This is a fairly ordinary day with no particular upsets on the route. The weather was “rain and snow in the late evening”. This is a good example of how service manages to be fouled up even when nothing in particular is going on. Continue reading
Analysis of 504 King: Part III – Friday, December 1, 2006
In the previous post, I used Christmas Day as a fairly straightforward example of the data analysis from the King route. Now, I will turn to an example of a very bad day for service, December 1. The weather was “rain, heavy at times” according to Environment Canada.
This is probably the worst day in the month both for weather and for disorganized service with the possible exception of Friday, December 22 which I will present in a later post. Continue reading
Analysis of 504 King: Part II – Christmas Day 2006 (Updated)
Updated August 25 at 10:30 pm:
For some time, I have been working on a different version of the program that produces the headway and link time charts, and this work is now complete. This will simplify future work on other routes, but also it cleans up the existing charts.
I have made the following changes to the charts that are linked from this post:
- The data points are shown on the charts so that readers can see exactly where they are. Each point represents a car on a specific headway at a specific time, or a car’s travel time between two points.
- I have added a moving average trendline based on 7 consecutive data points to show the reliability (or lack of it) of the detail as opposed to the longer term average which approximates the scheduled headway (provided there are no delays or short turns).
Otherwise, this post is unchanged. Information about other days will appear soon.
Around the Lakes
Robert Wightman is freshly returned from sailing around the southern lakes, and sends this report from his travels. It includes a tourist’s eye view of Toronto. Continue reading
Life North of Steeles
The York Region Transit website contains an intriguing document, the proposed Service Standards on which design of the YRT/Viva network will be based. Interesting reading especially while we contemplate the imminent butchering of the TTC’s network. Continue reading
Reinventing Roncesvalles
The following comment was submitted by “Dave” in the thread on King Car analysis, but it deserves a post of its own. It deals with the planned redesign of Roncesvalles Avenue, the St. Clair experience, and where we might be headed on road design in general for streetcar routes. Continue reading
Wheel Trans Woes
Today’s Toronto Star has an article about the problems of the Wheel Trans system. For years, this “service” has been a distant second class operation within the TTC. It has all the earmarks of a service provided by the City not because it wants to, but because it has to. There are long-standing problems with the vehicles and with the dispatching system, some of which are only now being addressed.
Recently, two friends of mine set out by Wheel Trans. One is wheel-chair bound, the other was his companion for the trip. The goal is to get from Dundas & Jarvis to York Mills & DVP. Continue reading
Private or Public?
Ian Folkhard wrote recently with this question:
Is there a website that objectively lays out the effects of privatization on formerly publicly controlled operations?
It would be very interesting to see if any of the savings and efficiencies that the supporters of privatization claim will result have actually been passed back to any group of taxpayers. Something that referred to the British experience with public transit and the railways would be really interesting reading.
I hunted around on the net and, alas, there are lots of papers written extolling the virtues of individual projects, but very little by way of an objective overview. One paper was written for the OECD as a 30-year retrospective in January 2007. The information in it is reasonably current, although the recent meltdown in London is not included.
[Note that this is a long paper with 35 pages of text, 14 pages of citations and 72 footnotes. Be sure to read the footnotes as many of them contain important additional information.]
The author proceeds from the premise that some degree of private operation of public transit is becoming the norm rather than the exception, and that privatization is an attempt by the transit industry to become more competitive with the rising use of the automobile. I don’t agree with that premise for reasons that will become obvious, but the presentation covers the subject and is not unduly doctrinaire about the wonders of free enterprise. Continue reading
Siemens’ Combino Plus Campaign
A wraparound ad on the August 16 issue of 24 Hours extols Siemens new streetcars and refers readers to a website with more information. The layout has the earmarks of an ongoing advertising campaign with cheeky copy:
- Say hello to the streetcar that rings your bell.
- Introducing the Combino Plus.
- Save your stair climbing for the gym.
- Sitting on a stranger’s lap is now optional.
The Siemens page includes an animated look at the Combino Plus car as proposed for Toronto including simulation of the car on the Spadina and Queen lines. There is a link to a data sheet on the Lisbon version of the car as well as a non-functioning [as of noon on August 17] link to a Melbourne presentation.
A Siemens mockup is on view at the CNE grounds on Princes’ Boulevard along with the Bombardier mockup that appeared recently at Dundas Square.
If you get bored with the streetcars, you can watch people getting fired out of a cannon. Whether this will be yet another alternative for transit service remains to be seen.
Who’s In Charge at Kipling Station?
[Since the Star has hotlinked my site from their article, it might be nice if there was actually some content here for any visitors to read. Hence this piece.]
Today, Queen’s Park announced that GO Transit would fund the construction of a regional terminal at Kipling Station for joint use by GO and Mississauga Transit. Amusingly, this project was not part of MoveOntario, but, like many other bits and pieces, was overlooked in the rush to put together Dalton McGuinty’s transit plan.
Oddly, nobody from the City or TTC was at the announcement even though the new terminal will sit on their land. The TTC design for a new Kipling Station came out late last year, and it’s hardly news. All we were waiting for was funding, and that arrived today. However, Queen’s Park seems only concerned with the regional part of the project and it remains to be seen how the City/TTC portion, which includes redevelopment of some lands at Islington, will fit into everything. Continue reading
Steve Munro 