Service Analysis

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TTC Service Changes Effective March 29, 2015 (Update 2)

Updated February 6, 2015 at 6:10 pm:

A change to service on 1 Yonge-University on weekday evenings was missed in the original version of my condensed version of the changes. This has been corrected.

Updated February 3, 2015 at 11:30 am:

In response to questions raised by the planned changes, I asked the TTC for more details on specific work.

  • At College & Spadina, the platforms used by 506 Carlton will be lengthened, but not widened. They are already wide enough for boarding via the ramps on the Flexities.
  • The 509 Harbourfront route will convert to PoP operation when the Flexities move there at the end of March.
  • Transit signal priority has been or will be restored at various locations on St. Clair:
    • On December 23, 2014, it was restored at Yonge and at Avenue Road.
    • Before March 29, 2015, it will be restored at Deer Park, west of Dunvegan, Russell Hill, Bathurst, Wychwood, Arlington and Caledonia
    • To be completed, but not necessarily by March 29: Ferndale (St. Clair Stn. Loop exit), Christie, Old Weston, Keele/Weston)

The original article from January 31 follows below.

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How Unreliable Is My Service? (Updated January 24, 2015)

Fourth Quarter 2014 Update: Results for fourth quarter of 2014 have been consolidated into a new table below.

Route_Performance_Summary_2014Q4

The headway reliability numbers for many routes continue to lie well below the TTC’s targets for bus and streetcar operations.

Routes which have improved by more than 10% since 3Q14 are:

51 Leslie, 60 Steeles West, 125 Drewry, 126 Christie, 172 Cherry Street, 198 UTSC Rocket, 301 Queen Night, 322 Coxwell Night, and 512 St. Clair

Routes which have declined by more than 10% since 3Q14 are:

35 Jane, 36 Finch West, 55 Warren Park, 66 Prince Edward, 87 Cosburn, 88 South Leaside, 97 Yonge, 109 Ranee, 111 East Mall, 122 Graydon Hall, 133 Neilson, 141 Downtown via Mt. Pleasant Express, 160 Bathurst North, 161 Rogers Road, 162 Lawrence-Donway, 195 Jane Rocket, 224 Victoria Park North, 502 Downtowner and 508 Lakeshore

A few items worth noting:

  • Service quality has declined considerably on both of the Jane routes despite a recent reorganization into local and express services, and adjusted running times to match actual experience.
  • Reliability of the Blue Night services continues to be poor at a time when (a) there is no “congestion” on most routes as an excuse for delays, and (b) reliability is of particular importance to riders.
  • The 501 Queen car at 52% (nothing to crow about) is more reliable than the Downtown Beach Express Bus at 45%.

Looking at the data over a two-year period, a very long list of routes has seen a decline of more than 10% in headway reliability. Only a few routes, mostly night services, have improved by more than 10% since 1Q13:

  • 10 Van Horne, 52 Lawrence West (which has been reorganized since 1Q13), 90 Vaughan, 102 Markham Road, 117 Allness, 171 Mount Dennis, 301 Queen Night, 303 Don Mills Night, 308 Finch East Night, 309 Finch West Night, 311 Islington Night, 322 Coxwell Night, 353 Steeles East Night and 385 Sheppard East Night

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Does The TTC Use “Safety” As An Excuse For Inept Management?

At the TTC Board meeting of January 21, there was a presentation based on the report Safe Service Action Plan that included several actions and proposals that are intended to improve the safety of TTC operations. The context for this report is that there have been a number of high profile incidents involving TTC vehicles in the recent past.

During 2014, two pedestrians died after being struck by streetcars. Then, in the latter half of 2014 several video recordings were made public of TTC bus operators running red lights. In response to these incidents, the CEO initiated a review of operator training, supervision and relicensing as well as a communications campaign to reinforce the need for operators to drive defensively and to adhere to the rules of the Highway Traffic Act.

Towards the end of 2014, an adult woman and a 14 year old girl died as a result of injuries in separate incidents after being struck by a TTC bus making a turn. Given the very serious nature of these tragic events, the CEO directed that the review already under way be expedited and that it include consultation with other operators for comparison and to seek out best practice. [pp 1-2]

Broadly speaking, the proposals can be grouped into three sets:

  • Operator training and recertification, including an emphasis on safe driving.
  • Monitoring systems to track and record road conditions with a view both to increase evidence when accidents occur, and potentially to monitor driver behaviour.
  • System review including issues such as stop placement, identification of accident “hot spots” and causes, and improved investigative techniques.

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TTC Service Changes for February 15, 2015

The February 2015 service changes are mainly a collection of housekeeping updates with no significant change in service levels.

41 Keele local service will change to artic buses, but the express service will continue to operate with 12m vehicles.

504 King continues to see buses substituting for streetcars during peak periods. Weekend running times will be extended to match actual conditions but no service will be added “because of a lack of budgeted operator hours”. Remember this line the next time the TTC tells you it has no spare vehicles. They are unable to add vehicles off-peak because there is no budget headroom to pay the drivers.

2015.02.15_Service_Changes

Updated: A reader has noted that the evening service proposed for Keele is shown as the 41B Petrolia/Steeles branch rather than the 41A Steeles service that operates now. The info in my table is based on the TTC’s service change memo, but I have sent a request that they clarify whether this is an error. Given the holidays, a reply probably won’t come in for a while.

Updated: The TTC has confirmed that the service design on the 41 Keele route has not been changed, and that the 41B evening service was shown in error. The table linked above has been updated to reflect this correction.

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Stop Spacing: How Close is Too Close?

With debates swirling around various schemes to improve service on King Street, one disheartening thread is the fixation on pet solutions, on annoyances that don’t really contribute much to the overall behaviour of the route.

In comments here and elsewhere, the issue of stop spacing has come up from time to time. On King and on other routes (including many bus routes), there are locations where pairs of stops are closely spaced to the point one might ask “why is this stop here”. The TTC has proposed elimination of some stops, and this brought mixed reactions. Some “surplus” stops clearly are very close to others and might be eliminated. Others may appear to be close, but they may also have strong demand in their own right, riders who don’t take kindly to the idea that their stop isn’t needed.

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Building the Connection to Leslie Barns (Updated December 8, 2014)

Progress continues, albeit slowly, on the Leslie Street connection. Much of the utility work is now completed, and a finished road, including streetcar track, is starting to appear in some blocks.

December 8, 2014

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The Not So Speedy 509 Harbourfront Car

Streetcar service resumed on 509 Harbourfront on Sunday, October 12, after an absence of over two years. The Queens Quay reconstruction project started at the end of July, 2012, and was supposed to be complete in the spring of 2013. For many reasons, things didn’t quite work out that way (this has been discussed in other posts and I won’t repeat the chronology here).

Although the line re-opened for streetcar service, the operating speed was, putting it mildly, glacial thanks to a whole new set of traffic signals that gave a new meaning to the antithesis of “transit priority”. Even with relatively little demand for road traffic on Queens Quay, the vast majority of time was devoted to moving the few cars that showed up now and then, while the streetcars waited for occasional, and very brief, green windows, even at locations where the “traffic green” and “transit green” would not have produced conflicting movements. Despite over two years to plan how the signals might operate in the interim configuration for this stage of the project, the arrangement had all the earmarks of a last minute scheme with a one-size-fits-all approach to programming intersections.

This arrangement lasted until late in the first week of operation, but there is still no co-ordination between transit and signals, and there are now many more places where streetcars can be held waiting for their chance to proceed. Even with the fixes, streetcar service is slower than the bus route it replaced (which did not have to deal with anywhere near as many signals) and slower than the streetcar service operated before the reconstruction.

The TTC, City and Waterfront Toronto face an acid test in their combined commitment to transit as the primary mode of access to the waterfront — if they cannot manage at least to equal the performance of the streetcar route before construction started, what is the future for surface transit in general?

Because the final arrangement won’t be in place until Queens Quay reverts to two-way traffic in the spring of 2015, we will not know just how “intelligent” the traffic signals will be about transit. The worst outcome would be to open the finished street with a disastrous arrangement for traffic control.

In this article, I will review actual running times for 509 Harbourfront in October 2014 with both the bus replacement service and the return to streetcars, and will compare this to data from February 2010.

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The Creeping Presence of Buses on 504 King

Toronto’s streetcar shortage is about to show up quite graphically on the King car where many peak trips now operated by streetcars will change to buses. This begins with the schedule change on November 23, and continues with the January 4, 2015 schedules. Also, in January, 508 Lake Shore PM Peak service is discontinued.

                                   Oct 12     Nov 23     Jan 4
                                   2014       2014       2015
                                   Veh Hdwy   Veh Hdwy   Veh Hdwy
AM Peak
Dundas W to Bview Stn (CLRV)       32  4'00"  32  4'00"  33  4'00"
Trippers
Dundas W to Bview Stn (ALRV)        7          7          7
Dundas W to Bview/Queen (CLRV)      8          4
Ronces/Queen to Bview Stn (CLRV)    3
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (CLRV)  2          2
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (Bus)             11         20
Lake Shore (CLRV)                   3          3

PM Peak
Dundas W to Bview Stn (CLRV)       45  3'10"  40  3'30"  38  4'00"
Trippers
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (CLRV)  3   6*                2
Ronces/Queen to Bview/Queen (Bus)             12         18
Lake Shore (CLRV)                   6          6

* Most trippers make only one trip. For the PM Peak in October, 3 cars make two trips each.

These changes are alleged to be due to the shortage of streetcars, a situation that is not helped by the late deliveries of new Flexities from Bombardier, as well as the resumption of full streetcar service to Long Branch in late December. However, there are a few anomalies in the plans.

  • The reduction of cars in service comes entirely from CLRV runs even though the TTC has repeatedly claimed that it is the ALRV fleet which is the less reliable.
  • The TTC is widening the off-peak headways on King by extending running times without adding vehicles, and claims that this is needed because of the “shortage”. Of course, there is no shortage of vehicles off peak, only the will (and budget) to operate more of them.

The TTC has still not produced a fleet plan showing expected deliveries for new streetcars, their proposed rollout on the system, and details of extending the lifespan of the ALRVs as mentioned recently by CEO Andy Byford.

… we are taking another look at our fleet plan to maximize the number of higher capacity, articulated streetcars, or ALRVs, on King (and Queen) before the new streetcars enter service on these routes. We had originally intended to retire the ALRVs first as they are less reliable than the standard-sized cars, but our 2015 budget request will seek funding to extend the life of the ALRVs to maximize capacity and mitigate crowding.

Second, we are reviewing the roll-out plans for the new streetcar to see if sufficient vehicles can be delivered in time for earlier deployment onto these two major routes, rather than the current plan of 2016/17. [Toronto Moves November 7, 2014]

With the uncertainty on the TTC budget status at Council until well into 2015, and the lead time to implement new schedules, we can expect to see bus operations continue on King until at least late spring 2015.

[I will publish full details of the January 2015 schedule changes by the end of November.]

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Bathurst Street Track Construction 2014 (Updated)

The last major track project for 2014 on Toronto’s streetcar system is underway on Bathurst Street. During the first phase which began October 20, Wolseley Loop just north of Queen Street will be replaced. The second phase will run from November 3 to 20 for the replacement of the intersection at Dundas Street.

Updated November 10, 2014: Work at Dundas and Bathurst has progressed to the point that the new intersection almost completely assembled. Photos have been added at the end of the article.

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