Calgary Public Transit II

[The Avid Pedestrian]

Hi all,

I've been following this blog for a year or so now and am excited to be joining the discussion!

[CTrainDude]

Originally Posted by The Avid Pedestrian

Hi all,

I've been following this blog for a year or so now and am excited to be joining the discussion!

Welcome!

[fusili]

Originally Posted by The Avid Pedestrian

Hi all,

I've been following this blog for a year or so now and am excited to be joining the discussion!

Welcome to the forum Avid Pedestrian.

[The Avid Pedestrian]

An idea I wanted to share wrt SE LRT alignment entering downtown.

Ken King and the Calgary Flames intend to build a new arena and one of the proposed sites is the parking lot NW of the 'Dome. Whether or not that location becomes the ultimate site, I think it should be considered when envisioning the downtown SE LRT alignment. Imagine how convenient travel to-from games would be if the NW-S and SE-NC LRT lines connected with the new Arena!

Just throwing it out there

[mersar]

Well the SE alignment is pretty much set in stone. But it likely will be no more then a stones throw from the new arena, no matter where its built (the proposed station location for that area is at 4th Street SE and 10th Ave on the south side of the CP right of way)

[frinkprof]

Transit’s GPS era not far off

KATIE TURNER

METRO CALGARY
Published: January 07, 2011 5:48 a.m.
Last modified: January 07, 2011 12:53 a.m.


Commuters will soon have a real-time look at where their train or bus is as Calgary Transit prepares to roll out its GPS system.

Ron Collins of Calgary Transit said GPS installation in trains could be done this spring.

“It’s part of our whole way to introduce new technology into the whole system and make things easier for customers,” said Collins, adding GPS tracking will be installed on C-Trains starting this April.

By June 2012, Collins said, they should have GPS on bus rapid transit, and by December 2012, all buses should be equipped.

Leigh McDonald of Mediumrare, the Calgary company that designed the recently released Calgary Transit smartphone application, said they hope to incorporate the tracking into their app.

[...]

Link to rest of the article

[Wooster]

^wow, I had no idea transit had plans to put gps on all busses within a couple of years. That would be fantastic.

[Canadian74]

Is the system similar to the GPS systems on Vancouver transit buses? Or is that something else?

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Canadian74

Is the system similar to the GPS systems on Vancouver transit buses? Or is that something else?

Beats me. To be of much use though, it would have to be coupled with either an RFID network or an INS.

[freeweed]

I only hope CT has the sense to make this data openly available, instead of locked behind a brand-specific smartphone app.

[frinkprof]

Here's a new survey by Calgary Transit regarding the Park and Ride fee. Asks questions about your use of the lots before and after the fee was implemented, your evaluation of aspects of the service, your opinion on the proposed paid-reserved spots idea for portions of the lots, etc.

It takes about 5 minutes to do and is for both users and non-users of the Park and Ride lots.

Calgary Transit link: http://www.calgarytransit.com/survey/index.html

Survey itself: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CT2011ParkAndRideSurvey

[UofC.engineer]

Today on my way back from school I rode on one of the new Siemens SD 160. I was sadly disappointed tho because the outside display on the side of the car was turned off, and on the inside the display kept repeating "Next Stop" --> "Crowfoot" even tho it was heading south. Hopefully the city can fix this soon, because what is the point of buying new trains with electronic displays if you aren't going to use the displays.

What also grinded my gears was that standing passengers didn't move to the middle of the train, they just stood by the doors!! Idiots!! I thought these trains were suppose to encourage people to not stand by the doors.

[freeweed]

Kinda late for CT to be doing surveys such as this...

[YYCguys]

Originally Posted by UofC.engineer

What also grinded my gears was that standing passengers didn't move to the middle of the train, they just stood by the doors!! Idiots!! I thought these trains were suppose to encourage people to not stand by the doors.

Ditto! And...
It also chews me up that people wanting to get on the train don't give disembarking passengers the chance to exit. They just push their way onto the train!

[The Avid Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Canadian74

Is the system similar to the GPS systems on Vancouver transit buses? Or is that something else?

To my knowledge (I live in Vancouver and I use Translink exlusively for transport in City) the new buses to arrive in Vancouver are equipt with GPS but this information is not displayed at any bus stops of SkyTrain stns (with the exception of the Canada Line). By the timeline suggested in the article FrinkProf posted, Calgary will likely beat Vancouver (translink) in implementation

Even when the 98 B-Line (replaced by Canada Line) displayed arrival information at bus stops, it was actually a scheduled bus times and did not reflect real time arrivals. In pre-Canada Line days, I'd often be waiting at a 98 B-Line stop and it would display bus in, say, 8 minutes, and one would arrive. or it would say bus due, and one wouldnt arrive for several minutes

I hope that the GPS system Calgary implements has real time arrival information (like buses in London) as displaying scheduled times does not require an LED display - a paper schedule would suffice

Can anyone provide additional information or a reference to such info? Cheers,

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by The Avid Pedestrian

To my knowledge (I live in Vancouver and I use Translink exlusively for transport in City) the new buses to arrive in Vancouver are equipt with GPS but this information is not displayed at any bus stops of SkyTrain stns (with the exception of the Canada Line). By the timeline suggested in the article FrinkProf posted, Calgary will likely beat Vancouver (translink) in implementation

Even when the 98 B-Line (replaced by Canada Line) displayed arrival information at bus stops, it was actually a scheduled bus times and did not reflect real time arrivals. In pre-Canada Line days, I'd often be waiting at a 98 B-Line stop and it would display bus in, say, 8 minutes, and one would arrive. or it would say bus due, and one wouldnt arrive for several minutes

I hope that the GPS system Calgary implements has real time arrival information (like buses in London) as displaying scheduled times does not require an LED display - a paper schedule would suffice

Can anyone provide additional information or a reference to such info? Cheers,

Yes it is supposed to be real-time arrival information. There will be displays at LRT and BRT stops, and for all other bus routes it is supposed to be available on smart phone applications.

[MalcolmTucker]

Even when the 98 B-Line (replaced by Canada Line) displayed arrival information at bus stops, it was actually a scheduled bus times and did not reflect real time arrivals. In pre-Canada Line days, I'd often be waiting at a 98 B-Line stop and it would display bus in, say, 8 minutes, and one would arrive. or it would say bus due, and one wouldnt arrive for several minutes

To my knowledge the B-Line system was designed to be real time, it just never worked all that well with plenty of outages. It was definitely at the bleeding edge when implemented, and it showed. Bus options for next stop systems always seem to me to be very small vendors, whereas for rail systems they are usually part of the signaling provider (unless retrofitted later).

At least the company CT got is local (if my memory serves, I don't care to go look up the article) so they will be more likely to really care about making the system right!

Someone should also remind Calgary Transit that Blackberry's are still by far the number one smart phone in the country, and ignoring them, or not providing a comparable mobile internet site accessible to all connected devices would be a big waste.

[fusili]

Originally Posted by The Avid Pedestrian

To my knowledge (I live in Vancouver and I use Translink exlusively for transport in City) the new buses to arrive in Vancouver are equipt with GPS but this information is not displayed at any bus stops of SkyTrain stns (with the exception of the Canada Line). By the timeline suggested in the article FrinkProf posted, Calgary will likely beat Vancouver (translink) in implementation

Even when the 98 B-Line (replaced by Canada Line) displayed arrival information at bus stops, it was actually a scheduled bus times and did not reflect real time arrivals. In pre-Canada Line days, I'd often be waiting at a 98 B-Line stop and it would display bus in, say, 8 minutes, and one would arrive. or it would say bus due, and one wouldnt arrive for several minutes

I hope that the GPS system Calgary implements has real time arrival information (like buses in London) as displaying scheduled times does not require an LED display - a paper schedule would suffice

Can anyone provide additional information or a reference to such info? Cheers,

Barcelona actually counts down the seconds to the metro arriving. Almost every time it was accurate within 10 seconds. It is nice as a passenger to be able to arrive at the station and say "Sweet, the train will be here in 45 seconds." It also helped that the headways were all 5 minutes or less.

[Innersoul1]

Any word on if or when CT will be going to an electronic swipe-type fare system?

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by Innersoul1

Any word on if or when CT will be going to an electronic swipe-type fare system?

I believe this is supposed to be done by 2012.

If I recall correctly, there was an RFP process to procure a vendor for the design of the system and one was chosen. Now it is just a matter of implementing it.

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In other news, 4th Street West Station will not open this Friday. We are looking at possibly the 21st or more probably the 28th for an opening date. As per CTrainDude.