GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[TOareaFan]

Well, I'm making an unproven assumption that many of the subdivisions where those GO-parking drivers originate are bus-unfriendly and it's a walk out to the bus stop where that 7.5 minute service runs.

I take your point that the same dynamics may apply to transit takers to other destinations. In many of these neighbourhoods, transit trips to any destination are the minority and driving is the more prevalent mode of transport.... my theory would be, for the same reasons. If that ridership is greater than the GO ridership, then sure, route the backstreet-penetrating minibus to wherever garners the best ridership. Or maybe there is enough ridership to justify more than one mini-route. Either way, breaking into those backstreets may be mission critical both to deter GO parking and to build ridership for the core bus grid.

What does differentiate is, nobody is building a fairly expensive parking garage for the other crosstown riders. I do think that a GO-focussed dedicated feeder network might well be money better spent than more garages at GO stations, even if that creates a unique solution that stands apart from the general transit network.

EDIT - and a second differentiator may be, many GO headways are still back at 20-25 minutes even at rush hour. That compares to crosstown bus connections which are likely 15 minutes or less at rush hour. So yes, the GO rider is just a a bit more antsy about missing their train.

- Paul

so explain to me the vision of these feeder routes....how does a small bus to the end of my driveway work?

 

[APTA-2048]

Aren't GO shuttles trying to achieve what some are discussing here? In Durham and York, GO shuttles would go deep into subdivisions while trying to be direct as possible. They're timed to meet the train and often use an 8m bus. The fare is under $1. The late night shuttles in Durham function similar to ride sharing where passengers going generally the same place are dropped off along a route devised by the driver.

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Continuing the Brampton example....more people are using the local transit (it's growth in ridership is quite impressive)......but not to GO trains. So the investment in the local transit system is generating impressive returns in ridership....but, even with significantly lower fares, not encouraging GO users to take the bus to the station.

It is all anecdotal (I know) but when I take the #7 BT bus in the morning it is packed (seats and standing full) when it arrives at Queen Street....about 75% of the people on the bus get off there.....all but a few of them cross the street to catch an EB bus (either 501 or 1)....a few of us cross in the other direction to catch a WB bus (towards the GO station).....depending on the size of Zum bus that arrives it is, I would guess about 50% full typically and stays that way until it gets to the GO/Bus terminal.......where everyone gets off and most people (and I mean nearly everyone) scurries off that bus and heads to the 502/2 SB station and walk alone over to the GO train...where there are hundreds of people waiting for the train....but they either parked or were dropped off by a car......people use the well invested and scheduled local transit...but not, typically, to GO trains.

This should serve as a warning/signal to us in planning how people get to GO stations.

My theory on what makes the difference - The ideal state would be a GO connection that

a) picks you up or lets you off at or close to your driveway (quick and weatherproof)
b) warns you in real time that the bus is approaching
c) has a predictable time to reach the GO station (advance assurance of connection)
d) reliably makes the connection
e) is relatively comfortable and uncrowded
f) requires zero or minimal transfer en route

My theory would be that current transit knowingly or inadvertently violates these ideals, each of which causes stress or reluctance to use transit. Cost is not really a dealbreaker - owning an extra car is not cheap, after all. Commuting is stressful, for a variety of reasons, and driving to GO gives a sense of control and (subjectively, if not truthfully) removes some of these stresses.

The self-driving car vision and various existing apps address some of these pretty well, which is why we dream about them. (For instance, I find that having the Airline Limo app notify me when the call has been assigned to a car, and notify me again when the car is approaching, takes huge amounts of stress out of getting to the airport).

I wonder whether municipal transit, with their one-size-fits-all, big lumbering vehicle that you aren't confident will come until you actually see it mentality, are up to the challenge of customising their service to attract GO riders.... Things as simple as better pedestrian shelters and routings within backstreets, with info displays that tell both time to next bus and estimated time to GO station, might make the connection "feel" more secure.

If they just want to keep running the status quo transit grid,with status quo vehicles, on the main streets only, I don't expect that much can change.

- Paul

View attachment 101743

Because they have the option of driving. This is a discussion about how to increase GO riders' use of transit. Other local transit users in the GTA outside Toronto generally use transit because they don't have a car. GO riders generally do have a car available. If we want to get people 1) out of cars and onto GO by any means including parking, and 2) get people to take transit to the GO station rather than park there, we need to make local transit more appealing and convenient to GO riders. If we don't want to do that, great, people will keep driving instead creating more pollution and congestion.

I wonder what they can do in the mean time as GO service increase. I notice Uber and such are getting more popular.

 

[TOareaFan]

Aren't GO shuttles trying to achieve what some are discussing here? In Durham and York, GO shuttles would go deep into subdivisions while trying to be direct as possible. They're timed to meet the train and often use an 8m bus. The fare is under $1. The late night shuttles in Durham function similar to ride sharing where passengers going generally the same place are dropped off along a route devised by the driver.

This is the part that makes me wonder why anyone would prefer this to existing transit. Maybe it is because I am old enough (and grew up in Bramalea) to remember dial a bus.

It was a neat idea but most of us who relied on it could not wait for it to be replaced with regular buses on regular routes. What you give up for the convenience of a bus that comes right to your door is any trip time predictablity. When you order the bus to come and take you to your destination they would give you a range of time that they would be there (because until it sets off it can't possibly know its route until it knows how many people are going to be on it) so you would have to schedule so much buffer time to make sure you did not miss that train......when you return home, again, you don't know if you are going to be the first person dropped off or the last....you just can't possibly predict arrival time home.

When I compare that to what I have now....it is a downgrade in service reliability/predictability.

 

[steveintoronto]

Quebec is a province where Dial-a-Bus (Taxibus) is still a very popular option for small municipalities and low density suburbs. Vehicles used range from automobiles to highway coaches. From what I gather, most of the service is still booked by phone call. But with automated vehicle location and dispatch employed by many transit agencies, I don't see why they couldn't get an app designed to facilitate true on-demand service.

This is from page 612 of this string, where all the points posted in the last day or so were examined prior, albeit the technology has advanced in even 6 months.

 

[rbt]

Everyone riding transit in the morning is on some kind of schedule....either going to school or work or, in my case, going to the GO station....what makes GO riders so uniquely "stressed" about their schedule that they won't ride the bus to work but the student going to York, or the worker going to their job in mississauga or elsewhere does not feel? Why does the GO rider need this personalized transit solution (pick up at their driveway, guaranteed no delays, no transfers) but the other users of Brampton transit do not?

Low frequencies I think and a last-run.. If you miss a GO train it'll set you back by 30 minutes with a chance of having to take the GO bus instead (often much slower than the train).

For the most part if you miss your normal TTC vehicle you typically only lose 10 minutes.

Since 905 transit ridership is relatively low, I'm not sure they're stress free so much as just short on alternatives. They do generally follow the same trend with high frequency routes seeing higher %age ridership growth than low frequency routes.

 

[rbt]

so explain to me the vision of these feeder routes....how does a small bus to the end of my driveway work?

The ultimate last-mile service for suburban sprawl is almost certainly an automated ride share; we'll probably find out if that works before the DRL opens.

 

[TOareaFan]

The ultimate last-mile service for suburban sprawl is almost certainly an automated ride share; we'll probably find out if that works before the DRL opens.

Pity

 

[crs1026]

I can't cite a precedent for a working suburban small-bus network.... the world over, transit seems to gravitate to 40 foot + vehicles.

Where I have encountered small bus networks, it has been in the context of old city centres with narrow streets that aren't amenable to full size buses (or any other large vehicle!) It strikes me that our suburbs present a very similar constraint, even if the urban environment is completely different.

I'm not optimistic about on-demand service with ad-hoc routing. I have tried airport van shuttles in various US cities and they always seem to give some riders a shorter ride at the expense of others. Objectively, a fixed route scheduled service does the same, but everyone knows the route up front.

If we are going to woo deep-suburb travellers out of their cars, some combination of closer to home stop location, more direct ride, and a more pleasant riding environment than the arterial road bus grid seems like something worth experimenting with. GO just provides one context for this.

- Paul

 

[rbt]

I'm not optimistic about on-demand service with ad-hoc routing. I have tried airport van shuttles in various US cities and they always seem to give some riders a shorter ride at the expense of others. Objectively, a fixed route scheduled service does the same, but everyone knows the route up front.

You're original statement included "a) picks you up or lets you off at or close to your driveway (quick and weatherproof)".

I don't see how you can run an efficient service and still get deep enough into the curvy side-streets and culdesacs with a fixed route service. Either it's a massive time-waster for everyone involved by running 200% of the distance necessary to pickup/drop off the actual riders for that trip or you're going to leave a fair amount of the customer base with sizable walks.

Barrie has 1370km of roadway and 2 stations. You simply can't hit that much roadway every 10 minutes without a massive fleet; 274 buses per station @ 25km/hour if you assume zero overlap in their trips which is impossible since they converge on a single point. Parking and pickup/dropoff for the bus fleet would be nearly as large as current vehicle parking.

There's probably a middle-ground where you take a larger bus to a neighbourhood (say 4km^2 coverage; so 20 routes @5 minute frequencies for something like Barrie) and have single-rider neighbourhood circulators running ad-hoc on-demand routing within the neighbourhood to all the curvy streets and ends of the culdesacs.

 

[Northern Light]

It strikes me that in terms of getting the attractiveness of suburban bus service up, best to start w/the existing routes and getting frequency to a vaguely passable level.

In Durham region, you have services sporting 1-hour frequencies on some 'major' routes.

They're beginning to change that, I think six routes this year will go to 30m or better weekday daytime/evening and weekend daytime.

But even that is pretty anemic.

If you miss the bus, you miss the train, you're delayed at least 30m, and if you're waiting in a simple shelter or even at a un-sheltered stop, that really lacks appeal.

Service every 15m or better on major routes, 6am-10pm, M-F and 8am-10pm S and S would go some distance towards making the choice more desirable/practical.

****

Thereafter the key to getting service 'closer to home' in some areas is not one of running buses down endless cul de sacs, but rather creating additional main streets.

That's expensive.

I'm not talking six-lanes here, just one each way, but that provide a continuous link over several km in a roughly straight line.

But there is a need for a few more streets to fill out the 'suburban grid' in places.

Major streets can not be all 2km + apart.

 

[APTA-2048]

I can't cite a precedent for a working suburban small-bus network.... the world over, transit seems to gravitate to 40 foot + vehicles.

A lot of agencies seemed to have found that smaller 9m buses don't necessarily offer substantial savings over a conventional 12m bus.

 

[TOareaFan]

It strikes me that in terms of getting the attractiveness of suburban bus service up, best to start w/the existing routes and getting frequency to a vaguely passable level.

In Durham region, you have services sporting 1-hour frequencies on some 'major' routes.

They're beginning to change that, I think six routes this year will go to 30m or better weekday daytime/evening and weekend daytime.

But even that is pretty anemic.

If you miss the bus, you miss the train, you're delayed at least 30m, and if you're waiting in a simple shelter or even at a un-sheltered stop, that really lacks appeal.

Service every 15m or better on major routes, 6am-10pm, M-F and 8am-10pm S and S would go some distance towards making the choice more desirable/practical.

And we can keep ignoring the examples of stations like Brampton and Port Credit that have local transit services that exceed those targets you set and still can't get the car arrivals below 80% and have transit uses of ~10%.

 

[smallspy]

I can't cite a precedent for a working suburban small-bus network.... the world over, transit seems to gravitate to 40 foot + vehicles.

Because in most places in North America at least, 75% or more of the cost of operating a vehicle is the driver. Running a smaller vehicle doesn't save much of the operating cost and is limited to where it can run, whereas a larger vehicle is also more versatile and can be used anywhere on the network.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Northern Light]

And we can keep ignoring the examples of stations like Brampton and Port Credit that have local transit services that exceed those targets you set and still can't get the car arrivals below 80% and have transit uses of ~10%.

With respect, I don't believe the facts support your assertions.

Only Hurontario runs service that would meet my standard.

Lakeshore is next closest at 19m in off-peak;

Where one might take 14 to access Port Credit, service is downright anemic and non-existent on weekends.

Service on Cawtha isn't very good either.

The idea that if you have one route operating at a good level that that will shift riders is suspect at best.

That only really works if the prospective GO riders live next to that one route, and don't require a transfer.

That's going to serve only a very small portion of the catchment area for a GO Stn.

****

Brampton is somewhat better; but route 24 as a feeder is still 30m service even in peak periods; 52 is 20m more or less.

Its about total journey time, including waits and transfers.