Urban Sky
Senior Member
My apologies, @reaperexpress for the late reply, but this was quite a busy week, having to entertain both kids at home while they are the last ones at their small daycare who have yet to catch the virus!
Let's have a look at the changes which took effect this week:
Now let's break down the 10 train pairs which were cut this Monday and how they impacted travelers:
Note: Timings in red are possible equipment positioning ("deadhead") trips, which help minimize the trainset requirements and rebalance the equipment at the end of the day.
Therefore, shaving off 4 hours from one single shift in the early morning does nothing to reduce the number of shifts you need to cover throughout the day.
Conversely, the reduced schedule halves the number of trainsets required in the AM peak from 10 to 5, of which 3 trainsets (i.e. 60% rather than 40%) are also required mid-day:
***
In short, I'm not saying that that I can confirm that this schedule is the best-possible trade-off (between the conflicting objectives of minimizing staff requirements and the impacts on passengers), but I seriously struggle to come up with a better one...
Agreed, but it would still be an extremely misguided and counter-productive business practice (and was part of the reasons which made me look for new professional adventures at the midst of the pandemic...). Rather than looking solely at what services carry the least passengers, you should focus on wherever you can cut services with the least impact on your passengers.
Let's have a look at the changes which took effect this week:
Now let's break down the 10 train pairs which were cut this Monday and how they impacted travelers:
- Express services (all 4-5 train pairs cut): With the primary reason for having Express trains having been over-crowding, there is hardly a justification at this moment to operate Toronto-Bramalea and Toronto-Kitchener as two separate services. For some passengers that will mean a 8 minute long ride, whereas others will save 7 minutes and 1 transfer at Bramalea.
- Counter-peak services (3 out of 4 train pairs cut): With only one Bramalea-Toronto peak service left (#3308), you can only run one off-peak service (#3207) in the opposite direction. Trains are replaced by busses, which offer comparable travel times and save quite a few passengers (e.g. Guelph-Union) a transfer). Same goes for the lost mid-day service to Kitchener, though in this case causing (rather than: removing) a transfer at Bramalea or Mount Dennis.
- Some peak services (another 2 out of originally 12 train pairs cut): as is the case with the Express trains, the main justification for frequent peak service is over-crowding, which is hardly an issue at this moment. Reduced peak service will cause little inconvenience beyond a slight reduction in the flexibility offered to commuters.
The most-constraining metric is not labor-hours, it's the number of shifts you have to staff and that becomes especially a problem with operating the traditional North American commuter-rail model. Under the previous schedule, out of the 10 trainsets required for the AM peak, only 4 are required past 10am:
Note: Timings in red are possible equipment positioning ("deadhead") trips, which help minimize the trainset requirements and rebalance the equipment at the end of the day.
Therefore, shaving off 4 hours from one single shift in the early morning does nothing to reduce the number of shifts you need to cover throughout the day.
Conversely, the reduced schedule halves the number of trainsets required in the AM peak from 10 to 5, of which 3 trainsets (i.e. 60% rather than 40%) are also required mid-day:
***
In short, I'm not saying that that I can confirm that this schedule is the best-possible trade-off (between the conflicting objectives of minimizing staff requirements and the impacts on passengers), but I seriously struggle to come up with a better one...
Last edited:
