively about problems with service quality and these metrics. Even though service is the top of riders’ desires, it is not reported by the TTC probably because the numbers would be too embarrassing.

This is a gaping hole in TTC Service – the absence of meaningful reporting and measurement of service quality as experienced by riders.

Although the TTC plans to return to 100 per cent service, this does not mean that the service patterns will match those of early 2020. Demand patterns have changed both in daily patterns (peaks or their absence) and location (heavier demand to suburban jobs in sectors where work from home is impossible). To the extent that peaks are smaller or non-existent, this works in the TTC’s favour by allowing a higher ratio of service hours to driving hours (buses spend less time, proportionately, going to and from garages). This also, of course, spreads out demand and can reduce crowding.

A new phenomenon is the early morning peak caused by commutes to jobs outside the core. This produces crowding even on some Blue Night Routes, and the TTC is looking at how this can be resolved.

There is a page on the TTC’s site including a link to a survey about planned changes including some new and revised routes, as well as the plan for route restructuring to accompany the opening of Line 5 Eglinton Crosstown. Tentatively, that line is expected to begin running on July 31, 2022 according to the TTC, but that is simply a planning target, not a hard date.

In this article, I have grouped the planned changes geographically to pull together information on related routes rather than numerically as they appear on the TTC’s site. I have also included information on some changes planned for later in 2021 to put the proposed 2022 route structure in context.

There is a separate consultation process launching soon regarding the future service design for the period between the shutdown of Line 3 Scarborough RT in mid 2023 and the opening of the Line 2 Scarborough extension in fall 2030.

There are three major components in the 2022 plan:

  • Optimize the network to match capacity with demand.
  • Restructure the network for the opening of 5 Eglinton Crosstown.
  • Modify the network to respond to customer requests, evolving demand patterns and new developments.

All maps in this article are from the TTC’s website.

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Analysis of Bloor-Danforth and Yonge Night Buses: May 2021

From time to time, there are reports and photos in social media of crowding conditions on the two principal night bus services, 300 Bloor-Danforth and 320 Yonge. The TTC responds in its usual way saying that they monitor crowding and assign extra buses as needed, but they do not address a fundamental problem: buses on these routes run in packs with gaps that cause overloading. The situation is at least as bad, if not worse, than on daytime routes.

In past years, I have not been able to review night route performance because the old CIS tracking system fairly routinely went offline for a few hours most nights at about 3 am leaving a big gap in the data. The Vision system has far fewer outages, and gives a full view of how the service behaves.

The TTC now provides crowding data to some of its online service apps such as Rocketman, but this information is not yet available on an historical basis for review alongside the vehicle tracking info. Correlation of gaps and crowding must be done in real time, something that is not practical for month-long retrospectives. There is no announced date for crowding data to be available for research outside of the TTC.

As I have shown in other articles, headways might be within “standards” at the terminal, but they deteriorate as vehicles move along their routes. Moreover, the TTC averages data from all routes and time periods. The modest contribution of the night buses to overall “on time” performance is quite small. Nothing in the TTC’s methodology identifies problem routes, locations and time periods.

As with the daytime service, the cheapest form of additional capacity is well-managed service with vehicles arriving on regular headways spreading the load evenly.

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