Articulated

35 minutes ago, GTAmissions1 said:

Go Transit has posted their service changes. Not a full list, but more of the noticeable ones:

Route 18K will be renamed Route 11. 

96Z will service Toronto Zoo along with 47W and 52X will service Canada's Wonderland on weekends only from May 4th until August 25th. 

Lakeshore West and East Lines:

• Lakeshore West will operate every 15 minutes on weekends between Oakville Go Station and Union Station
• Lakeshore East between Union Station and Durham College Oshawa Go will operate every 15 minutes
• Departing from Union Station, the span of hours for 15 minute service along both lines is between 3 PM until 11 PM, then it is reduced to 30 minute service until the final trip of the service day.

Milton Line:

• New morning departure at 6:43 AM making all stops to Union arriving at 7:48 AM
• New afternoon departure at 4:10 PM from Union arriving in Milton at 5:12 PM
• Eastbound departures depart a minute earlier between Milton Go Station and Dixie Go Station to account for door restrictions at Kipling Go Station 

Stouvfille Line:

• Late evening train service restored 7 days/week
• Bus service to replace train trips directly to Union Station will instead terminate to connect between bus and train transfers
• Markham Go Station will have the non-accessible side doors close a minute early with the accessible side closing 30 seconds early similar to departure stations such as Union

Kitchener Line: 

• 30 minute service between Bramalea Go Station and Union Station to be introduced during weekday mid-day and evening

The 21 Milton is returning to Union Station, on a reduced schedule from the previous changes.

As a result, the 27 (North York-Milton) will get cut back to Meadowvale outside of rush hours once again. The 21A between Milton GO and Oakville GO will be retained as the 22, operating on a reduced schedule (every 2 hours on weekdays only).

1 hour ago, TechSpotlight said:

Could this page: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_3035-3043 be renamed to "Pacific Western Transportation 3032-3035, 3037-3043".  3036 (Northern Health Connections) is a one-off 2012 unit, while the rest are 2011s (confirmed through VINs)

EDIT: can 5116 be added to the title of this page? https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_5101-5115.

As a result, can 5116 be removed and can 5141-5142 be added to this page title: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_5116-5140.  

Thanks.

Page titles have been moved and links updated.

On 4/11/2024 at 3:17 AM, TechSpotlight said:

Sorry to make you move the page again, but today I confirmed 2368 and 2369 are apart of the 2008 batch.  So can https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_2348-2369 be renamed to "Pacific Western Transportation 2348-2367 " and can https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_2370-2399 be renamed to "Pacific Western Transportation 2368-2399".

 

Thanks

23 hours ago, TechSpotlight said:

Can 3022 be added to this page title: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_3023.

Can this page: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Diversified_Transportation_2901-2913 be renamed to the current Pacific Western fleet page standards.

And can this page: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_2557-2586 be renamed to "Pacific Western Transportation 2529-2584".

Thanks.

5 hours ago, 19adam99 said:

Can the page "Delta Air Lines Employee Shuttle Service 3286" be renamed to "Delta Air Lines Employee Shuttle Service 3256, 3286, 3288, 4908"

Thanks!

The above page moves should all be complete, with page links updated to point to the new titles.

8 minutes ago, Centralsmt said:

Flixbus do not own any coaches, all routes are operated by a variety of operators under contract.

That is their business model worldwide.

Not fully true any longer - they directly own Greyhound, which owns its own equipment, but that's more of a technicality at this point. Some areas of the former Greyhound network have been (or are in the process of being) fully contracted out, and it's tilting in the direction where Greyhound will become something of an "in-house contractor" for Flixbus routes soon.

7 hours ago, G.A said:

Was at the yard a few days ago and seen a lot of retired 85 series J4500's and some 86 series as well There was also a damaged Van Hool. There was also an 83 on property with no plates. Did they order any new buses to replace what has been retired?

No, Coach Canada has not received any new-to-them buses in a very long time. Being sold to a penny-pinching private equity firm will mean you gotta coast on your existing infrastructure.

Last new buses would've been the 94000-series J4500 coaches and 313000-series H3-45 coaches, both of which were delivered in 2017. However, in the past year or two Coach Canada has been receiving a number of Van Hool TD925 double deckers transferred up from the US operations, which would help replace some of the older J4500 coaches that are getting put aside.

25 minutes ago, wil9402 said:

Anytime between when the operator gets their license and the final test, Instructors can take them on any route they wish to do revenue service training. 

To add on, it's beneficial to expose future operators to a variety of conditions during training, in order to get them better prepared for when they're on their own. So that will end up taking them all around the city.

Some trainers may also have their own "pet" routes they like better than others. The 83 could be one of those - a relatively quiet and infrequent route, so you're less likely to cause confusion amongst waiting riders, or delay regular service by pulling into and out of stops.

22 minutes ago, Kumiko Oumae said:

From the looks of it, the 939 FINCH EXPRESS (and maybe the 39 FINCH EAST/339 FINCH EAST BLUE NIGHT) won't be the only route to get both LFSA and XDE60 artics, there are rumblings that the 43 KENNEDY will likely be converted to Artic operation in the coming weeks.

In that case. 6 artics will replace 9 rigid buses on the 43A branch while the 43B will run with 4 artics in peak with 2 in the midday. In total plus the 43C, the route will operate with 12 artics during rush.

What's your source on this?

I checked with a reliable person in the know, and they have not heard anything about this upcoming switch. 43 Kennedy may get artics on an occasional basis (similar to how there was one last weekend, due to a driver switch) but no permanent allocations.

30 minutes ago, Shaun said:

No extension of the Leslie service to reach Gormley station anytime soon?

 

The Gormley On Demand service is intended to provide the connection between the newly-developing residential areas and the GO station. Once ridership patterns have become established, then they will add fixed-route service.

26 minutes ago, randall said:

when are the xde40s getting moved to mcnicoll?

Who said that McNicoll is getting XDE40s?

15 minutes ago, FlyerD901 said:

SUPPLY OF BATTERY ELECTRIC PARATRANSIT BUSES

This Request for Proposals is to prospective Proponents to submit Proposals for the Supply of Battery Electric Paratransit Buses for TTC's Wheel-Trans Group. Wheel-Trans provides over 4 million door-to-door, specialized transit trips each year in the City of Toronto and supports over 42,000 registered customers eligible to receive such specialized services. The City of Toronto’s TransformTO Net Zero Strategy defines a pathway to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in Toronto by 2040. To adhere to this pathway, the TTC, through this RFP, is planning to procure up to 10 zero-emissions battery-electric Wheel-Trans vehicles from multiple vendors. This procurement aims to evaluate the electric Wheel-Trans vehicles within the TTC’s operating environment, leverage lessons learned to inform technical and commercial specifications for future large-scale procurements and share our findings with the broader transit community to assist with the planning and adoption of zero-emissions vehicles.

It would be nice for TTC to get more of a shuttle transit bus for the community service. Like the Equess Charge, where you can still have the many wheelchair spots and regular seats for more able bodied persons. Even something like the NFI MiDI where you can expand the amount of customers using it while still being small enough to navigate the community bus routes. Instead of the existing wheel trans bus, with a community bus wrap on it. 

 

The MiDi has been out of production for a number of years now, so that is definitely not an option.

But the models you are describing are generally no shorter than 29 feet in length; given that the Community Bus routes go into individual properties for pick-up/drop-off, it's likely that traditional 30 foot buses would not fit into these locations. For reference, the Arboc Independence buses currently used on Community Bus routes are listed as 21' in production documents, and referred to as "7 metres" by the TTC, about 2m shorter than the buses you'd like them to buy. That's not an insignificant difference.

2 hours ago, TechSpotlight said:

https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Prairie_Bus_Lines_580

Could 579 please be added to the above page title?  Thanks.

Completed!

12 minutes ago, The Squishy Bus said:

Did #1111 already go?

13 minutes ago, The Squishy Bus said:

Did #1111 already go?

Check for yourself before asking pointless questions: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Toronto_Transit_Commission_1000-1149

49 minutes ago, gtatransitfanner said:

TTC 9410 on 43

Source?

2 hours ago, Highway of Heroes said:

VIA Rail 645 on Ottawa- Toronto. This is extremely rare because of the detour via the York & the Bala Sub due to construction east of union GO Station for this evening. 

This post makes no sense. What is 645? That's not an (active) piece of equipment.

And all VIA runs on the Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa corridors are diverting via the Bala and York subdivisions to avoid Metrolinx's closure of the Kingston Sub east of Union. This is not a new occurrence, as it's been done over half a dozen times since November 2021 to accommodate track and bridge construction. And it's not "special" if it's a scheduled diversion, or if every trip is following the same diversionary routing.

2 hours ago, Shaun said:

I was wondering how much longer the "temporary" Eglinton station is going to be used. Initially when they closed the old station and built a station in the old bus garage it was supposed to be "temporary".  20 years later it's starting to show its age. Holes in the walls, leaking roofs, and its not suitable for the kind of volume of buses it handles today.

 

When cross town opens there will be less demand at Eglinton, so will they then patch things up? It's such an eye sore. 

It's always been a stated goal of the Eglinton Crosstown project to construct a new, smaller bus terminal on the site of the original terminal to handle what little routes will still run there. Since that site is also the location where the tunnel boring machines were extracted from, it kind of wasn't available until after all the construction at Eglinton Station was largely completed.

7 hours ago, ns8401 said:

Operated by…. Well it doesn’t actually say on the FLIX site this time. 

Flixbus hasn't been great lately about announcing which of their contractors are operating which runs; I think one of the other recently-added trips (likely Detroit-Toronto) also did not list the contractor. But photos that I have seen show a Gallexy Tours bus in Sudbury, so it's likely them running it.

In general in Ontario, it seems to be Gallexy Tours getting the daytime round trips starting/ending in Toronto, with Eastern Charter providing extra capacity on Toronto-Ottawa. Skyway Coach Lines does all of the cross-border, overnight, and trips operating through Toronto (i.e. Detroit-Toronto-Ottawa). McCoy Bus Service based in Kingston does a single Kingston-Pearson Airport daily round trip.

37 minutes ago, nfitz said:

Looking quickly, I'm not seeing it either. What's the URL?

 

On the street in front of the Bus Platform exit? Or one of the other 8 exits to the station?

I thought the (poorly designed) Bus Platform didn't have a legal way to walk to the street? Have they modified it?

 

While the TTC's website is usually difficult to navigate under normal circumstances, in this instance they have a link directly on the front page. That being said, they combined the notices for Pape and Lawrence West Stations into one page, I'm not sure why Sheppard-Yonge got its own page. But TTC logic...

The image on the page shows a "Pedestrian Path" across the bus platform driveway exiting to street level.

https://www.ttc.ca/riding-the-ttc/Updates/Sheppard-Yonge-Bus-Terminal-Closure

On 3/20/2024 at 9:43 PM, School Bus 101 said:

Hello! Can the following two pages be renamed as described below? Thank you!

• https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Cardinal_Coach_Lines_2539-2543 - change to "Cardinal Coach Lines 2528-2529, 2539-2543" as both 2528 and 2529 are from the same series.
• https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Cardinal_Coach_Lines_3046-3048,_3050 - change to "Cardinal Coach Lines 3046-3048, 3050" as 3049 was recently confirmed via VIN searches.

On 3/27/2024 at 3:42 AM, TechSpotlight said:

Could this page: https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Southland_Transportation_695-699 be renamed to "Southland Transportation 683-692, 695-701".

Could 8526 be added to this page title? https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_8493-8498,_8502-8503,_8521-8525

Could 121783-121788 and 121796-121797 be added to this page title? https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/First_Student_Canada_121789-121795

On 3/27/2024 at 10:41 PM, TechSpotlight said:

And another two, could 3637 and 3638 be added to this page title?

https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/Pacific_Western_Transportation_3633-3636

And can 202965 be added to this page title. https://cptdb.ca/wiki/index.php/First_Student_Canada_206562-206576

On 3/29/2024 at 11:06 PM, PNWTransit said:

Hello, can Community Transit route 120 'Edmonds College / Canyon Park' please be changed to Community Transit route 120 'Lynnwood Transit Center / Canyon Park' to reflect the change to the route? Thanks!

The above 8 page title move requests have now been completed.

On 3/6/2024 at 10:38 PM, leylandvictory2 said:

flix (toronto branch) has hired Eastern bus line or somethng like that do some of its ottawa runs.

Eastern Charter joined as a Flixbus contractor in late 2023. They operate some of the runs normally done by Gallexy Tours. In this capacity they replaced Coach Western, which jumped to newly-launched competitor OurBus operating the same Toronto-Ottawa route.

On 3/29/2024 at 8:51 AM, MCIBUS said:

I'm surprised they added another run. I can't see that many riders going from Detroit to Ottawa? I'm guessing they are counting on having riders Between Toronto & Ottawa/ Ottawa & Toronto?

They're not counting on through riders, and I suspect the majority of passengers are travelling to Toronto. But having Toronto as an intermediate stop on a through route (rather than two separate routes) means they can get away with scheduling shorter stops, squeezing more productivity out of the buses. There might also be some added attraction by people from the western GTA (Hamilton, Mississauga, etc.) having one-stop rides to Kingston/Ottawa.

On 3/24/2024 at 1:32 AM, roeco said:

I wonder how they pick their Contractors?

Eastern Charter (a subsidiary of Universal) is a contractor for some routes in the Ontario network, so that may be why they have a bit of an in. But otherwise, I'm not sure. Flixbus tends to go for some of the cheaper companies, rather than the more established top-tier operators.

DRT leased units 0107, 0110, 0112, 0114, and 0115 were in service on various routes today.

In terms of destination signs, 0107, 0110, and 0112 have DRT sign programming (although 0112 was just using a generic DRT code without the route). 0114 and 0115 still have their original MiWay programming; in the attached photo, the driver put up the code for MiWay route 90W Terragar (presumably as that was the closest to a westbound route 900 as one can get using MiWay codes).

And no, despite the date, other than cropping/adding the watermark this is an completely unedited photo.

21 minutes ago, T3G said:

I can't imagine why anyone would willingly say no to tips.

Many jobs have rules in place that prevent employees from accepting monetary or other contributions from customers. In my line of work, they'd normally be classified as a bribe.

6 hours ago, gtatransitfanner said:

According to source, the units from City View are currently off property for additional work. As well, it's expected TTC 8650-8659 will all be returned by the end of this weekend.

I know the "source" you are talking about, but they did not confirm that the TTC loaned units are returning this weekend. That Facebook post used words like "anticipated" and "expected", which have a level of uncertainty. There have been other times where the TTC buses were rumoured to be going back, and it didn't end up happening. So let's wait and see for movements to actually occur.

(This is not all a knock on the original source. They have a very good reputation and great information. But I want to ensure that their words are not being taken out of context, and that others don't end up making incorrect interpretations)

17 minutes ago, 5242 said:

As of 3:00 PM today:

 

1: Vehicle 8014 on route 50-Burnhamthorpe 4:43 behind 2:53:49PM going ←West to Mill Road at Royalavon Cres West Side on Burnhamthorpe Rd

2: Vehicle 8015 on route 37-Islington 6:29 behind 2:52:03PM going ↓South to Islington Station aprchg Central Park Roadway South Side on Islington Ave

3: Vehicle 8018 on route 73-Royal York 0:06 ahead of 2:58:38PM going ↑North to Claireport via Albion Rd at Todd Brook Dr on Albion Rd

4: Vehicle 8019 on route 111-East Mall 10:58 ahead of 3:09:00PM going ↓South to Kipling Station at Richgrove Dr on Willowridge Rd

5: Vehicle 8024 on route 76-Royal York South 0:14 ahead of 2:58:46PM going ↓South to Lake Shore at Evans Ave South Side on Royal York Rd

6: Vehicle 8025 on route 37-Islington 4:38 behind 2:53:54PM going ↑North to Woodbine and Humberwood via Rexdale Blvd at Highway 27 on Queen's Plate Dr

7: Vehicle 8027 on route 73-Royal York 0:58 ahead of 2:59:30PM going ↑North to Claireport via Albion Rd aprchg Lawrence Ave West on Royal York Rd

8: Vehicle 8029 on route 123-Sherway 6:01 behind 2:52:30PM going ↑North to Kipling Station via East Mall and Shorncliffe aprchg Gair Dr on Evans Ave

9: Vehicle 8030 on route 49-Bloor West going ←West to Markland Wood past Peacock Ave on Bloor St West

10: Vehicle 8036 Bus on route 501-Queen 5:20 behind 2:53:11PM going →East to Broadview and Gerrard aprchg King St East on Church St

11: Vehicle 8042 on route 112-West Mall 4:12 ahead of 3:02:43PM towards ↑North to Disco Rd aprchg Dixfield Dr (North) on Wellesworth Dr

12: Vehicle 8048 on route 73-Royal York 5:33 ahead of 3:04:05PM going ↓South to Royal York Station at 1155 Albion Rd

13: Vehicle 8053 Bus on route 501-Queen 3:59 ahead of 3:02:31PM going ←West to Bathurst at Spadina Ave on Queen St West

14: Vehicle 8054 on route 26-Dupont 4:00 ahead of 3:02:31PM going ←West to Jane Station at Osler St on Dupont St

15: Vehicle 8063 on route 37-Islington 2:26 ahead of 3:00:58PM going ↓South to Islington Station at Islington Station on Islington Ave

16: Vehicle 8067 on route 37-Islington 3:15 behind 2:54:47PM going ↑North to Steeles at Elmhurst Dr on Islington Ave

17: Vehicle 8071 on route 112-West Mall 3:03 ahead of 3:01:35PM going ↓South to Kipling Station aprchg Opposite 385-387 Carlingview Dr

18: Vehicle 8079 on route 44-Kipling South 0:54 ahead of 2:59:26PM going ↑North to Kipling Station past Colonel Samuel Smith Park Dr

19: Vehicle 8082 on route 44-Kipling South 0:53 ahead of 2:59:25PM going ↑North to Kipling Station at Warnica Ave on Kipling Ave

20: Vehicle 8083 on route 73-Royal York 11:59 ahead of 3:10:31PM going ↓South to Royal York Station past 1161 Royal York Rd

21: Vehicle 8085 on route 76-Royal York South 0:55 behind 2:57:37PM towards ↑North to Royal York Station past Bloor St West on Royal York Rd

22: Vehicle 8088 Waiting 5:38. on route 127-Davenport 8:29 ahead of 3:07:00PM going ←West to St Clair & Old Weston Rd aprchg Spadina Station

23: Vehicle 8094 on route 123-Sherway 14:24 behind 2:44:07PM going ↓South to Long Branch via Shorncliffe and North Queen past Brown's Line on Evans Ave

24: Vehicle 8097 on route 123-Sherway 22:09 behind 2:36:23PM going ↑North to Kipling Station via North Queen and Shorncliffe aproaching Dundas St West on Shorncliffe Rd

 

24 units in service

8034 and 8099 are also in service today on the Line 2 shuttle. Those don't show up on your export of Transsee data though.

1 hour ago, Cityflyer said:

Recently it seems most or all of the 60 electric buses don't come out past rush hours and rarely go out on weekends.

If this is a representative of the electric buses as a whole (doesn't matter which model), then getting 340 units of these starting later this year is too much for the TTC. Imagine if these 340 units can only go out during rush hours. That'll severely restrict bus allocation for service.

The issue goes down to how TTC schedules runs. All runs that are out for weekday midday service are also in service during both AM and PM peaks - so that requires midday buses to be out for a minimum of 14 hours. This is beyond the range of the original 60 eBuses, so therefore on weekdays they're largely restricted to rush-hour runs (or very occasionally, evening runs that stay out from 3pm until midnight).

Because service on weekends peaks in the afternoon, there are more runs that are out for 7-9 hours (from 10am-12 noon until 6-7pm), and these can accommodate eBuses.

Until TTC starts rearranging their schedules to allow for eBuses to get topped up during the service day (either on-street, at a station, or running them back to the garages), you'll continue to see diesel-only service during the weekdays.

3 minutes ago, Shaun said:

More of this should be allowed to allow for faster travel times. 

What needs to happen is to make train stations a hub for development.  

 

Kingston for example has a huge parking lot that nobody uses. Build a plaza and some condos on that property. Collect the investment money from the developer.

VIA is intended as a long-distance intercity rail carrier, not to provide local service. It is not very efficient or cost-effective if most of its seats departing Toronto get loaded up with passengers only going to Oshawa, then a half-full train continues east of there. Also, the more "local" travellers it serves, the longer it takes to serve these station stops, which makes the ride longer for the intercity travelers (possibly encouraging them to drive). It's like the old saying "jack of all trades, master of none" - if you try to have one service do everything, it will end up doing none of those roles well.

Leave the long-distance trains to the long-distance travelers.