Some Translink Service Optimization in Vancouver

As you probably know, The Translink commission is inviting comments from the public on the proposed fare increase, and particularly on TransLink’s efficiency (The deadline for sending them is February 15, 2012). This post is part of my contribution toward it, and I encourage you to share yours too.

optimize the network by pruning irrelevant, because redundant and lightly used, route segments

Translink has published a Transit plan for Vancouver in 2005 [1]. While many recommendations of it have been implemented, especially the good integration of the bus system with the Canada line, some others aiming at making the system more efficient have not been followed so far:

• short turning of the route 3 (Main) at Main and hasting
• short turning of alternate trip of route 20 (Victoria) at Commercial and Powell (instead to go thru Downtown)

The saving can be very dramatic, and in the case of route #3, it could have allowed a 30% reduction of the bus fleet.

One of the reason for that is expressed by the average speed diagram below.

Average operating speed of Transit(2)

Due to relatively low operating speed on the Hasting and Downtown segment, the buses tend to spend a considerable amount of time there. Below is an estimate of it (from 2010 Translink timetable)-and a recent reduction of posted speed on Hasting makes the matter only worse:

route	number of runs	fleet requirement	total service hour	hr on hasting/Downtown	% of service hr on Hasting/Downtown
3	280	14	197	41	21%
8	317	16	196	34	17%
20	332	20	250	75	30%

This fact makes also for a low reliability route. The additional observation that most customers transfer to/from SkyTrain for downtown access and ridership in downtown and Hasting is pretty light-an observation corroborated by Translink ridership analysis [1]– complete the justification of the short turning of those routes South of Hasting (instead to head toward downtown).

Those route could then operate on a nearly pure grid system- Hasting street being served by route 14,16 and 135 among others on nearby parallel corridors. The lack of direct service to downtown is largely compensated by the Skytrain access: In that matter, those routes could not be treated more differently than the suburban bus routes (which have been short-turned with the advent of the canda line for similar reasons). Furthermore It is also worth to note the route 19 still ensures a direct connection between downtown and Main, north of Broadway.

Since we are talking of frequent route operated by 60 foot trolleybuses, the saving can be massive, not only in operating hours but also in bus fleet requirement, which can be also reduced significantly. Part of it can be redeployed to improve the network connectivity, on a model as below:

Toward a Vancouver network better connected to the South of Fraser one

The main idea, is to connect as much as possible Vancouver N/S bus routes at either Marine Drive or Knight bridge:

suggestion for bus route 3,16,8,20 and 100, orange colored route (10,15,17 and 22) rest unchanged

The knight bridge Hub

This Hub allows connection with the Richmond network -route 405,407 and 430- [3], which legitimates the extension of route 8 and 20 toward it. Since there is no bus loop, and the number of runs on route 8 and 20 are roughly equivalent, the buses of route 8 could continue on route 20 in the same manner as buses operates on route 5/6.

• Notice that the bus queue jumper on Knight bridge provide a natural advantage to the Richmond’s bus which could be more leveraged by providing a decent scope of connection on the Vancouver side from this Bridge
• The Harison loop (bus 20), is then retired (and can be sold)

The Marine drive hub

• All the runs of route 3 go to Marine drive: This is to encourage contra-flow riding, hence lowering the pressure on main flow
• Observing that very few customers stay on the bus at Marine drive, route 100 is replaced by route 16 West of marine drive. Both route have similar number of runs, so it is roughly equivalent in term of operating cost but
  • It increases the number of destination accessible from Marine Drive
  • It replaces a diesel bus by a trolley can’t be bad!
  • It allows to retire the route 16 bus loop-as well as Marpole loop-which can be sold (what can probably pay all the work required for other operation suggested in this post).

Summary

The short turning of the routes at Hasting largely pays for the extension of all the 3,8 and 20 bus runs at either Knight bridge or Marine Drive:

route	number of run	cur fleet requirement	cur total service hour	proposed total service hour	proposal bus requirement	% hr saved
3	280	14	197	161	12	13.5%
8	317	16	196	178	15	9%
20	332	20	250	186	16	25%

While, the proposal improves significantly the connectivity of the network, the average daily operating hour saving-120hrs- could be still around 18% , what is probably worth $5 millions/years (assuming operating cost of $120 per vehicle.hr), leaving significant room to improve other part of the system.

It could be interesting to understand why Translink has chosen to not implement its own efficiency recommendation as stated in [1], but it occurs that it could be a good time to proceed forward on it

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[1] Vancouver/UBC Area Transit Plan , Translink, July 2005.

[2] Planning of Vancouver’s Transit Network with an
Operations-Based Model, Ian Fisher (translink), Wolfgang Scherr and Kean Lew (PTV), 2009 ITE Quad Conference, Vancouver, 1 May

[3] See also our suggested Transit plan for Richmond (September 2, 2011).