Service Analysis

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What Can We Do About the Queen Car?

The Rocket Riders will devote their December 4 meeting (Metro Hall, 6:30 pm) to a discussion of the Queen Car, its many problems and ways to fix them.  In support of this, I will start publishing analyses of that route’s operation here based on the CIS data from December 2006.

Yes, I have let that whole project slip out of sight in past months for a variety of reasons.  Mea culpa.

Here is an overview of my past writing on this issue:

Route Structure

The amalgamation of the Queen and Long Branch services was a disaster from the day it started, but the TTC has never acknowledged this problem or studied alternatives, publicly, in detail.  One extremely long line is impossible to manage.  The schedule includes a huge amount of padding for “recovery time” that is actually counterproductive because operators can basically run on any time they please and still have time for a lengthy break at the end of the line.

Service on the Long Branch section is very spotty with very long gaps quite common.

Service on Kingston Road is compromised by the difficulty of integrating the 502 and 503 services and by the very wide off-peak scheduled headway.

My proposed route structure is not definitive, and I am sure others will come up with various schemes.  The underlying theme is to shorten routes and to provide overlaps so that short-turns will not totally devestate service.

  • Queen car from Humber to Neville
  • Lake Shore car from Brown’s Line to downtown via King (Monday to Friday until early evening)
  • Lake Shore car from Brown’s Line to Dundas West Station (M-F evening, weekends and holidays)
  • Kingston Road car from Victoria Park to a single downtown destination

Peak Period Operations

A major problem exists on both King and Queen with the morning peak where many cars enter service off-schedule.  This plays havoc with service at the ends of the lines due to short turns and causes ragged headways at a time when there is no traffic congestion to blame for this situation.

The peak period Lake Shore trippers to downtown do not operate at predictable times even there is no possible way that “traffic congestion” can interfere with on-time operation.

Vehicle Allocation

[Note:  An ALRV is the 75-foot long two-section streetcars commonly seen on King, Queen and Bathurst.  A CLRV is the 50-foot long car seen on the system overall.]

The 501 operates with ALRVs on wide headways while the 504 runs with CLRVs on close headways.  The TTC should reverse this arrangement so that ALRVs are used on King where their greater capacity is badly needed.

Equally important will be that we actually see ALRVs where they are scheduled.  The number of times in the past year when I have seen CLRVs operating ALRV runs on Queen, overcrowded because they are carrying an ALRV headways, is quite ridiculous.  In my review of the King car, I found that the peak period extra ALRVs that are supposed to build capacity inbound through Parkdale in the morning are more often operated with CLRVs.

The TTC seems to be utterly incapable of assigning larger vehicles where they are required.

Service Levels

On Queen, the change to CLRVs on closer headways would improve the frequency of service even with the inevitable short-turns.

On Lake Shore, the change to CLRVs will improve scheduled headways, and integration to a single downtown destination will avoid the problems inherent with a few rogue trippers.  Combined with a shorter, easier-to-manage  route, this should make service in southern Etobicoke much more attractive.

On Kingston Road, consolidation of the 502 and 503 would provide one common, frequent service during the peak period that would have some hope of reliability outbound from a single downtown location.

On King, the change to ALRVs would provide additional capacity provided that current headways are maintained.

Summary

The Ridership Growth Strategy seeks to improve service quality, but little attention has been paid to the streetcar network on the grounds that the fleet is fully committed already.  This is certainly not true during off-peak periods, and the TTC needs to account for the large number of spare cars during the peak.

Proposals for transit priority must focus on “micro” changes to individual intersections and neighbourhoods with parking restrictions and signal improvements.  The “macro” scheme for reserved lanes through the business district does not address major sources of congestion, and diverts attention and effort from overall improvements to route operations.

There is no question that improving service level and quality on these major crosstown routes will cost more.  There should be a huge incentive for the TTC to improve line management.  Sadly, they will more likely trot out their usual complaints about congestion as the source of all troubles.  The cheapest service improvement comes from managing what we have properly.

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All Roads Lead to Spadina

With the construction projects now in progress, the service on Spadina Avenue is an impressive mixture of cars from other routes.  Scheduled PM peak service now consists of:

  • Spadina cars every 2 minutes from King north to Bloor
  • Queen cars every 5’30” from King to Queen
  • Bathurst cars every 5’20” from King to College

Some of the turns to and from Spadina have working transit priority signals, while others don’t and the streetcars have to fight their way through traffic.

Weekend service is almost as frequent especially when extras are thrown in on Queen and Bathurst to compensate for diversion delays.

The new Bathurst/Queen intersection is now assembled, and concrete placement was in progress on the north-east quadrant when I visited earlier today.  Once that work is out of the way, the new intersection track must be connected to the existing tangent rails in all four directions.

This intersection, like other recent work, includes a large amount of vibration insulation including rubber sleeves around the running rails, and rubber encapsulation of the castings except where they are bolted together.

Ed Drass passed one observation about the Bathurst service on to me:  Why is the Bathurst car diverting via College, thereby missing an important destination, Western Hospital, even though the track layout allows a diversion via Dundas?  Did the people planning the diversion not know a Dundas route was possible?  Is there any possibility of changing the diversion before north-south service resumes on November 5?

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The 507 Lives, Sort Of

I have written before about the need to reorganize the way service is operated on the Queen line, and the TTC never quite gets around to doing a detailed review.  I’m not sure what it will take to light a fire under them, but the time is long overdue for them to admit the through-routing of 501-Queen and 507-Long Branch was a disaster.

Other related issues include the problem of Humber Loop (not the most ideal location for a transfer given its isolated location) and the mix of services running downtown from Parkdale.

I received a comment from “Ed” recently that shows finally, someone has realized there are problems on Lake Shore, although the “fix” is a temporary one. Continue reading →

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St. Clair Construction Begins / Local Unrest Continues

Chris W. sent in the following comment:

Hooray!  The St. Clair Transit website was updated today!  There is a new, very informative flyer.

Highlights:

  • Phase 2 (Westmount to McRoberts) to start October 15 and continue into the spring.
  • Vaughan Road to Westmount Avenue to start next spring.
  • Caledonia to Gun’s loop to start late next summer.
  • Shelter installation on Phase 1 to start early October 2007!
  • Later this fall streetcars will returns from Yonge to Oakwood loop, initially running straight through St. Clair West Station.
  • Streetcars will be removed in spring 2008 “With other TTC work occurring on Bathurst Street “. Could this mean the tracks from Bloor to St. Clair will be replaced next year instead of 2009?

If this all comes to pass someone should throw a party.

Yes, I believe that Bathurst from St. Clair down to Bathurst Station is supposed to be rebuilt in 2008. Continue reading →

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Meanwhile on St. Clair: A Fall Update

While I was at the TTC today, I took the oppurtunity to find out what is going on with this endless project.  Here’s an update.

The Ramps at St. Clair West

Due to problems with the contractor (no specifics), the work has been on hold.  However, the impasse is now resolved, work has (or will shortly) resume and completion is planned for the end of October.

The New Shelters

The now-and-forever project to install new shelters on the completed portion of the line is getting rather comic.  They were supposed to come in August, then in September and now they might get here this month, but don’t hold your breath.  October, maybe.  Considering how long ago this line was designed, the idea that we are only now getting delivery of the shelters is a huge joke.

Why Are The Buses Not On The Right Of Way?

It seems that the buses are afraid of falling off because of clearance problems.  Of course, if they hadn’t put those dumb centre poles on the right-of-way, this would not be an issue.

I cannot help thinking that all of these and similar problems are rooted in what passes for design and project management.  The TTC can run an efficient project (just look at the recent reconstruction at Kennedy Station), but some on some projects everything that can go wrong does.  They can’t blame it all on SOS or Hydro.

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Transit Priority on King at Community Council

The King Car will be up for discussion at Toronto & East York Community Council next Monday (September 10), just two days before the TTC itself meets to decide what may happen with fares and service in 2008.  Item TE8.41 on the agenda includes both the TTC’s original request which was met with some considerable opposition by area merchants and some counterproposals that were tabled for discussion (item TE8.41a).

These proposals, viewed jointly with the work I have done analyzing operations in the route, raise a number of questions. Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Part IX – Headway Reliability and the Two Minute Wave

So far, we have been looking mainly at data one day at a time over the route as a whole.  In this discussion, we will look at service at specific points for every weekday in December 2006.  This allows us to compare the behaviour of service, the experience of a rider who tries to use the system for a regular work trip.

On King, the TTC claims to run a two-minute headway and this is true, but only for part of the line and only in the morning rush.  For roughly an hour, from 7:30 to 8:30 am, there is a “wave” of two-minute service scheduled to come east through Parkdale and the Bathurst/Niagara district.  Riders in these neighbourhoods complain of erratic service and overcrowded cars.  What is actually going on? Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Part VIII – Those Pesky Short Turns

By now, you are probably getting tired of looking at charts of individual days, and they’re starting to look the same.  On the other hand, you probably have a fairly good idea for the sort of thing that is “typical” as opposed to an unpredictable event.

Now, I will turn to views of the King Car that show the entire month in a summary format, and will begin with the long-standing problem of Short Turns.

Back in 1984, the Streetcars for Toronto Committee conducted a review of streetcar operations using volunteers on street corners to track the movement of cars, and we came up with plots similar to the graphic timetables shown in other posts here.  Today, however, we have CIS technology and much more data.  It’s a lot better than standing out in the rain for hours on end. Continue reading →

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Analysis of 504 King: Coming Soon

As you will see below, I have posted detailed information on several days’ operation.  These are extracts from a much longer paper that covers many aspects of the route in detail.  Please don’t ask me to send you one because this is (a) still a work in progress and (b) the full collection of data and charts is quite large.

Still to come are:

  • Charts comparing link times for various parts of the line over the month showing the similarities and variations by segment, time of day, and day of the month.
  • A review of vehicle allocations (CLRV and ALRV) and change-offs.

In case you have lost the thread of where this is all leading, my aim is that the TTC make substantial improvements in understanding how it actually operates and manages its services.  As a management tool, the information available from CIS for all routes has been more or less ignored for the decades since the system went into operation.  Daily reviews of operations on major lines should be a matter-of-fact way to run the business, and strategies should be developed to deal with chronic and emerging problems.

Far too often, the catch-all excuse of “traffic congestion” and “mixed traffic operation” is used to justify inaction.  Yes, there are traffic problems, but some of them can be addressed if only the TTC and politicians who claim to support transit would actually expend some of their “support” on changing the operation of traffic signals, parking regulations and enforcement.