Service Analysis

by

Short Turns and Wait Times on Streetcar Routes

At the TTC Board meeting on July 12, 2023, there was a brief discussion of the problem of short turns on streetcar lines. The information provided by management was, shall we say, less than a full accounting of what is actually going on.

This issue flared up many years ago particularly with short turns of service in The Beach among other areas, and in general a problem with erratic, gap-filled service on the outer ends of routes. TTC management committed to reducing or eliminating this problem, and to that end there was a “no short turns” policy that everybody seemed to know about at the operational level, but which was officially denied.

The stats did go down, but looking under the covers showed that not all was well:

  • Short turns are a bona fide service management tactic for dealing with delays to restore even spacing of service. There is nothing wrong with a short turn of some cars in a parade because this will restore service sooner than if every car trundles to the terminal and they return in a pack.
  • The official count of short turns fell to almost zero. However, this was due in part to selective reporting that was clear to (a) anyone actually riding the system and (b) anyone looking at vehicle tracking data.

Rick Leary got the equivalent of a gold star from the Board who frankly did not know any better, but occasionally wondered why claims of improved service did not align with complaints from constituents. The standard excuses for occasional upsets due to congestion and construction were regularly trotted out even though service could be erratic at times and locations when these were clearly impossible.

The charts below from the July 2023 CEO’s Report show the official count of short turns on the streetcar and bus network. An important factor in comparing the two is that the buses overall have many routes where congestion and construction do not affect most, if any, trips. The figures are not broken out by route to flag the “bad actors”. Moreover, the values are presented as a percentage of all trips so that time-of-day effects are hidden.

The “no short turns” policy implementation is quite clear in the data from Fall 2018 through Spring 2019. In reviewing actual short turn counts from tracking data, I have found that the values are consistently under-reported, and they do not represent actual conditions. For example, the proportion of service outbound on 501 Queen from downtown (as counted at Woodbine vs Greenwood) reaching Neville Park ranges from 100% to below 50% in January to June 2023.

Updated July 15, 2023: In June 2023, the TTC changed its reporting of short turns from an absolute number to a percentage. The scale of these charts does not make sense because the streetcar chart claims it is per 1000 departures, but cites a percentage (per 100). For comparison, the May 2023 charts are below.

I have written many times on this site about service quality and there are many factors at play including:

  • Unreasonably short or long scheduled travel times. This may sound like an odd pairing, but both can produce erratic service.
    • Too short times lead to short turns to keep operators on time especially for crew changes.
    • Too long times lead to extended layovers at terminals.
  • Lack of headway discipline at terminals and along routes.
  • Lack of headway management for vehicles re-entering service from a short turn to “split” a gap rather than simply running behind a through vehicle and carrying few passengers.

There are, of course, ad hoc situations where accidents, short-term construction or special events produce conditions that are not “standard”. These are normal and have to be managed to the degree possible. One side effect of the overall reduction in service on streetcar lines to a 10 minute level on many routes is that there is no spare capacity when delays occur, and wider headways make the effect on riders of any missing vehicle (either not in service or short-turned) greater.

This is not the first time the system encountered that problem, and tuning out surplus capacity has been a generic issue across the network any time budget “efficiency” takes precedence over service. The phrase “adjusting service to meet demand” goes back over four decades.

Service standards that allow for some empty space on vehicles are important because they guarantee some flexibility to absorb small problems without service collapsing. An analogy for motorists is that a highway totally jammed with cars does not move traffic at all well, and some empty space is necessary to ensure the road is usable. On transit, empty space is viewed as waste while on our roads no congestion is a holy grail.

The remainder of this article reviews the short-turning situation on most streetcar routes and the underlying causes.

Continue reading →
by

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.

by

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.

Continue reading →
by

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.

Continue reading →
by

Streetcars on Kingston Road

With the albeit brief re-appearance of streetcar service on Kingston Road courtesy of the 505 Dundas rerouting to Bingham Loop, and the holiday weekend, it’s time for a look at Kingston Road today and as it was decades ago. Parts of the street have changed a lot, others are very much the same.

All photos in this post were taken by me and should be credited if they are reposted elsewhere.

Continue reading →
by

Changes to Kingston Road, Dundas, Carlton and St. Clair Ave. W. Services (Revised)

The TTC will implement two route changes in July to address, in part, problems with service reliability on construction diversions.

Updated June 30, 2023: The location of Salsa on St. Clair has been corrected.

Updated July 1, 2023: The 506 Carlton cutback to Queen and Broadview has been added.

503 Kingston Road / 505 Dundas

Effective Tuesday, July 4, 2023 (July 3 is a holiday), service on Kingston Road to Bingham Loop (Victoria Park) will be revised on weekdays and Saturdays from 6am to 8pm, Sundays from 8am to 8pm:

  • 505 Dundas cars will turn back at Woodbine Loop in stead of running through to Bingham.
  • 503 Kingston Road buses will operate between Bingham Loop and York Street via King. Because these are “extras”, not scheduled buses, they will not appear on trip prediction apps.

After 8pm on all days, the 505 Dundas car will run through to Bingham Loop as it does now.

This change should relieve problems with tight running times that caused many short turns on 505 Dundas and wide gaps both on Kingston Road and on Dundas west of Lansdowne. (I will publish an analysis of 505 Dundas headways and reliability in early July.)

Effective Sunday, July 30, 2023, the 503 Kingston Road bus will operate between 6am and 1am (starting at 8am on Sundays) over its Bingham to York route.

Streetcars are expected to return in the fall, likely on Thanksgiving weekend. It is not yet clear whether the 503 streetcar will permanently replace the evening and weekend service formerly provided by the 22A Coxwell bus.

506 Carlton (Added July 1, 2023)

The 506 Carlton streetcar service will be cut back in the east end to Broadview rather than running east to Woodbine Loop. This will correct a problem with inadequate running time that caused many streetcars to short turn without getting to Woodbine Loop anyhow.

The map below shows the 506C bus diversion via Greenwood and Danforth around track construction at Coxwell and Lower Gerrard. This configuration will be in effect until mid-July when buses can again operate via Gerrard and Coxwell without diverting.

512 St. Clair

Effective Wednesday, July 5, 2023, the 512 St. Clair car will resume operation west to Gunns Loop. Construction at the GO Barrie corridor bridge west of Caledonia has been delayed allowing through service until August. The date when turnbacks at Lansdowne (Earlscourt Loop) will resume is not specified in the TTC announcement.

On the weekend of July 8-9, 2023, streetcar service will be suspended on at least part of the route (TBA) for the Salsa on St. Clair festival between Oakwood and St. Clair West Station.

Service on the temporarily extended 47 Lansdowne bus on St. Clair has been quite erratic. (Stay tuned for an analysis of this operation in coming days.)

by

TTC 2024 Service Plan Consultation Round Two

The TTC is part way through production of its 2024 Service Plan as well as a 5-Year Service Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan. In Round Two, consultation will focus on plans for service changes triggered by major construction projects. Five pop-up sessions are planned at Flemingdon Park, Union Station, Liberty Village, Finch Terminal, and Pape Station between June 29 and July 12, 2023. Details are available here.

Also available on that page is a link to a survey seeking feedback on various proposals. Please note that my site is not an official TTC conduit for feedback, although it is no secret that many at the TTC do read articles and comments here. Any specific feedback for the TTC should be submitted through their own survey.

Round Three in August-September will present draft concepts for the 5-Year Plan and Customer Experience Action Plan, and these will be refined into final drafts for Round Four in October-November.

The remainder of this article presents an overview of the survey and proposals for construction-related service changes.

There are no proposals for new routes nor of overall service levels in this round. The election of Olivia Chow as Mayor will no doubt bring a review of existing services, but that is not in the scope of this round.

An important issue left over from the 2023 Budget process and the recent service cuts is the question of Service Standards. These are described as “Board Approved”, but in fact the 2023 changes were implemented by management as part of the budget with only retroactive consent from the Board. Moreover, the actual effect of the changes was withheld from the Board and Council until well after the budget was approved.

Transparency in budgets and service planning will be an important change looking ahead to 2024. With a new Mayor I hope to see a much improved process.

Continue reading →
by

Broadview Station Loop Expansion Deferred

The planned expansion of Broadview Station Loop to allow two streetcars to occupy the 505 Dundas loading bay at a time has been deferred to an unspecified later date.

At the TTC Board meeting on June 12, CEO Rick Leary said that there would be a new operating procedure at the loop where streetcars would not lay over, although just how this will be achieved is difficult to understand. A common requirement at terminals is for operators to have a short “nature break”, and this is really not something that can be eliminated by managerial fiat.

A related problem is that schedules generally have excessive running time to avoid the need for short turns. If cars do not take layovers at terminals they will make even slower trips across their routes than they do today. On King and Dundas, they have the option of putting all of the layover time at their western terminals.

The TTC has an astounding ability to make streetcar service slower and less reliable, and this has become so ingrained it is hard to see any improvement in the near future.

Operational details of the change have yet to be announced, and in any event we will not see the effect until 2024 when streetcars finally return to Broadview Station.

Track work at the station planned for June 2023 will now address the on-street track on Broadview and Erindale while the loop will wait for another day when and if it is expanded.

by

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.

Continue reading →
by

Evolution of Bus Route Travel Times, 2020-2023, Part II

This article is the second half of a review of the change in travel times for a selection of major bus routes, many of which are part of the RapidTO “red lane” proposal, from 2020 to May 2023.

See also: Evolution of Bus Route Travel Times, 2020-2023, Part I

My purpose is to show the drop in travel times in March 2020 co-incident with the pandemic lockdown, and the gradual recovery over the past three years. The minimum times seen in 2020 establish what we would see in the absence of road traffic, not to mention a lower passenger demand, and probably show the best case for improvement with transit priority.

Depending on when I began to track various routes, there are cases when I have some pre-pandemic data from 2018 or 2019.

The situation varies from route to route and by time of day. In many cases, travel times have returned to pre-pandemic levels or higher, and some uptick is particularly notable in 2023. An important characteristic of these routes is that they do not serve the core area, but run in Toronto’s suburbs where bus ridership is strong and work-from-home had considerably less effect on demand than it does downtown.

Routes in this article include 86 Scarborough, 116 Morningside and 905 Eglinton East Express which already run on the Eglinton-Kingston-Morningside red lanes, as well as 39/939 Finch East, 54/954 Lawrence East and 25/925 Don Mills.

Note that the charts here track travel times, not service reliability. I will turn to that issue in future articles.

Continue reading →