Calgary Area Regional Transit

[Rollerstud98]

Airdrie had dial a bus for a while. Called it the ELF bus. Pretty sure we only had 1 bus at the time.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Rollerstud98

Airdrie had dial a bus for a while. Called it the ELF bus. Pretty sure we only had 1 bus at the time.

According to the FAQ for Cochrane's system, they're going to have eight 21-seat low floor buses to start off with and 126 unique bus stops. That sounds pretty good to me. If parents trust their kids I can see this being a great way for kids to get around Cochrane especially if the monthly pass price is reasonable.

[para transit fellow]

Airdrie dropped it's on-demand program Oct 1.

They had many issues delivering the program. for example they never got the tech to go live.

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by para transit fellow

Airdrie dropped it's on-demand program Oct 1.
They had many issues delivering the program. for example they never got the tech to go live.

Oh oh! That’s not good! That was “residential area” service, supposed to augment the core routes, by way of contract with a local taxi company to deliver customers from the suburbs to the nearest bus stop. I can’t imagine that the taxi company is too happy to have lost the contract, nor the customers who live too far from a bus stop either. The core local routes are one clockwise circling the city, another counter clockwise, and a third up and down Main Street. I hardly see any local buses in Airdrie, and when I do see them, they don’t appear to be full.

The ICE buses, on the other hand, are very full! I wish the ICE service ran all day, instead of just during early morning and late afternoon rush hours.

[MalcolmTucker]

On demand transit with dynamic routes has been around for a long time. I’m sure taxis looked cheaper than dedicated vans - certainly a lower startup cost.

On the positive side I am glad communities are experimenting with different delivery models.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by YYCguys

Oh oh! That’s not good! That was “residential area” service, supposed to augment the core routes, by way of contract with a local taxi company to deliver customers from the suburbs to the nearest bus stop. I can’t imagine that the taxi company is too happy to have lost the contract, nor the customers who live too far from a bus stop either.

.

Actually, the taxi company that was the initial contractor lost its provincial operation certificate in Aug 2018. PWTransit, which is operator of the fixed routes for Airdrie transit, stepped in, on an interim basis that lasted 13 months.

A new contract (not sure who won the recent RFP) was to start when they pulled the plug.

The taxi company had an uber-like app, the interim provider didn't so they fell back to an old fashioned call-in dial-a-bus setup.

The service definitely had a bunch of setbacks

[DizzyEdge]

Just spent a week in Toronto and Hamilton, and damn, that Presto card! I purchased the card and loaded up some $$ onto it at Pearson, and then used it:
- UP train from Pearson to Toronto
- Toronto buses, streetcars, and subway
- GO train and bus to Hamilton
- Hamilton transit
- GO bus back to Pearson

Currently the Calgary area regional transit is a patchwork of municipal and private businesses but it would be nice to have a similar all-encompassing payment option.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Meh. I'm not sure it is worth the price -- we will see how Edmonton's rolls out, and what the final expenses are for it. These payment systems with fancy features turn out to be bloody expensive and hard to run well for the most part.

[milomilo]

Call me a pessimist, but I'm not expecting any progress on anything to with regional transit that costs money for the foreseeable future. Gotta reduce that deficit!

[CrossedTheTracks]

While I'd love to see some kind of new payment system for CT, I cannot comprehend how Presto could cost so much.

In its annual report released in 2018, Metrolinx indicated it expected the cost of the Presto system to reach $1.2 billion, with $1 billion already spent in the development and implementation the system between 2002 and March 2018. While Presto was designed for complex fare transactions between GTA transit agencies, the system has so far proved to be unable to support the payment of special surcharges for TTC express downtown buses and TTC trips that enter Mississauga and York Region. As of late 2018, the TTC Presto system at large continues to experience abnormally high failure rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presto_card

One wonders what alternative transit improvements could have been purchased for $1.2 billion.

[Denscity]

A Billion wow!!

[MalcolmTucker]

^ Yeah, for Presto to support the features the agencies wanted:

• each bus needed to carry a full database of the balances of every issued presto card
• each bus needed to update that database once or twice a day from servers AND push an update in the other direction of every transaction conducted on the bus
• each turnstile needed data and power supplied to it
• a backend that kept people's credit card information in it needed to be created, and it needed to be reconciled with the terminals at near real time
• the system had to adapt on the fly to optimize the card holder's purchased products to produce the least cost option (example: when you purchase your 1Xth GO train roundtrip, it converts you to a monthly pass)
• a customer service function to restore and transfer balances when cards were lost

Turned out the things that people that don't do IT thought would be easy were crazy hard.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Just spent a week in Toronto and Hamilton, and damn, that Presto card!

Sounds like it runs similar to the Clipper card in San Fran.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

^ Yeah, for Presto to support the features the agencies wanted:

• each bus needed to carry a full database of the balances of every issued presto card
• each bus needed to update that database once or twice a day from servers AND push an update in the other direction of every transaction conducted on the bus
• each turnstile needed data and power supplied to it
• a backend that kept people's credit card information in it needed to be created, and it needed to be reconciled with the terminals at near real time
• the system had to adapt on the fly to optimize the card holder's purchased products to produce the least cost option (example: when you purchase your 1Xth GO train roundtrip, it converts you to a monthly pass)
• a customer service function to restore and transfer balances when cards were lost

Turned out the things that people that don't do IT thought would be easy were crazy hard.

That's insane and that would explain why in one instance the 'balance remaining' that a bus reader told me was a few bucks too high.

With all that said, it was completely seamless with all of that complexity hidden away.

[accord1999]

Coincidentally, I was reading Ottawa's subreddit and they linked to a detailed post that summarized a recent Toronto Auditor General investigation into Presto and its problems.

https://stevemunro.ca/2019/11/03/tor...esto-problems/

[canucklehead2]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Call me a pessimist, but I'm not expecting any progress on anything to with regional transit that costs money for the foreseeable future. Gotta reduce that deficit!

[joe498]

Proponents of Calgary-to-Edmonton magnet tube transporter seek provincial nod

https://edmontonjournal.com/news/loc...0-947354af17f4

[milomilo]

The government should let them try it, just don't spend any money on this total nonsense.

[MalcolmTucker]

Yeah, the government would have to pass a couple of regulations: deeming hyperloop tubes "tracks", asking the provincial railways administrator to facilitate experimental technologies, and asking the provincial railways administrator to work with private proponents of any railway to identify appropriate corridors.



Also the highway 2 corridor they are thinking of using is probably not the greatest- too many conflicts - The province could pick up the old AAMD&C high speed rail green field alignment and do a quick study on any high and wide conflicts, and steer any private proponent to that other route.

[milomilo]

The article mentioned that the group had a problem with the (previous) NDP requesting they dismantle the test equipment once the test was done. I think I can see the NDP's reasoning there - in the likely case the test is a complete and utter failure, they don't want to be left paying the tab for the cleanup.