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7 minutes ago, Transit Fan said:

Damn, that's a lot of mainline / crosstown routes that are getting nerfed.

I wonder what this means for the new BRT services if similar existing services like the 1 or 19 aren't doing so hot. They're promising 10 minute headways during peak hours but who knows what off-peak service could drop to.

Some of the operational costs of starting up the new BRTs and making appropriate changes to adjacent routes were prebudgeted when the capital was approved. Kind of a "build it and they will come" model for the first year if operation, for atleast some of it.

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22 minutes ago, Gsgeek540 said:

All changes are based on ridership trends from September 2016 to the end of June 2017. These cuts are to routes that on normal days, are barely getting a full seated load under normal circumstances. The target is always to find that fine line between fully seated and overloaded (leaving people behind).

The 1, 3, 19, 56, and 199 can get preeeeeeeeetty full. 

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17 minutes ago, Blake M said:

The 1, 3, 19, 56, and 199 can get preeeeeeeeetty full. 

Much like all city departments, budget is an issue and trying to find wiggle room (such as cutting a headway from 5-8 or 10-15 minutes) without making significant changes (such as cutting a headway from 30-60 minutes) is the goal right now. Quite bluntly, Ridership numbers show otherwise to your statement. The transit studies and planning teams have done significant analysis (operator count cards, apc counts, front line counts, etc) to determine the service levels going into september, and have taken into account the possible influx of students taking transit as a result of bill 1.

 

I was signed on a 56 for many years. Weekdays and Weekends, night and day. That is one route where ridership had tanked over the last few years. Even at its peak in the early 2010s, you would rarely see a standing load on a regular basis. Now a days, you are lucky to come close to a full seated load. Weekends are much the same. When the 56 went from shuttle to big bus on weekends in 2012, shuttles were overloading. Since early 2016, ridership numbers have significant decreased.

3 hours ago, vicinity said:

Route 14 rush hour service cut to every 7-8

This only affects to Bridlewood which was previously every 5 minutes. To Cranston/SHC remains every 15 minutes.

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1 hour ago, Gsgeek540 said:

Much like all city departments, budget is an issue and trying to find wiggle room (such as cutting a headway from 5-8 or 10-15 minutes) without making significant changes (such as cutting a headway from 30-60 minutes) is the goal right now. Quite bluntly, Ridership numbers show otherwise to your statement. The transit studies and planning teams have done significant analysis (operator count cards, apc counts, front line counts, etc) to determine the service levels going into september, and have taken into account the possible influx of students taking transit as a result of bill 1.

 

I was signed on a 56 for many years. Weekdays and Weekends, night and day. That is one route where ridership had tanked over the last few years. Even at its peak in the early 2010s, you would rarely see a standing load on a regular basis. Now a days, you are lucky to come close to a full seated load. Weekends are much the same. When the 56 went from shuttle to big bus on weekends in 2012, shuttles were overloading. Since early 2016, ridership numbers have significant decreased.

This only affects to Bridlewood which was previously every 5 minutes. To Cranston/SHC remains every 15 minutes.

Sometimes it can be a problem, going from a 60 passenger vehicle to a 25 passenger vehicle......though I'm not disputing ridership has gone down, I just hope there won't be major packing of buses. Will the 1 be getting articulated buses for every block? That's what I heard at least

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2 hours ago, Transit Fan said:

Damn, that's a lot of mainline / crosstown routes that are getting nerfed.

I wonder what this means for the new BRT services if similar existing services like the 1 or 19 aren't doing so hot. They're promising 10 minute headways during peak hours but who knows what off-peak service could drop to.

When you look at the network changes you will be able to see how they will make the BRT's work. Essentially there will be some canabalizing of other routes.

For instance the north cross town will get 2 midday keys from the 91 which will be deleted and it will get another 3 from the 19 which will be cut probably to 35 minute headways and shortened 

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31 minutes ago, vicinity said:

When you look at the network changes you will be able to see how they will make the BRT's work. Essentially there will be some canabalizing of other routes.

For instance the north cross town will get 2 midday keys from the 91 which will be deleted and it will get another 3 from the 19 which will be cut probably to 35 minute headways and shortened 

Good to hear that they're making these types of decisions to tackle redundancies between services.

Going through Inglewood and 17th Ave every weekday, it's crazy seeing the overlap in service between routes like the 1, 125, 126, 305, 411 and 440 for example. Too often i've seen things like people heading downtown ignoring the 126 because it's not a 1/305 or people travelling just along 17th Ave and totally ignoring the 440.

 

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Good thing I'm not going to live in the NW in September, otherwise the change in the 19 would really mess me up. That is a route that always has decently full buses all day at 20 minute frequency. They really shouldn't be cutting it until the BRT is running (at which point it won't need 20 minute frequency). 

As always, I'm suspicious of their numbers, as they don't often match the reality I find when riding buses. Eg. the 199 serves schools, and is very busy exactly when the schools start and end. Also, as a captive rider (I don't have a car), I have a better understanding of the difference frequency makes. For example, people will not bother to wait for a bus that's 30 min or more in frequency, they will either drive, or if they don't have a car, not make the trip unless they have to. This is doubly true in winter when it's dangerous to miss a bus on a 30 min frequency. And, finally, you can't build ridership in any way if frequency isn't there. I'm sure I've talked with Calgary Transit about this during some of the bus network open houses...

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12 hours ago, yvarushin said:

Splitting up route 3 makes a lot of sense. I wonder what the frequency will be like on the 37.

It's every 20 minutes I think all the time big bus off peak and rush hour and shuttle evenings and weekends as far as I know.

 

I also forgot to mention the 16/84 will be big bus all day all night Monday- Friday  next sign up aswell

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4 hours ago, DarkKeyo said:

Good thing I'm not going to live in the NW in September, otherwise the change in the 19 would really mess me up. That is a route that always has decently full buses all day at 20 minute frequency. They really shouldn't be cutting it until the BRT is running (at which point it won't need 20 minute frequency). 

As always, I'm suspicious of their numbers, as they don't often match the reality I find when riding buses. Eg. the 199 serves schools, and is very busy exactly when the schools start and end. Also, as a captive rider (I don't have a car), I have a better understanding of the difference frequency makes. For example, people will not bother to wait for a bus that's 30 min or more in frequency, they will either drive, or if they don't have a car, not make the trip unless they have to. This is doubly true in winter when it's dangerous to miss a bus on a 30 min frequency. And, finally, you can't build ridership in any way if frequency isn't there. I'm sure I've talked with Calgary Transit about this during some of the bus network open houses...

Agreed. The 199 especially would leave riders behind with a 15 minute frequency in 2014. Obviously ridership has decreased and patterns change, but I can assure you routes like the 97 has much less riders to get the same frequency. It is also frustrating to see the 19 be reduced to 30 minutes especially since it's a key crosstown route. (To answer your question, it's 20 minutes from start of service till 6 weekdays and around 8:30 weekends, when it drops to 25-30 minutes)

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8 hours ago, DarkKeyo said:

Eg. the 199 serves schools, and is very busy exactly when the schools start and end.

Headways, when they are advertised and published, take either the typical/average headway between buses, or in cases like the route 1 and 3, take the highest headway between buses and advettise. For example, the 199 could be 15 minutes for most of rush hour but there might be a fill bus or 2 that make it 10 minutes for a short time. Or there might be a period of 30-40 minutes where part of the route 3 goes from 8 to 5 minutes or the 1 goes from 12 to 8 minutes to accomodate single trippedrs. The route 199, like all routes in the city, take schools along the route, and their start and end times, into account and add single trip buses, in addition to the prescribed headway, to accomodate those students accordingly, based on the communities that school services.

For example, when pearson gets out, single part trippers are put on the route 23 to make it every 5 minutes to get people to saddletowne. At wise wood and scarlett, single trippers are put on the route 3 (will be route 37 for scarlett in september) to get people to heritage station.

8 hours ago, DarkKeyo said:

As always, I'm suspicious of their numbers, as they don't often match the reality I find when riding buses. 

Ridership numbers come from 4 sources. Automatic passenger counters (on roughly half of the fleet, with a tender out to make 3/4 of the fleet), operator count cards (multiple times a signup), transit studies counts and observations (performed regularly), and in addition, operators being required, by rule, to report overloads (overloads went from an average of 10 a day to 10 a month from 2015 to now).

When i am out driving bus or train and talking to customers, they continue to think that because it is a full seated load and they have to stand that the bus is full, which is incorrect. Service is based on the full capacity of buses and trains and aside from courtesy seating, which is a courtesy, not a guarantee as per our bylaws in calgary, is not a guarantee.

 

i remember i had a count card on a route 3 and 1 person standing the entire day and some one saw me filling out my card and asked me if i am going to demand full service because of these full buses....

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6 minutes ago, Transit Fan said:

How does the automatic passenger counters work? Do it just count the number of people walking through the door and does the driver need to do anything?

Most drivers dont even know they have a bus with an automatic passenger counter. There are some buses with big "APC" stickers and they dont even know what APC is.

 

It simply tracks movement through the front door, in and out.

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56 minutes ago, Gsgeek540 said:

Most drivers dont even know they have a bus with an automatic passenger counter. There are some buses with big "APC" stickers and they dont even know what APC is.

 

It simply tracks movement through the front door, in and out.

That's what the series 9s do except it's displayed on the T.O.D 

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15 hours ago, Gsgeek540 said:

Headways, when they are advertised and published, take either the typical/average headway between buses, or in cases like the route 1 and 3, take the highest headway between buses and advettise. For example, the 199 could be 15 minutes for most of rush hour but there might be a fill bus or 2 that make it 10 minutes for a short time. Or there might be a period of 30-40 minutes where part of the route 3 goes from 8 to 5 minutes or the 1 goes from 12 to 8 minutes to accomodate single trippedrs. The route 199, like all routes in the city, take schools along the route, and their start and end times, into account and add single trip buses, in addition to the prescribed headway, to accomodate those students accordingly, based on the communities that school services.

For example, when pearson gets out, single part trippers are put on the route 23 to make it every 5 minutes to get people to saddletowne. At wise wood and scarlett, single trippers are put on the route 3 (will be route 37 for scarlett in september) to get people to heritage station

If their new schedule for 199 does this, good on them. The 199 is not busy other than at those times, I know from riding it, although I would not have enjoyed missing it and waiting 30 minutes in the evening in the winter if I still had my old job. 

 

I've been assured by someone who rides by Winston Churchill and the schools around it every day that, since the NW route changes, whatever attempts CT has been making to provide extra service to those schools haven't stopped buses from getting full right up to the doors. You can't assume that CT is managing loads correctly based on their plans, when there are real life examples of them not doing so. 

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15 hours ago, Gsgeek540 said:

Headways, when they are advertised and published, take either the typical/average headway between buses, or in cases like the route 1 and 3, take the highest headway between buses and advettise. For example, the 199 could be 15 minutes for most of rush hour but there might be a fill bus or 2 that make it 10 minutes for a short time. Or there might be a period of 30-40 minutes where part of the route 3 goes from 8 to 5 minutes or the 1 goes from 12 to 8 minutes to accomodate single trippedrs. The route 199, like all routes in the city, take schools along the route, and their start and end times, into account and add single trip buses, in addition to the prescribed headway, to accomodate those students accordingly, based on the communities that school services.

For example, when pearson gets out, single part trippers are put on the route 23 to make it every 5 minutes to get people to saddletowne. At wise wood and scarlett, single trippers are put on the route 3 (will be route 37 for scarlett in september) to get people to heritage station.

Ridership numbers come from 4 sources. Automatic passenger counters (on roughly half of the fleet, with a tender out to make 3/4 of the fleet), operator count cards (multiple times a signup), transit studies counts and observations (performed regularly), and in addition, operators being required, by rule, to report overloads (overloads went from an average of 10 a day to 10 a month from 2015 to now).

When i am out driving bus or train and talking to customers, they continue to think that because it is a full seated load and they have to stand that the bus is full, which is incorrect. Service is based on the full capacity of buses and trains and aside from courtesy seating, which is a courtesy, not a guarantee as per our bylaws in calgary, is not a guarantee.

 

i remember i had a count card on a route 3 and 1 person standing the entire day and some one saw me filling out my card and asked me if i am going to demand full service because of these full buses....

Not being able to get a seat because it's a full seated load during rush hour is not what the problem is, because that's to be expected.

The problem I'm talking about here is that frequency is cut because of low ridership, in this case on routes that are well used, but then the route loses ridership as soon as it starts running at a ridiculously low frequency, because then no-one wants to wait for the bus. And I have a problem with that because I can't go and drive instead like other people do, I end up waiting forever for the bus in the dead of winter. The entire mentality that a bus that isn't stuffed to the doors is "not full" and can be cut is why we don't have a Frequent Transit Network, in the way Vancouver, Montreal, and Toronto do, despite that word appearing in the official Transit Strategy. And also the reason that ridership can't keep up enough to fund that sort of frequency. Frequency comes first to build ridership. That's the generally accepted method in Transit planning. 

Relating to what started this discussion, the problem with cutting high demand routes in advance of the new, "Frequent" BRT, before that is actually running, is bad planning. I worry that the Crosstown BRT routes are going to fail because of this mentality. 

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1 hour ago, DarkKeyo said:

Churchill and the schools around it every day that, since the NW route changes, whatever attempts CT has been making to provide extra service to those schools haven't stopped buses from getting full right up to the doors. You can't assume that CT is managing loads correctly based on their plans, when there are real life examples of them not doing so. 

Transit added an extra key which saw an articulated bus operate as a Route 9 directly from Churchill to Dalhousie Station during the end-of-school rush. Whenever that bus showed up before the regular Route 9 did, it did a fairly good job of alleviating overcrowding on the buses.  Only problem, as I mentioned, is that many times, the articulated bus came 5 minutes after the regular Route 9 key arrived (majority of students crushed onto the regular 40ft Route 9 bus as they did not want to wait for the 60ft bus.) 

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On 20/07/2017 at 11:40 AM, School Bus 101 said:

Transit added an extra key which saw an articulated bus operate as a Route 9 directly from Churchill to Dalhousie Station during the end-of-school rush. Whenever that bus showed up before the regular Route 9 did, it did a fairly good job of alleviating overcrowding on the buses.  Only problem, as I mentioned, is that many times, the articulated bus came 5 minutes after the regular Route 9 key arrived (majority of students crushed onto the regular 40ft Route 9 bus as they did not want to wait for the 60ft bus.) 

That's a good idea. Hopefully they figure out the timing on that. 

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7 hours ago, DarkKeyo said:

That's a good idea. Hopefully they figure out the timing on that. 

As long as the schools transportation rep communicates with transits school schedulers, it will be done. There are still times where school is dismissed early for a day and there is no communication with transit, resulting in no extra service for their kids.

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On 7/23/2017 at 3:05 PM, Blake M said:

Routes 167/168 are back on for next Monday

I have finally confirmed that the reason for the delay of the launch of these routes is incomplete roads within the community. A fair portion of this route will be on detour on monday.

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