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Brampton Transit/Zum

ShonTron said:
Yeah.

Anyway, the October 30 services changes are out, and they are very disappointing for anyone looking for service expansion or relief from overcrowded buses.

Service and Information Update

www.brampton.ca www.brampton.ca
Click to expand...
A little bird showed me a proposal to Brampton Transit on how to include over 150k growth service hours in the 2024 budget, and deliver at least 100k growth service hours, so let us see what Brampton Transit does
 
1697816687627.png

Ridership

Yearly ridership statistics.
www.brampton.ca www.brampton.ca
 
paperguy said:
3.8million riders!!!! The frequency and service hours aren't keeping up with demand 😪 it gets annoying when 2 full busses pass you
Click to expand...
If you don't have the buses and drivers, how do you figure more service can be put on the road to deal with the ridership increase???

Mississauga has less in crease of ridership as Brampton, but it has no place to add more buses to the fleet until a new garage is built that was supposed to happen 10+ years ago.

Brampton is building another garage to handle more buses that is needed to match increase ridership and not cheap to do.

Service hours cost money and that comes from the taxpayer, but at what cost??

Like you, had to wait an hour before a bus to show up not as close doors that runs every 12 minutes far too many times in the last 4 months.
 
drum118 said:
If you don't have the buses and drivers, how do you figure more service can be put on the road to deal with the ridership increase???
Click to expand...

He doubtless figures that politicians and management should have had the additional drivers and buses (and bus storage in place) years ago. He's not wrong.

drum118 said:
Mississauga has less in crease of ridership as Brampton, but it has no place to add more buses to the fleet until a new garage is built that was supposed to happen 10+ years ago.
Click to expand...

Exactly, and politicians and staff who caused needless delays should find new employment (preferably in a profession and place where they can do less harm)

drum118 said:
Brampton is building another garage to handle more buses that is needed to match increase ridership and not cheap to do.

Service hours cost money and that comes from the taxpayer, but at what cost??
Click to expand...

Everyone knows services and capital expenditures aren't free.

Taxes must be raised and revenues they generate prioritized, and creative cost reduction techniques employed.

For instance, the more bus service you run overnight, the smaller the garages can be, because they don't literally have to store the entire fleet, only the entire idled fleet.

Mississauga could (upon having enough trained drivers) easily deploy another 15 buses overnight, which creates room for 15 more buses in the garages that exist today.
 
It’s not funding that’s the issue for Brampton right now: it’s staffing and bus availability.

Brampton Transit got a major budget increase this year, and the fares are certainly increasing as well. We recently learned that BT had to buy some used buses to make up for delays in new bus deliveries, and they’re still trying to hire more drivers.
 
September was a disaster across many routes. I spent the entire month on the phone each week with Brampton Transit and calling up Councillors like Pat Fortini who was oblivious to the situation. Council is being told by Brampton Transit reps that there are no issues. calling in issues and being told it won't be fixed for 2 months is discouraging and drivers aren't reporting when they skip stops and the overcrowding. The feedback mechanism is ineffective.

I talked to several drivers about this situation and inquiring if this is a bus or driver shortage especially after recent fare hikes. Nobody has answers and taking various alternative routes it's at a breaking point.


SmartSelect_20231025_133511_X.jpg
 
Personally it used to be fun going out heading on transit to different places but now it’s getting less interesting and more of a slag due to overcapacity and reliability issues. This issue seems to span across the GTA in general, but Brampton for sure has it the worst.

It seems like the better corridors are the ones with 2 or more routes on them like the Zum routes or anywhere near the terminals (Clark between Dixie-BCC Terminal or Main between Vodden-Downtown Terminal for example). But even then you have to pray that one bus comes right after another to get a less crowded bus or at least a seat.

Then you have the Airport Rd corridor. You have 4 different bus services running here for most of it but all of them are overcrowded most of the time and are severely uncoordinated with one another. Only 1 of the routes (30) are frequent during rush hours while the rest feel like its doing its own thing. The Zum 505 is supposed to be the main driver but it’s still watered down and runs 40ft buses when we desperately need 60 all the time. This route needs to at least run 7 mins or better all day as this is probably the 2nd most important route in Brampton due to its routing and destinations served. If anything they should focus on fixing this corridor first at least.

When the most significant route in BT (501) can’t handle the overcrowding or run proper frequent service all the time, then you start to see how much the entire network starts to crumble. Hopefully with the January changes there will be some improvements that start to help the issues but for now its sadly going to be this way for the next 2 months.
 
TRONto said:
That's all the seats on a bus right there. Maybe Brampton transit needs to run articulated only now
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Unfortunately the engine for hybrid articulated buses is being discontinued and NFI has not yet released the newly redesigned articulated bus. This means the only new 60ft buses available for purchase are electric buses. This is going to cause difficulties for BT to significantly scale up the number of articulated buses they have.
 
TRONto said:
That's all the seats on a bus right there. Maybe Brampton transit needs to run articulated only now
Click to expand...

They still don't have particularly high frequency at most times of day on most routes.

Artics are really needed when you start seeing sub 3 minute headways with single buses.

Brampton needs more service.
 
Northern Light said:
They still don't have particularly high frequency at most times of day on most routes.

Artics are really needed when you start seeing sub 3 minute headways with single buses.

Brampton needs more service.
Click to expand...

Artics are fine, as long as they’re not a substitute for decent frequency. Part of Brampton Transit’s problem is a shortage of drivers; artics can be helpful in that case, especially on routes with frequent service, like 4, 7, and 14 where overcrowding is happening.
 
Running more artics and increasing service on the core routes should help quite a lot. When the proposed service hours for 2024 can actually happen, here's what should be the priority at minimum:

501: 5 mins all day combined, including bringing back 501A, 12-15 mins on both Saturday/Sunday combined. Also start some trips at The Gore Rd
502: Make a branch that short turns at Shoppers World so reliability can be improved
505: 7 mins peak, 10-12 mins at all other times combined with 505A, run artics at all times like the other Zum routes, and extend hours to at least 10PM
511: If possible make a branch going from Bramalea-Sheridan College until 504 goes into service
3: 10 mins peak, and 20 mins off peak
4/104: Make 104 an all day thing running at least 12-15 mins, and give more artics to 4/4A
5: 10 mins peak, 15 mins off peak combined
7: Run more artics
14: 5 mins all day as its now desperately needed, and run more artics
15: 8-10 mins peak, and 12-15 mins off peak combined
18: Run artics at a few select times
23: 20 mins off peak/weekends, 12-15 mins peak
29: 10 mins peak, and 15-20 mins off peak, and artics at a few select times
30: 8-10 mins peak, and 15 mins off peak/weekends
50: 8 mins peak, 15 mins off peak, and run some artics at a few select times
 
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