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Analysis of 903 Kennedy Station-STC Express October 2024

The 903 Express bus replacing the former Scarborough Rapid Transit Line 3 began operating formally in September 2023 after the SRT shut down in July. Initially the route operated totally in mixed traffic, but red lanes were added to speed operation. Also, the route initially operated via Progress, but shifted to Ellesmere in mid-November after roadway changes to support the route.

Initial service was extremely frequent, but this was cut back in November 2023 when several other routes were extended south from STC to Kennedy Station to provide a one-seat ride to passengers who otherwise would have to transfer at STC station. The 903 Express remains in operation, but less frequently thanks to the presence of other services.

Although many routes now share the corridor south via Midland and north via Kennedy between Ellesmere and Kennedy Station, the 903 Express can stand in for all routes to measure travel times.

A few points revealed here:

  • Service on this route is fairly regular with much less of the headway spread into gaps and bunches seen on other route analyses. This is likely due to the demand pattern with few stops, and less cumulative delay from boarding/alighting passengers along the route, combined with reliable departures at the terminals.
  • Where buses are crowded, this usually shows up as a series of regularly spaced vehicles with heavy loads, not as single crowded buses after wide gaps.
  • The benefit of the red lanes varies by location, direction and time of day. Travel times are included here as a reference point for future comparison when the SRT busway goes into service, as well as to track any spillover effects from Scarborough Subway construction.

Updated November 9, 2024 at 4:40pm: The operating chart including crowding status has been added for October 16 as a counterpart to the bus spacing charts for the same day.

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501/301 Queen Diversion via Richmond/Adelaide Begins November 10 [Corrected Date]

The TTC has announced that the Queen car diversion around Ontario Line construction at Yonge Street will be simplified effective Sunday, November 10, 2024.

Streetcars will operate westbound via Church, Richmond and York, and eastbound via new track on York, Adelaide and Church. Connections to the subway will be via walking transfers south from Queen Station to Richmond (westbound service) and north from King Station to Adelaide (eastbound service). Connections to the University Line will be at Osgoode Station both ways.

Updated Nov 8 at 6pm: The TTC has confirmed that there will be no stops at Victoria, Bay or York as these are within walking distance of other stops.

The 501B shuttle bus from Broadview/Gerrard to Wolseley Loop at Bathurst Street will no longer operate.

There will be no 501/301 service on King Street at King or St. Andrew Stations.

Other services in the King Street corridor will remain: 503 Kingston Road, 504 King and 508 Lake Shore.

[An earlier version of this article cited November 6, not the 10th.]

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Analysis of 29/929 Dufferin – September 2024 (Updated)

This article continues a series of reviews of various routes in September 2024, and in particular the crowding conditions on buses.

The data for Wednesday, September 25 are reviewed in detail to show some of the factors that vanish in stats averaged at the level of a month.

Updated Nov. 4, 2024 at 6:45am: Charts have been added at the end of the article showing the combined local and express service on September 25, and comparing travel times over segments of the route.

General notes:

  • Although the TTC Service Standards are based on the premise that vehicles leave terminals more-or-less “on time”, in practice there is a considerable variation that extends beyond the approved standard.
  • Irregular vehicles spacing tends to grow along a route so that bunches and gaps become more accentuated. There does not appear to much attempt to regulate vehicle spacing enroute.
  • Crowded buses are likely to appear after gaps in service, and loads on groups of buses are not evenly distributed. The average load measured over time might be within standards, but the load experienced by most riders is above that average.
  • Both the local and express services suffer from irregular vehicle spacing. The express buses make the journey between King and Wilson about five minutes faster than the locals.
  • Severe traffic congestion northbound near Yorkdale in the afternoon affects both the local and express buses.

This is a rather long article with a lot of charts to illustrate how vehicle tracking data can be presented in many ways.

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TTC Board Meeting – October 29, 2024

The TTC Board met on October 29 with an agenda that did not give the impression of being an all-day affair, but that is not how things turned out.

An extended debate in both public and confidential session arose from a management proposal to ban eBikes from the system from mid-November to mid-April as a safety measure. This arose from a fire onboard a subway train earlier in 2024 and a more general concern about eBike fires as these vehicles become more common.

There were many overlapping threads in the debate, but in the end the Board referred the matter back to staff for additional information, especially in regards to harmonization with existing City and Metrolinx policies, and the problem of enforcement. This will be on the December 3, 2024 meeting agenda.

To me, the most frustrating part of the discussion was the amount of time devoted to that issue compared to the almost non-existent debate on basic matters like service quality and management, as well as reconciliation of TTC plans with Council’s rather lofty aims to increase transit use as an essential environmental policy.

There was little new in the CEO’s monthly report. Ridership continues to build at a modest pace, and the profile of demands by day-of-week and time-of-day requires a rethink of service provision.

Other issues in this article:

  • Hydraulic fluid leaks from subway work cars
  • Reduced speed zones
  • Ending legacy media
  • The size of the TTC bus fleet
  • Transport buses for warming centres
  • Streetcar open door cameras
  • The CEO’s mandate
  • Gambling advertising
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Temporary Replacement of 512 St. Clair Streetcars

Starting at 11pm on Friday, November 1 until 5am on Thursday, November 14, streetcars will be replaced by buses over the entire 512 St. Clair route. Buses are already covering the east end of the route due to a sinkhole near Avenue Road and streetcars are diverting south to Bathurst Station.

This substitution will allow various works including completion of reconstruction at St. Clair West Station.

The 10 streetcars assigned to the line will be replaced by 15-30 buses.

Full streetcar service will resume on November 14, subject to completion of construction work.

Bus service on 33 Forest Hill, 90 Vaughan and 126 Christie will return to St. Clair West Station on Sunday, November 17, the next schedule change.

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TTC’s Service Changes for the Swift Eras Tour

The TTC has announced several service changes to accommodate crowds expected at the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concerts at the Rogers Centre on November 14-16 and 21-23. For full details, see their site.

On concert nights, subway service will be improved between 5-8pm and 11pm-1:30am with Line 1 trains operating about every 3 minutes, and Line 2 trains every 4 minutes.

509 Harbourfront service will be restored between Union Station and Exhibition Loop from November 1-24 with at least 11 cars, up from the usual 7 on the line, on concert days .

511 Bathurst cars will operate from Bathurst Station to Union on November 14-16, and starting on November 17 on a scheduled basis.

19 Bay, a normally infrequent service, will have 10 extra buses. Post-show they will operate express northbound stopping only at King, Queen, Dundas and College enroute to Bay Station.

510D Spadina bus will similarly provide an express service stopping at the same intermediate destinations as 19 Bay enroute to Spadina Station.

The express services will be styled as “Swiftbus”. Extra service on 504 King will be styled as “Swiftcar”.

Access at Union Station will be monitored and controlled to prevent the overcrowding that occurred on past occasions with large events.

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TTC 2025 Annual Service Plan Consultation – Round 2

Earlier this year, the TTC conducted the first round of consultations on its 2025 Annual Service Plan. My comments on it include several maps and tables including an update on previously proposed changes that had not yet been implemented.

The following changes are in the second round of consultations:

  • The proposed removal of 87 Cosburn service to East York Acres has been withdrawn for further review.
  • The review of Community Bus routes now includes proposed extensions and restructuring, although the scope is limited by a lack of budget headroom. There is no discussion of where more routes might be added to the system but for a lack of resources to run them.
  • Proposals have been added for alternate service during some, but not all, major construction projects planned for 2025.
  • A proposal to review and consolidate mid-block bus stops has been added.

Except for the 87 Cosburn, all proposals from round one appear unchanged in round two.

The TTC’s survey is available here and will be open for feedback until November 11, 2024. If you have suggestions, please be sure to respond to the survey. Some TTC planning staff do read this site regularly, but feedback on the plan should go to them directly to be part of the record.

I participated in a recent stakeholder session on the plan, and was disappointed by its lack of ambition. There is no sense of a “Ridership Growth Strategy”, an aspirational statement of “here is what we could do”, as opposed to living within the existing budget. It’s almost as if John Tory and Rick Leary never left.

On an informational basis, the plan does not recap pending changes for the eventual opening of Lines 5 Eglinton-Crosstown and 6 Finch West, nor does it discuss past proposals that have not yet been implemented (see my article on round one for a list of these). This leaves riders to search through available background materials to get an overall sense of what will happen in 2025. There is no concrete discussion of general service improvements to attract ridership.

The remainder of this article details the proposals added in the round two consultation.

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Request for Comment: Charting Crowding vs Location and Time (Updated)

Updated Oct. 29 at 2:35pm: The service chart showing crowding levels has been revised with adjusted colouring, and to give emphasis to lines so that they stand out better. See the end of the article for a sample.

Updated Oct. 27 at 8:45pm: Sample charts have been added at the end incorporating some suggested changes.

This article continues my search for clear ways to display vehicle crowding data that I now receive as part of my data feed from TTC. In previous articles, I have shown vehicle tracking charts colour coded for the crowding index.

These charts show the regularity (or not) of service, locations of delays, bunches and gaps, and the resulting crowding pattern. This is useful for fine-grained analysis, but one must look at many charts to see the overall patterns.

In an attempt to “zoom out”, I developed a new chart format that shows the proportion of service at each crowding level seen at screenlines along a route by time of day. This article presents the results for the routes already published, but I wanted to nail down the format before publishing more. (I have many more in the wings including 25/925 Don Mills, 29/929 Dufferin, 36 Finch West, 39/939 Finch East, 41/941 Keele, 52/952 Lawrence, 53/953 Steeles East, 60/960 Steeles West, 85/985 Sheppard East, 86/986 Scarborough, 89/989 Weston, 116 Morningside, 129 McCowan North, 903 STC Express, and 905 Eglinton East Express).

Regular readers will know that I abhor the TTC’s practice of reporting service stats on monthly averages with every trip combined to give an overall picture. This hides a lot of things, notably the variations by hour and location, not to mention variations between routes. The chart format proposed here attempts to strike a balance between a hyper-detailed view and one where readers can see how routes behave at a level they can relate to their own journeys.

Does the new format shown here work for readers? Please let me know in the comments. I can do a lot of preparatory work on the other routes, and then drop their stats into whatever the final chart template looks like.

Many thanks to those who have sent suggestions regarding other charts I have published.

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Analysis of 505 Dundas: September 2024

This is the third in a series of reviews of various transit lines in Toronto. Although the streetcar fleet is not yet reporting passenger loads (automatic counter installation is in progress), it is still worth looking at the quality of service provided on some of these lines.

For 505 Dundas, I will look at seven days’ operation from Monday, September 16 to Sunday, September 22. The intent is to show that conditions on the route are not “one of” instances, but a continuing pattern. The article includes:

  • operating charts (sometimes called Marey diagrams after their supposed inventor well over a century ago),
  • vehicle spacing charts showing bunching and gapping of streetcars, and
  • headway summary charts for the month showing the range of headways at various times and places along the route.

An added topic at the end is a review of travel times on Dundas between University Avenue and Bathurst Street and the effect of parking restrictions that were implemented there earlier in 2024.

Items of particular note:

  • During some periods, streetcars leave terminals fairly evenly spaced, but do not stay in this condition across the route. The bunching and gaps seen by most riders are not as good as terminal-based stats might indicate.
  • Some periods when there is no specific event impeding service see pairs, and occasionally trios, of streetcars travel together for extended periods.
  • Terminal dwell times are adequate for a rest break in most periods, but there are times when this does not occur. Short turns, notably westbound at Lansdowne, become more frequent.
  • Two major delays/diversion occurred during the period covered by this article from demonstrations downtown. The after-effects on service lasted hours beyond the events.
  • Only one event, an early-morning “operational problem”, triggered the use of shuttle buses, at least to the extent that these were tracked and appear in the data feed.

There are a lot of charts in this article. For some readers, this will be a case of “TL,DR” but others really like all of the detail.

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Analysis of 54/954 Lawrence East: September 2024

This post reviews operation of TTC service on the 54 Lawrence East bus and its express equivalent, 954, for September 2024. It continues on the work of building new charts including crowding data that began in the previous article on 35/935 Jane.

In response to suggestions, there are a few changes in the charts here.

  • The shade of red used for crowded buses has been darkened.
    • A reader suggested using a colour palette with a common base such as a light, medium and dark taupe. I experimented with it, but found the contrast for fine lines against a white background did not work well, especially on small displays.
  • New charts showing the distribution of headways along the route and over time have been added.
    • The scheme used is intended to give comparable information to a histogram, but on a more compact basis that makes changes along routes easy to see.

Summary of the 54/954 Lawrence East bus review:

  • Service on 54 Lawrence is unreliable with much bunching and gapping during many periods, especially toward the eastern end of the line.
  • Bunching caused by unregulated “blending” of the two branches (54A to Starspray and 54B to Morningside) is chronic. (This is a common problem on branching routes.)
  • Crowding during off-peak periods generally occurs on buses that are running in a gap.
  • Groups of buses commonly stay together for extended periods, including terminal departures, rather than being spaced apart to minimize gaps.
  • Late evening service on the eastern end of the route is quite erratic, and there was a repeated wide gap on most days in the period reviewed here.
  • The 954 express service has relative little crowding and much more reliable headways than the local service.
  • This route is a textbook example of abdication of route management. The tracking data shows little sign of congestion compared to some other routes, and bunching is a common operating practice.
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