Translink 2009 Annual report reviewed

The 209 annual report released at the Translink‘s AGM contains some interesting statements

The Skytrain

It is claimed that the “Expo and Millennium SkyTrain Lines are the most efficient, lowest-cost operations in North America” with a supporting comparison with some selected American LRT. One will wonder why, the figure doesn’t include the Calgary LRT?

GHG

An interesting figure comparing the GHG emission per mode seems to be a direct answer to prof. Patrick Condon claims stated in several of its publications [4]. Unfortunatly, Translink number doesn’t seems to be produced with much more rigor than the professor Patrick Condon’s one.

But the more interesting and worrisome numbers will require further reading of the report to get extracted:

Operating efficiency

year	Number of revenue passengers in millions	Operating Cost in $Millions	Fare Revenue in $Millions	Operating cost recovery
2005	160	516	284	56.4%
2006	165	572	300	53.8%
2007	172	621	316	52.5%
2008	179	688	347	52%
2009	188	735	355	49.8%

Like eventually previously mentioned by the Translink commission, the growth strategy pursued by Translink appears non sustainable, in the sense that the ridership increase doesn’t translate in farebox recovery improvement. Worse, it degrades it.

To be sure Translink is not the only agency in this case, as we have seen in the Zurich model, but eventually the region could not spare a debate on the expected level of funding of transit operation (and subsidiary sources).

the Service rationalization initiative

In the immediate, the answer seems to be the service rationalization initiative. Some Observers seems to dismiss it [3] but it is probably a welcome move if done to ensure the sustainability of the ridership growth. Again, the Zurich model demonstrates that service, and consequently ridership, can be greatly improved by other means that piling out hours of transit service. here are some ideas we can provide:

Bus Stops consolidation

Consolidate bus stop! Too often, bus stops are not very far apart. The picture below is the one along the 410 route between Aberdeen Station and Garden city road:

• East bound, the bus will stop every 200m on average!
• west bound, at Garden city intersection, 2 stops are spaced by no more than 50m, with no reasonable explanation for it

Those stops could be not such a draw on operation in off peak, but it will still involve a slowdown of the bus at stop without patron. At peak hour, it slowdown considerably the bus for marginal convenience (if any).

The consolidation of bus stops could not save too much time on one run, but in the case of the 410 route example, there is ~100 runs per direction a day, so the cumulative time can be not negligible.
In addition of time, the suppression of stops can certainly save other operational cost (less braking, acceleration,…), and can make the bus ride smoother.

Other strategy, not necessarily very costly to implement, like traffic signal preemption, can also help not only to save time, but to improve the bus operation efficiency and ride smoothness

Demand management

“peak hour” determine the number of buses which need to be owned and maintained, and so can be expensive to serve, as it can be illustrated by the graph below ilustrating the translink’s bus service surge during peak hours[1]

number of Translink's bus in service according to time of a regular day

If Translink were coming with a fare structure favoring journey off peak hour, they could reduce this expensive peak pressure (hence reducing the number of bus to maintain and marginally operate…). An idea could be a discounted pass valid only after 9:30am (hence involving a return trip starting after 5:30pm for regular commute)…[2]

Bus schedules

provide a “regular timetable” for low frequency route: this is almost the case for route like the 351, but there is lot of room for improvment on the 601.
On such route the schedule should be so simple that people could not need to have a timetable to know at what time their bus is schedule.

More elaborated strategies like “code sharing” should be investigated to provide high visibility of level of service.

Those last suggestions will note necessarily decrease the operating costs but are prone to attract more rider at no extra operational cost, and it is what Translink should explore for the time being, this to break out this vicious circle where, the “more people ride the system, the more subsidy it needs”

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[1] the graph has been built by a contributor of the skyscraperpage forum

[2] The reader will find further discussion on the topic at the human transit blog

[3] TransLink on ‘life support’, Franck Luba, The province, May 12th. See also Geoff Meggs take on it.

[4] Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities, Patrick Condon, 2010 . The chapter 2 available here is built on a previous publication: A Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes, Patrick Condon and Kari Dow, Foundational research Bulletin, November 2009.