This is the second part of a review of headway reliability on the routes serving the former SRT corridor.
Routes included here are:
903 Kennedy-STC Express
939 Finch Express
954 Lawrence East Express
985 Sheppard East Express
For other routes, and an introduction, see Part 1 of this article.
The common thread through these reviews is that although there is transit priority in place between Kennedy Station and Ellesmere on Midland and on Kennedy, these routes have reliability problems. The red lanes benefit riders once they are on a bus, but their wait for a vehicle could delay their trip.
I do not expect that most readers will take a brief look at routes they use. However, some with an absolute passion for Scarborough bus service and lots of time might dive into details for every route.
When the Scarborough RT closed, it was replaced by a bus shuttle, 903 Kennedy-Scarborough Express, running frequent service over streets paralleling the former SRT route. In previous articles, I reviewed actual travel times to determine how much traffic interference and transit priority contributed to speedy travel. See:
Since mid-November 2023, service between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station has been provided by many routes with the intention of eliminating transfer delays at STC. The following routes were extended south to Kennedy Station following the same route as the 903 Express. At the same time, service on the 903 was reduced as buses were redeployed to the other routes.
38 Highland Creek
129 McCowan North
131 Nugget
133 Neilson
938 Highland Creek Express
939A/B Finch Express
954 Lawrence East Express
985A Sheppard East Express
Debate over the planned busway in the former SRT corridor focuses on travel time savings using a private road from Eglinton to Ellesmere, but an important aspect for any rider is the wait time for their bus. The benefit of a faster ride can be undone by an unpredictable wait. This series of articles reviews service reliability on the extended routes as well as the remaining 903 Express operation between mid-November 2023 and the end of February 2024.
With all the focus on the shared route between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station, there remains the much longer portion of routes that have been extended. While the red lanes, and later the BRT roadway, should minimize further sources of irregularity, this does not change the fact that some of these routes have service issues east and north of STC.
This is part of a more general issue across the bus network that improvements are needed that will not come quickly or easily simply with a few transit priority projects. Moreover, riders need to see improvements now, not in the indefinite future after studies, priority lists and endless debates about who “deserves” better transit.
Included in Part 1 are routes 38, 938, 129, 131 and 133. The remaining express routes are in Part 2.
Performance of the 903 service to Centennial College east of STC (Scarborough Town Centre)
Travel times between STC and Ellesmere & Midland
A review of terminal layover times at Kennedy Station
The screenlines for arrivals and departures at Kennedy Station have been moved from Eglinton at Midland and at Kennedy to points on Eglinton just east and west of the loop entrances. This ensures that any delays at the intersections are counted in travel time, not in terminal time. The change has been applied retroactively to charts for September through November.
Correction: References to a 934 Progress Express should have been to route 913. This has been corrected. Thanks to a reader for pointing out this gaffe.
This article is a preliminary look at the service offered by the 903 express bus which replaced Line 3 SRT.
Until Saturday, November 18, the 903 buses provided very frequent service between Scarborough Town Centre and Kennedy Station. On Sunday, November 19, eight other routes were extended from STC to Kennedy Station, the 903 was extended to Centennial College replacing the 134/913 Progress bus, and much existing service on route 903 was reallocated to the extended routes.
I will review the other routes serving this corridor in early 2024 when they have accumulated a few months’ experience.
Travel Times
The charts here show how travel times between STC and Kennedy Station have changed over the past three months. The screenlines for these measurements are located:
Leaving STC Loop
Just north of Eglinton on Midland and on Kennedy
Note that this excludes time spent navigating roads and construction near Kennedy Station, and any time spent in STC Loop. I will review terminal operations when more data for all of the routes in this corridor have accumulated.
The charts below show monthly data, by week and hour, with North/Eastbound service on the left and South/Westbound service on the right. Note that there are no data for September, Week 1 because the service was provided with untracked extras until the schedule change on Labour Day weekend.
The solid lines show the average headways, and the dotted lines show the standard deviation, a measure of the scatter in the values. The closer the SD values are to zero, the more reliable the service is.
In the early weeks of operation, the transit priority measures were not in place, and service was more affected by traffic sharing the road. This settles down by November, although some peak period effects are still visible.
The TTC had anticipated that a trip between Kennedy Station and STC would take 15 to 18 minutes depending on conditions. Considering that the times shown below do not include access time to and from terminals, the service is close to the TTC’s target.
Service from November 19 Onward
After November 19, the 903 STC Express became more typical of other routes with less frequent service. Variations show up that are similar to other parts of the system. The charts below show headways westbound at Progress and Markham Road, and northbound from Eglinton and Kennedy for the last two weeks of November. The scatter of data points shows the type of service that someone waiting for a 903 bus would experience.
Some data are missing on the morning of Friday, November 24.
Some of the wider headways (dots higher on the charts) have no correponding short headway (dot near the horizonal axis). This indicates that a bus was missing, as opposed to two buses running close together after a long gap.
The weekend charts at the south end of the line include data for the early part of the month when 903 service was much more frequent.
Although much of the weekend service stays close to the target headway, there are data points showing wide gaps where a bus was missing from the service. This is a concern for service east of STC to Centennial College.
Steve Munro 