Grand River Transit

[timio]

ijmorlan: Buses would U-turn in the Block Line/Courtland intersecton? Interesting.

At Hillmount, just north of the Block Line intersection.  They put in what looks like a bus bay on either side of Courtland with a priority signal for bus traffic to U-turn.  You can see the base here: https://goo.gl/maps/mdmFuPjzSGs

[KevinL]

So buses would come up Block Line, go left on Courtland, U-turn at the Hillmount intersection, pull up to the bus bay on Courtland; then depart with a right turn on Block Line? Sounds alright.

[Canard]

As a software guy, and based on everything I've read about the signal priority, my educated guess is that you give the complexity far too much credit!

Thanks for your explanation - when you put it like that, you take all the magic out of it.

[danbrotherston]

Has anyone done any study of how generous our GRT schedules actually are? I know they do some evaluation of on time performance, but if we achieve that by slowing down buses, then it's a perverse incentive.

Reason I ask, I was on a bus this morning that took 5 minutes longer than Google Maps suggested to arrive, and then got stuck in traffic for 3-4 light cycles, and made almost every stop, and yet, the driver still decided to literally stop at a green light, I can only imagine, to keep from getting too far ahead of schedule.

[MidTowner]

They're heavily padded, but it would be hard to determine whether a driver's choice might be because he or she is running early, or for some other reason. Sometimes a driver will stop at a very new yellow, or slow down because (I guess) he sees a countdown close to zero, and I wonder if that's overcaution, or to try to waste time to get back on schedule.

What I can say is that, taking the 200 between (roughly) downtown and Conestoga Mall, it is typical in both directions (near or in rush hour) for them to wait at multiple stops to get back on schedule. At one point I was timing this for my own curiosity's sake, and it was sometimes as much as five or six minutes of this kind of waiting, on a trip scheduled to take about thirty, but more usually three or four. That's big: that could imply that the schedule is padded ten percent or more for real-world conditions.

The 200 is very generous (others seem to be, too, but this is the one I take regularly), and it is readily obvious for some trips, and when student ridership is light (reading week, exam time). The summer schedule seems to allow the same time as the winter schedule, even though boardings consume a lot less time. As a result, it's commonplace on a trip of any length for the bus to idle at a stop for several minutes, so it's not early.

[danbrotherston]

They're heavily padded, but it would be hard to determine whether a driver's choice might be because he or she is running early, or for some other reason. Sometimes a driver will stop at a very new yellow, or slow down because (I guess) he sees a countdown close to zero, and I wonder if that's overcaution, or to try to waste time to get back on schedule.

What I can say is that, taking the 200 between (roughly) downtown and Conestoga Mall, it is typical in both directions (near or in rush hour) for them to wait at multiple stops to get back on schedule. At one point I was timing this for my own curiosity's sake, and it was sometimes as much as five or six minutes of this kind of waiting, on a trip scheduled to take about thirty, but more usually three or four. That's big: that could imply that the schedule is padded ten percent or more for real-world conditions.

The 200 is very generous (others seem to be, too, but this is the one I take regularly), and it is readily obvious for some trips, and when student ridership is light (reading week, exam time). The summer schedule seems to allow the same time as the winter schedule, even though boardings consume a lot less time. As a result, it's commonplace on a trip of any length for the bus to idle at a stop for several minutes, so it's not early.

Yes, I've seen them slow for a close yellow too, but this was basically a complete stop, at 2 on the countdown timer.  Then three to four seconds after green before we moved again.

I mean, there could be other explanations, but as a passenger, still very frustrating.  There are few options for layover on this route at stops due to it following busy two lanes roads so.

In any case, it would be good to do a more rigorous analysis of this.

[chutten]

The realtime GTFS feed is available for consumption here: http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/region...FSdata.asp

You'll need a grounding in protocol buffers and data storage to build up a suitable number of records. From there you can compare the scheduled stop times (present in the static feed zip, also at the above URL) to the ones advertised by the GTFS data.

From there it's a matter of summing seconds of earliness per dimension you want to track (presumably per stop, route, hour... but maybe you're also interested in per-bus timings in case you want to see if there's a driver component?)

Or, you could ask GRT yourself. They undoubtedly track it as a key performance metric.

[Bob_McBob]

GRT raising fares on July 1:

http://www.grt.ca/en/fares-passes/fares.aspx

[danbrotherston]

GRT raising fares on July 1:

http://www.grt.ca/en/fares-passes/fares.aspx

*sigh*....another round of well above inflation increases.  

Don't they usually have a big council meeting on this?

[tomh009]

I would support a 100% fare reduction. Radical, I know. It would add an average of $250/household to the property tax bill, but people would ride transit for free. Dramatically increase ridership, and thus reduce pressure on regional (and city) road capacity.

Would any politician dare to propose this?

[timc]

I don't understand how free transit would work. Wouldn't the buses be horribly overcrowded?

[danbrotherston]

I don't understand how free transit would work. Wouldn't the buses be horribly overcrowded?

That just means services could be expanded.

I don't actually agree with free transit though.  It should be subsidized heavily for low income individuals, however, the real question with respect to transit is how best to spend money.

If you took that same 250 dollar per household tax bill and instead invested it in enhanced service rather than free transit, would that gain more ridership?  There's a good chance it would.

I think it is more important that rates remain stable and tied to inflation than that they be any particular price.  Also, and perhaps more importantly, that driving is *also* priced in some way (easiest way being parking).

[tomh009]

If you took that same 250 dollar per household tax bill and instead invested it in enhanced service rather than free transit, would that gain more ridership? There's a good chance it would.

I do agree that it would gain substantial ridership.  $250 would provide a 50% increase in the regional transit budget; the free-transit-equivalent (see below) $150 would add about 30% to the transit budget.  There doesn't appear to be a lot of appetite for increasing the transit budget, though.  (The free-transit is a whole different beast, and might also be unacceptable.)

NOTE: Free transit would cost about $150/household, not $250.  My apologies for sloppy math in the earlier post.  ($32M passenger revenue vs $54M regional subsidy.

I didn't see any data how these numbers will be impacted by the LRT when it starts operating.

[danbrotherston]

If you took that same 250 dollar per household tax bill and instead invested it in enhanced service rather than free transit, would that gain more ridership? There's a good chance it would.

I do agree that it would gain substantial ridership.  $250 would provide a 50% increase in the regional transit budget; the free-transit-equivalent (see below) $150 would add about 30% to the transit budget.  There doesn't appear to be a lot of appetite for increasing the transit budget, though.  (The free-transit is a whole different beast, and might also be unacceptable.)

NOTE: Free transit would cost about $150/household, not $250.  My apologies for sloppy math in the earlier post.  ($32M passenger revenue vs $54M regional subsidy.

I didn't see any data how these numbers will be impacted by the LRT when it starts operating.

I'm not sure about that, hasn't the transit budget been increasing pretty steadily?  Service hours certainly have.

The real problem I see is there seem to be some individuals who are seeking to reduce the subsidy rate, and have argued for increasing fares to reach that, which of course, doesn't work very well, it only drives away ridership, and disadvantage those who need the system.

I of course would be willing to negotiate my position on this issue in return for similar provisions for roadways paying for themselves. [/snark]

[tomh009]

We need to rethink transportation, and what is free and how other things should be paid for. (Motor) vehicle fees/taxes based on mileage driven would be an excellent start, but they would need to be part of a complete strategy.