Winnipeg Transit - DART service

[armorand]

Just wondering, when did DART service begin? As far as I remember, it was around St Norbert for sure in 1999/2000. And are headsets mandatory for bus drivers on an DART route?

[Kinguni]

Started using ELF buses, so before we had any D30LF buses. 101 and 102 were started first. 109 was a failed experiment, replace with the semi-old 91 and then the 109 when the loads slacked off. Briefly there was a DART in Westood, cancelled sure to resident complaints. Year, '87?

[armorand]

Started using ELF buses, so before we had any D30LF buses. 101 and 102 were started first. 109 was a failed experiment, replace with the semi-old 91 and then the 109 when the loads slacked off. Briefly there was a DART in Westood, cancelled sure to resident complaints. Year, '87?

An DART in Westwood? I'm pretty sure the 11 dropping by every 30-60 minutes would suffice

[WpgBusDriver]

I seem to remember the Westwood DART ran regular service morning/afternoon rush hour and was a DART between approx 9 - 3pm. Then out of service in the early evening. People in Westwood have been complaining about the feeder bus for as long as I can remember!!!

[armorand]

I seem to remember the Westwood DART ran regular service morning/afternoon rush hour and was a DART between approx 9 - 3pm. Then out of service in the early evening. People in Westwood have been complaining about the feeder bus for as long as I can remember!!!

Lol they're lucky! I have potholes outside my house, and most days, you can hear an Classic or an truck thump, then roar off with its engine (along with my house shaking)! Maybe they should put an Classic on the 82 and show them what annoying is

[SirAndrew710]

On 1/11/2012 at 12:12 AM, armorand said:

And are headsets mandatory for bus drivers on an DART route?

I was on the 101 last night and noticed the driver wasn’t using one. Unless he put one on when we left St. Vital and I didn’t notice, but I don’t think he was wearing one when I got off. The only time someone phoned in was before we left St. Vital, he just picked up the phone and answered it.

[BusRider]

Dispatch has to provide one for drivers to use, but the driver isn't required to use one.

[SirAndrew710]

That seems a little odd. So if the driver opts not to use it and someone phones in while the bus is on the road, does that mean the driver would have to pull over, get down from behind the wheel and answer the phone? Because I’m pretty sure drivers aren’t allowed to be in their seat if they’re using a phone. Even if the four-ways are on and the wheel is flipped up.

[SirAndrew710]

I’m not sure whether I should post this here or in the “History of Winnipeg Transit” thread, but I found this article on on-demand transit service that uses DART as a case study. It looks like the service began in 1996 with the 101 and 102. Four more services were started in the years since (it doesn’t specify when, though I saw in a city council document that the 110 was started in 2001), though two were converted back to fixed-route service (I’m guessing the two that weren’t were the 109, itself converted back to fixed-route service with SWRTC Phase 2, and the 110 - what areas did the other two serve?). Also, I find it interesting to see that they were planning on expanding DART service to other areas when this was published in 2004, but haven’t followed through as of yet.

[DavidW]

2 hours ago, SirAndrew710 said:

I’m not sure whether I should post this here or in the “History of Winnipeg Transit” thread, but I found this article on on-demand transit service that uses DART as a case study. It looks like the service began in 1996 with the 101 and 102. Four more services were started in the years since (it doesn’t specify when, though I saw in a city council document that the 110 was started in 2001), though two were converted back to fixed-route service (I’m guessing the two that weren’t were the 109, itself converted back to fixed-route service with SWRTC Phase 2, and the 110 - what areas did the other two serve?). Also, I find it interesting to see that they were planning on expanding DART service to other areas when this was published in 2004, but haven’t followed through as of yet.

These are the oldest copies I have of each of the DART route pamphlets...

[SirAndrew710]

7 minutes ago, DavidW said:

These are the oldest copies I have of each of the DART route pamphlets...

Looking above, it appears the 6th served Westwood. I wonder what led them to replace that with an all-day 82 given the current route’s small-but-loyal ridership base. Do you have a timetable for that?

[DavidW]

1 hour ago, SirAndrew710 said:

Looking above, it appears the 6th served Westwood. I wonder what led them to replace that with an all-day 82 given the current route’s small-but-loyal ridership base. Do you have a timetable for that?

If I recall correctly one of the problems with the DART model was that while it worked well to take passengers from the mainline connection to their final destination, they were significantly less successful picking up passengers at their origins and taking them to the mainline transfer point. That was why the St. Norbert DART was cut back to later at night and the 91 fixed route feeder was re-introduced in the daytime and early evenings. I suppose it was some resistance to calling the bus driver to be picked up, and being told to wait up to an hour for the bus to "come back around".

In the same conversation I recall Transit being surprised by the number of trips origin and destination within the dial-a-ride zone. Apparently it was useful to some parents for their kids to call Transit Tom for a ride home at night from their friend's house.

[Before the pandemic] Belleville, Ontario, instituted evening dial-a-ride service using a phone app.  Rides are booked on the app, and the bus is trackable on the app. The system accommodates more than one bus in the service if necessary. The back-end computer assembles the booked trips and dynamically feeds updated directions to the bus driver...

[SirAndrew710]

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

If I recall correctly one of the problems with the DART model was that while it worked well to take passengers from the mainline connection to their final destination, they were significantly less successful picking up passengers at their origins and taking them to the mainline transfer point. That was why the St. Norbert DART was cut back to later at night and the 91 fixed route feeder was re-introduced in the daytime and early evenings. I suppose it was some resistance to calling the bus driver to be picked up, and being told to wait up to an hour for the bus to "come back around".

In the same conversation I recall Transit being surprised by the number of trips origin and destination within the dial-a-ride zone. Apparently it was useful to some parents for their kids to call Transit Tom for a ride home at night from their friend's house.

I’ve noticed that on the 82, that route’s passengers, who typically skew older, mainly use it to get to and from Unicity and that if any passengers are on board with me when the bus reaches Portage and Westwood, they usually stay on board while I get off at that stop to switch to the 21. As such, I can infer that most passengers use it for neighborhood trips (i.e. to Unicity, Superstore, the Grace or the Courts). Though somehow they’re able to make it work with the 110.

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

[Before the pandemic] Belleville, Ontario, instituted evening dial-a-ride service using a phone app.  Rides are booked on the app, and the bus is trackable on the app. The system accommodates more than one bus in the service if necessary. The back-end computer assembles the booked trips and dynamically feeds updated directions to the bus driver...

That would be interesting to see here. Though as great as it would be to use an app on my iPad to arrange a trip from Balmoral Station to my Route 83 stop after a night class, logistically speaking, such a service probably wouldn’t work in a city of Winnipeg’s size.

[DavidW]

1 hour ago, SirAndrew710 said:

That would be interesting to see here. Though as great as it would be to use an app on my iPad to arrange a trip from Balmoral Station to my Route 83 stop after a night class, logistically speaking, such a service probably wouldn’t work in a city of Winnipeg’s size.

I was more anticipating replacing the current suburban feeder services with the Belleville model, so not from Balmoral Station but from a fixed route service point on Portage Avenue [Grace Hospital?] to your front door in the "83 zone" (bounded by Portage, Whytewold, Saskatchewan, and Perimeter). Reverse journey would be you book a pickup on the app at your front door. You watch for the bus to arrive on your phone and the bus takes you to the transfer point where you catch the fixed-route service.  The feeder bus doesn't go where it hasn't been called or sent.

[SirAndrew710]

9 minutes ago, DavidW said:

I was more anticipating replacing the current suburban feeder services with the Belleville model, so not from Balmoral Station but from a fixed route service point on Portage Avenue [Grace Hospital?] to your front door in the "83 zone" (bounded by Portage, Whytewold, Saskatchewan, and Perimeter). Reverse journey would be you book a pickup on the app at your front door. You watch for the bus to arrive on your phone and the bus takes you to the transfer point where you catch the fixed-route service.  The feeder bus doesn't go where it hasn't been called or sent.

I guess Unicity could be an option as well. While I live east of Whytewold, out-of-zone DART drop-offs and pick-ups are allowed time-permitting, so I could be accommodated.