Service Analysis

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Analysis of Transit Route Operations

Over the next month or so, I will be posting a series of articles here about the operation of surface routes and will concentrate on lines in the King and Queen corridors.  This analysis will look at the way the line actually operates — how the vehicles move around (or not) — as opposed to the question of whether service is adequate to demand.  These topics are related by the long-standing question of why service is so bad:  congestion, number of vehicles, operational screwups, or some other factors.

This work arises from the TTC’s oft-cited claim that they can only improve transit service with exclusive lanes.  That is a self-defeating position because the TTC will never get reserved lanes on most transit routes.  Rather than figuring out how a route might be improved, the TTC claims its hands are tied.  This is not a useful stance, but it’s sadly typical of an organization whose first response to criticism is (a) you’re wrong and (b)  someone else is responsible.

I remember the initial reaction to the Transit’s Lost Decade report that I did with Gord Perks (then at TEA).  The TTC huffed and puffed and said that service had not been cut so badly and how dare we say things like that … then there was a little pause … and finally they realized that this was just the ammunition they needed to beat the drum for better funding.  Suddenly then-CGM Rick Ducharme was quoting our figures as an example of how badly the system had deteriorated.

Service on major routes was cut through the 1990s by from 25 to 40 percent, and only recently have we seen some of this restored despite ongoing ridership growth.  One major constraint is the size of bus and streetcar fleets that declined to match the lower levels of service.  This only affects peak service capabilities.  Another change has been in the operator workforce through a combination of re-sizing to current service levels and of work rules restricting the length of the work day.  (This is due both to Provincial labour standards and revisions to the collective agreement.)

Traffic congestion is a problem in many areas, and the length of the peak period has definitely grown longer over past decades.  However, is congestion the only reason service is bad, or are other factors at work?  Are there problems with regularity of service and line management?  How often is scheduled service cancelled?  How often are there major blockages (especially a problem for streetcars) as opposed to random events, delays at busy stops for overcrowded vehicles and general congestion?

How effective is the TTC’s current vehicle monitoring system, CIS (Communications & Information System), in tracking vehicles and how well is the service managed?  The TTC is seeking information for a possible “next bus” announcement system.  Will this be compromised by an attempt to recycle decades-old CIS technology?  Will it include features needed to properly manage and report on actual service and operations?

In Setember 2006, I asked the TTC for sample data from CIS in an attempt to learn how vehicles actually behaved on various routes with the hope of identifying problem areas both for congestion, where it really exists, and in line management.  CIS is incapable of reporting on vehicle loads, and its data are not fine-grained enough to allow reporting on stop service times in most cases.  Therefore, my analysis has to concentrate on vehicle movements.

Through the fall, I worked through various sample sets of data refining the process of converting it to various usable formats, and by the end of the year had a workable version.  Based on this, I have obtained CIS data for all streetcar routes plus a number of major bus routes for December 2006.  This month contains a variety of days with good and bad weather, pre-Christmas shopping and a holiday week.

The King route received the first detailed analysis, and I will present excerpts from this here over the next few weeks.  I have begun work on the Queen line (and related routes Lake Shore, Downtowner and Kingston Road) and will comment on these as well.

All of the posts will be linked via their own topic “Service Analysis”.

Please stay tuned.

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How Long is it from Woodbine to Yonge?

In a separate thread here, there is an extensive discussion of whether it is faster to take the Queen car from Woodbine to Yonge, or to take a bus north plus two subway trips.  I originally quoted a running time of 20 minutes for this trip, but was subsequently convinced to up this to at least 25.

Recently, I began looking at the Queen car’s operating data for December 2006.  [For all of you who have been waiting, the grand work on King is now complete and I will be publishing a much abridged version here soon in installments.  In time I will also address the perennial Spadina vs Bathurst question.]

For the first three weeks of December, the running time from Woodbine to Yonge sits quite consistently on 25 minutes from about 7:30 am until 6:00 pm.  The spread in values ranges mainly from a low of 20 to a high of 30, although the majority of observations are within a few minutes of 25.  For trips leaving Woodbine from about 8:00 to 8:30, the running times can be extended to over 30 minutes although this tends to occur moreso on poor weather days.

A related problem is the reliability with which each scheduled car actually shows up for the peak inbound trip.  In my analysis on King, I had already discovered that several cars scheduled to pass through Parkdale during the height of the peak do not always show up, or show up late leading to erratic service just when it is most needed.  I looked for the same effect on Queen and was not surprised by what I found.

In the two hour period from 7:00 to 9:00, there should be about 25 cars westbound on Queen (I say “about” because the actual value is fractional thanks to the 4’52” headway).  As on King, some of these cars do not show up reliably or at all, at least east of Woodbine Loop, and the problem is more severe as the rush hour goes on.  Missing runs are particularly a problem starting around 8:00. 

This means that just at the point when most people want to get downtown for a start in the 8:30 to 9:00 period, the service gets reliably worse.  Because of crowding, this also means that travel times will be extended.

I have not yet had a chance to examine this in detail for the Queen route, but on King the origin of the problem is quite clear.  Some runs, especially those scheduled to enter service comparatively late, don’t always make it out of the carhouse, or if they do, they are late.  Those that are late are often short-turned, or make their trips well off-schedule.  Either way, they are missing from the time and the place when they are most needed.

The reason for this, I believe, is that these runs do not have assigned operators but use either staff from the Spare Board (operators with no assigned work who fill in for absences) or volunteers working overtime.  There is, of course, a good chance that the number of operators available for these runs will be lower on days when the weather is bad.  People who are marginally ill choose not to come in to work, and people who might take overtime prefer not to work in snowstorms.  Just when all the service is needed on the street, critical peak period cars are missing.

Intriguingly, there is very little variation through the day in running time over this section, and systemic traffic congestion does not appear to play a role in westbound trips over this segment of the route.

Often, I have discussed the question of the adequacy of service to meet demand, and the TTC routinely talks about the level of scheduled service.  The problem here is that anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of the “scheduled” service may be missing on any weekday during the morning peak westbound at Woodbine.

Congestion is a serious problem on parts of the system.  However, this is not a question of transit priority or rights-of-way, this is a question of the TTC actually operating all of the scheduled service. 

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Mysteries of Poles on St. Clair

No, this is not a commentary about immigration, but about the seemingly mundane issue of street lighting, hydro and TTC poles on St. Clair Avenue.

Regular readers here will know that I am not impressed by designs including centre poles because:

  • they take up an extra metre of road space that could be used at the sidewalks,
  • they interfere with emergency vehicles (or even TTC buses) using the streetcar right-of-way, and
  • they are just not very attractive.

People involved with the project from both the City and the TTC have steadfastly maintained that these poles are essential to the project and that they were “selected” by public participation.  This is complete nonsense on both counts. Continue reading →

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Another View From The Beach [Updated]

I received the following comment from Tina R., and there are enough separate issues here that it deserves its own thread.  This deals with service to The Beach as well as general questions about buses versus streetcars and LRT, and express operations.

An update about running times on the Queen car, added on May 27, appears at the end of this post. 

Continue reading →

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Improving Service on King and Queen

[Those of you who want oodles of details won’t find a complex spreadsheet or chart here, and you will have to take some of the numbers on faith.  Trust me.  The reason for this post is to stimulate discussions and to ask the question “Why Not?”.]

We all know that service on the King and Queen routes leaves a lot to be desired, but little is done about the situation beyond the usual complaints of congestion and the need for an exclusive right-of-way.  Although major changes won’t happen until we have a larger fleet, improvements are still possible if only there is the will to make them.

I have been looking at a number of route configurations (some of you will know of my schemes for the Long Branch car), but believe that in the short term the first issue we must confront is the assignment of vehicle types to these two routes and the number of cars available for service.

My proposal, briefly, is that the King line operate exclusively with ALRVs and that Queen run with CRLVs.  Service and capacity would be increased in both cases.

The following discussion concerns the AM peak when service is at its height.  All other times of day would be adjusted accordingly. Continue reading →

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Shelters on St. Clair (Updated)

The TTC will install new shelters on St. Clair starting in late July.  They are currently at the stage of approving drawings for the manufacture of the shelters, then there will be a prototype, then the installation.

I can’t help wondering why on a project that has seen so many delays we are only just now getting around to the preliminary stages of building the shelters.  This is one more example of a project with equal measures of bad luck and bad planning.

On a brighter note, I was at a community meeting tonight regarding the detailed plans for this year’s construction between Westmount and McRoberts, and things went much more smoothly than the raucous gatherings of earlier times. 

Update May 9:  The presentation materials are available online.

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Jane’s Walk 2: My Home Streetcar Lines — Mt. Pleasant & St. Clair

Back in the days when goodly chunks of “the suburbs” were still farms, I grew up in North Toronto near Mt. Pleasant and Eglinton.  This neighbourhood dates from the building boom of the 1920s, although our house was older, 1906, the third one built in our block.  The old farmhouse up the road was replaced by two monster homes a few years ago, and now ours is number 2 in seniority.

When I was young, I spent a lot of time down at Mt. Pleasant Loop watching the streetcars.  This was a typical old style TTC loop with trees and benches, a house to the north and a BA gas station to the south right on the corner.  All of that’s gone now, and the loop is simply a hole in the front of seniors’ building where, infrequently, one can find a Mt. Pleasant bus.

The other corners held Ted’s Restaurant (gone — replaced like other stores around it with an ugly midrise office block), Eglinton Public School (replaced by a new building that turns its back on the intersection with a dead wall where once there was a playground), and the Bank of Commerce (now a Second Cup, but at least the original building).

Tracks ran west on Eglinton to Yonge, but these were never used for revenue service.  These had been installed in 1930 to allow operation of the St. Clair line from Eglinton Carhouse, but this never happened.  The junction at Mt. Pleasant came out in 1959, but the track to Yonge, buried under pavement, remained years longer until Eglinton was repaved. Continue reading →

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Travels in The Beach

The following is a combination of two comments sent in recently by Renee Knight, and I’m putting them in their own thread.

The 501 Queen Car in the Beach is doing a terribly pathetic job of serving this neighbourhood. Even in the midst of summer and with tourists flocking to the neighbourhood, there seems to be no consideration to the people that live here and need to get out of the beach for work, doctors, medical appointments…

In the last 5 years the state of service on the streetcar has become so abysmal that people buy houses in the Beach thinking they can take the Streetcar to their offices downtown, and to often end up either driving to work or selling their homes and moving downtown where they can walk to work.

Today alone, I waited 20 minutes for a streetcar that’s supposed to go every 6 minutes, and then got turfed off at Connaught, and then again at McCaul, just to go to Trinity and Strachan from Queen and Wineva, and this at 10:00 a.m. on a Thursday. We’re not talking rush hour, no traffic problems, it’s a great sunny day.

The problem is that the people who decide on the short turns the drivers make aren’t anywhere near the route, and could care less if the schedule is being met, as in picking up passengers along the route. The focus is on the downtown core. TTC doesn’t get it that we also need to get downtown from the beach and back home again. Three streetcars and an hour an a half for a 40 minute trip is really pathetic, and it does not have to be this way.

I don’t believe that traffic congestion is the problem. I believe the problem is a negligent management so out of touch with its ridership that they just don’t care. And as far as that goes, this creates staff that doesn’t care either, if they can’t meet schedules, and are constantly being yelled at; after a while you give up and stop listening. That’s what we are finding on our route. Drivers have given up, their supervisors are not listening to them or us. What are we to do? It’s only going to get worse if no-one is looking at solutions!

For many years, the streetcar was very enjoyable to take, not so anymore!

I have called in to customer service, written letters that go unanswered… What can we do in the Beach to improve the service? Petition?

Any suggestions, Steve?

[2nd part]

Yes, this used to be the TTC’s motto before, The Better Way. What happened to the better way? It’s not better anymore.

I’ve taken the transit in this city for over 20 years, and the surface routes are painfully deteriorting in service. Particularly the Queen Car (501 – Neville Park – serving the Beach) I have never been more disappointed at the level of service on this route. My 64 Main bus does not disappoint, but anytime I have to take the Queen car, I am concerned, as 9/10 times, I will not get a streetcar for at least 20 minutes, often 30 or more minutes.

We always give ourselves around 15 minutes leeway to get to our desinations, assuming we should not have to wait to long for a streetcar that is scheduled to come to the stop (Queen & Wineva) every 6 minutes, so it isn’t a matter of people leaving late and blaming transit. It’s a matter of transit short turning 1/2 of the streetcars that are scheduled to come into the Beach, and that’s before any problems start on the line.

It’s just not an acceptable level of service.

I long for the days when I could see a car that wasn’t headed to Neville in a 20-30 minute wait, and trusting I’d see a car come my way before the one that just went down to Neville.

It used to take 30 minutes to get to Yonge & Queen from Wineva, now it takes an hour, trip time is still the same, what’s changed is the wait time. Very rarely are the traffic issues so bad that the neglect of not serving the Beach at least reasonably close to the schedule is actually neccesary.

What happens now, is that car returning from Neville Park will have one or two cars within minutes behind it, leaving terrible gaps in service that no-one seems to care about. The “we’re sorry for your inconvencience” from a Customer Service staffer just does nothing to remove the problem! In fact it’s like a slap in the face for bothering to call in!

The schedule, as we say in the Beach is “Published Fiction”. It’s a joke, and should be an embarrasment to the TTC, and those who supervise the line. I do not blame the drivers, they simply follow directions of their superiors, no matter how daft.

Steve:  I really am getting tired of the TTC’s lame excuses that all their problems would go away if there were no traffic congestion.  First off, the congestion is not anywhere near as bad all of the time on all of the routes as the TTC claims.  Second, there are ongoing problems with mismanagement of the service as described in Renee’s comments above.

For decades, the TTC has forgotten that many of the people who actually use the routes downtown live on the outer part of the line.  Screw up the service there and you drive away ridership.

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Streetcar Track Construction Update

The TTC agenda for April 18 includes a report recommending award of a three-year contract for “rubber encapsulation” for special trackwork.  This technique, technically called “elastomeric isolation”, extends the mechanical isolation of track from regular tangent rails to the intersections where there is much more vibration and potential for roadbed damage.

The TTC pioneered this design for special work installation with three test sites:  King & Queen (Don Bridge), Main Station Loop, and finally a large-scale project at King & Dufferin.  The impending work on St. Clair at Robina and at Oakwood, as well as intersections along the Dundas line will all be encapsulated.

Other design changes are in the works according to the TTC’s Jim Teeple:

Not only have we been evaluating the polymer used for the isolation, we have also been reviewing fastener and tie technologies as well. Our primary objectives are: life-cycle (including future vehicle fleets) , in-street construction timelines (panalisation to minimise disruption), reduced preventative maintenance, ongoing maintenance costs, capital costs, in roughly that order.

The St. Clair project this year will see Hydro working between Vaughan Road and Westmount Avenue (one block east of Dufferin Street) to underground its services, while the TTC rebuilds the streetcar right-of-way from Westmount to Caledonia (where Hydro services are already underground).  St. Clair West Station Loop will also be rebuilt this summer, and the work will include repair of expansion joints in the station structure.

The remainder of the line’s reconstruction (Vaughan to Westmount, Caledonia to Gunn’s Loop) will take place in 2008.  There is no word on the proposed extension westward, but this is included as part of the Transit City scheme.

In a previous post about the overall plans for special work replacement, I raised the question of why some intersections on Spadina were listed even though they are comparatively new.  It turns out that budget estimates are done based on formulas including service intensity and the time projected for special work to deteriorate to the point of needing replacement.  The Spadina intersections were built long before the move to mechanically isolate the track and this, combined with the extremely frequent service, will bring them up for replacement sooner rather than later.  However, the actual timing of the project will be based on actual conditions on site, not simply on a formula.  The TTC’s track construction plans change every year, and we may see the Spadina intersections move further out if they remain in better condition than expected.

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Meanwhile in the Beach

In case everyone thought that this had turned into a blog about the Spadina Subway and intercity rail travel, let’s come back to the real world of the Queen Car with the following note.

Hi Steve
This is not really a comment, but rather a follow-up to my earlier comments re: service in the Beach.  It’s not getting any better.

Let’s start with a math quiz . What’s the next number in this sequence?

18,33,1,14,2,10,11 ______(??? )

Give up? Well the answer is “who knows, could be any number”.  It’s the 501 from Neville.

These were the 501 headways departing Neville westbound on a normal, dry road, no traffic, no accidents type middle of the weekday when all a person wanted to do was spend $10 on a streetcar going to Queen & Lee etc to do local errands. Can you believe it? Is anyone in charge of supervising this major streetcar route???

Walked down to the loop from Fallingbrook at 12:30 and saw 42xx departing westbound. 12:48 (run#7) finally came 18 minutes later. Thought I would hang around and see what followed:

  • The next car, 4244 departed at 1:21-33 minute gap!!!!
  • Then in a brilliant move, car 4250 left one whole minute later at 1:22 (came empty, left empty).
  • 4210 left 14 min later at 1:36.
  • Then run 14, 4230 left 2 minutes later at 1:38 (again empty)
  • 4225 left at 1:48, and finally
  • 4225 left at 1:57.

This is a very common situation, not unusual at all. What happens with this mess down the line? Where do the supervisors supervise from?  Do they know what is going on here????

This is sad and funny at the same time. Is anyone in control of this route??

Thought you may find this interesting Steve.
Pete

Yes, it is interesting and far, far too common.  The service at Neville Loop is supposed to run every 5’30”.

I am still mired in detailed analysis of the King route (which I hope to finish over Easter weekend) and have not had the heart to look at Queen Street yet.  The bottom line, however, is that service is quite irregular even on days, like Christmas, when it should run like a clock.