Calgary Public Transit II

[DarkKeyo]

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

Calgary already has differential fares. There are two zones. There's the $0 fare zone on the 7th Avenue C-Train, and the $2.75 fare zone for everywhere else. This is completely reflective of how the Calgary Transit network is designed to be used -- either for trips into or out of downtown (non-free) or for short trips within downtown (free).

To me, the biggest factor that limits transit ridership has nothing to do with cost (as many others have said, transit is already much cheaper than driving for the most part) and has everything to do with the design of the network. Unless one endpoint of your trip happens to be either a) downtown or b) a C-Train station then the Calgary Transit network is horribly inefficient for you.

I get that taking transit will almost always come at some sort of travel time penalty. I'm totally willing to pay *some* time penalty if it means I can be productive during that time (even if "productive" means reading a book). The problem is that for most "crosstown" trips it comes at a *massive* time penalty.

As an illustration:

I work outside of the downtown core (in a business park near Deerfoot Mall in the NE). It's not an exceptionally large business park, but my company has hundreds of employees, and there are more than ten others around that are at least as big, so there are easily "thousands" of people working in the area. There's also a shopping center (Deerfoot Mall) within walking distance, so between those two factors I'd think that the area would probably qualify as a sort of "activity node" for transit purposes (though admittedly probably not a major one).

From my house in the NW, it takes me about 20min to drive to work during peak time (this is consistent with the google maps estimate). If we say I'm not allowed to use freeways, this becomes 25min.

If I want to arrive at 9am, the best Calgary transit can do is 90min with three transfers. It gets as bad as 120min at other times of the day.

Amusingly, google thinks I can do the same trip by bike in just under an hour (not really practical for a variety of reasons, including winter as noted above).

Probably unsurprisingly, virtually everyone who works in the area drives to work.

If you want to increase transit ridership, never mind reducing the cost (an area where it's already competitive with the alternatives for the most part), focus on giving me a trip solution that isn't 4-5 times as long as it takes to drive the same.

I understand that the largest chunk of people work downtown in this city, but surely we can do a little better than having the transit system be nearly useless for everyone else.

Agreed, with emphasis. The fare system is fine, don't fix what isn't broken. Instead, areas of high employment density, and even residential density, that aren't connected at all to any of the ~5 lines drawn from city centre that count as rapid transit.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

Agreed, with emphasis. The fare system is fine, don't fix what isn't broken. Instead, areas of high employment density, and even residential density, that aren't connected at all to any of the ~5 lines drawn from city centre that count as rapid transit.

Part of the reason we can't afford to build these other lines is again due to flat fare. Current fare structure needs subsidies to operate. Not only is flat fare cutting out users that are short trippers, it's preventing investment in routes that might be justified at a higher price.

[MalcolmTucker]

it's preventing investment in routes that might be justified at a higher price.

You would have to raise fares quite a bit to raise enough capital to do appreciable expansion. $100 million a year would raise cash fares by more than $1 and monthly passes by at least $42 a month. And those are the fares without any ridership drop off - I doubt Calgary users are special and wouldn't exhibit significant ridership effects which over the long term would cut in significantly to the amount raised according the elasticity presented on the earlier page.

If building transit paid for itself companies would be itching at building lines without state subsidy.

If you are just talknig about the bus system, you want to reduce subsidy on currently successful routes to provide even greater subsidy on routes that don't justify high service now because they are marginal. Unless you think that transit planners are so awful that they are leaving potential gold mine routes unserved it just doesn't follow.

[suburb]

Originally Posted by Radley77

A symptom of baby boomers aging and the kids moving out of established communities?

Yeah - those darn kids in JH moving out is a real trend!

The real issues with education (and other similar areas) are largely due to salaries that increase at a rate not aligned with inflation. The other thing that does sometimes make me scratch my head is increases simply based on seniority as opposed to merit and performance review, but that discussion is for another day and another thread. With school buses in particular, certainly higher gas prices don't help. Lastly, and something I've mentioned before elsewhere, is the split in Alberta of public and catholic schools that dilute the student density, double the over head, and overall harpoon any real efficiencies that might be possible. I say stop funding religious schools at the 100% clip and we'll be good for a while at least.

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by suburb

Yeah - those darn kids in JH moving out is a real trend!

The real issues with education (and other similar areas) are largely due to salaries that increase at a rate not aligned with inflation. The other thing that does sometimes make me scratch my head is increases simply based on seniority as opposed to merit and performance review, but that discussion is for another day and another thread. With school buses in particular, certainly higher gas prices don't help. Lastly, and something I've mentioned before elsewhere, is the split in Alberta of public and catholic schools that dilute the student density, double the over head, and overall harpoon any real efficiencies that might be possible. I say stop funding religious schools at the 100% clip and we'll be good for a while at least.

Interestingly the government taxes itself on school buses, charging the boards fuel taxes and then supplying the money through the general grants to pay it. (which I also believe is the case for city transit minus the grants, ut not 100% sure, see trying to keep it on topic!). As for catholic schools, they are protected in the constitution, not going anywhere soon. But yeah, stop funding pure private schools and save the government around $200 million a year overnight going to mostly well off people. It is an odd system.

[AgentGibb]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

If building transit paid for itself companies would be itching at building lines without state subsidy.

If you are just talknig about the bus system, you want to reduce subsidy on currently successful routes to provide even greater subsidy on routes that don't justify high service now because they are marginal. Unless you think that transit planners are so awful that they are leaving potential gold mine routes unserved it just doesn't follow.

I don't know that we need more buses necessarily, but I *do* think we can make better use of the ones we already have. I don't mean to imply that the transit planners are "awful" per se (I certainly don't claim that I could to a better job in general).

The current planning philosophy outside of the core appears to be to have the route drive past as many houses as possible. This makes perfect sense for the community "collector" routes. The problem is that this philosophy has also crept into the design for the so-called "crosstown" routes.

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Take for example route 430. This is (I think) a fairly new route that runs between Crowfoot and the Airport. A one-way end-to-end trip takes 61min, whereas the google maps best-case drive time between the same two points is 26min. The route the 430 follows is essentially up nose hill drive to country hills then across to barlow and down to the terminal. But not quite. It deviates from this route in a few places to, I presume, provide direct access to more houses/businesses. To actually drive the same route that the bus uses takes 46min. So really, there's only a ~30% time penalty associated with being a bus and having to stop all the time.

So suppose we took out all the meandering from the crosstown route and let the (already existing) collector routes for those areas take care of providing front-door service to the people in these communities. If the bus were to take the more direct route (nose hill/country hills/barlow) only, we save 5.2km and the drive time goes down to 33min. If we use the same 30% overhead for being a bus, we can project about 43min.

If we say the destination is the airport terminal, this represents a vastly improved quality of service for anyone west of beddington trail (ie. most of the route). For someone that lives in, say, the north part of Hawkwood as an example (I used hawkstone manor), currently they can either drive in 23min or take the existing 430 in 50min. Probably most people would pay for a taxi to save 27min. On the other hand, with the "optimized" route, the projected bus time is only 36min... I'm not sure paying for a cab to save 13 minutes is quite as much of a slam dunk.

Basically, from the standpoint of attracting ridership, this hypothetical route is now a lot more attractive to a lot more people.

Now consider service frequency. The current route has a ~2h round trip. If it has 30min frequency, then it needs something like four buses running on it. The "optimized" route has a round-trip time of 86min, so the same four buses give us 21min frequency, which is quite a lot nicer for anyone who has to transfer onto this route (the average-case wait time for the transfer is 33% better). If we instead knock this back to 3 buses, we get something just slightly better than the original 30min service frequency, therefore providing the same service frequency 25% cheaper.

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So as I said, I'm not convinced that we need more buses, just that we need to make more efficient use of the ones we already have.

[Radley77]

Calgary Public Transit Ridership - Seasonally Adjusted Annualized and Fares in 2011 $CAD - Graph Below

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-856CU...AAC8/xREorKPnZeM/CPTR-SA%252526Fares.jpg

[kap384]

So can anyone enlighten me as to what is going one when a c-Train has to be slammed to a stop and shut-down. Happens somewhat frequently it seems, and a few days ago, happened on 7th right in the middle of an intersection. Overload? Seems to be some alarm condition, or why so abrubt. If its a U2 in the middle of winter, always worried it won't resart.

Also, am I imagining it, or is it more prevalent with the old U2's vs the SD's?

Thanks

[fusili]

Originally Posted by AgentGibb

So as I said, I'm not convinced that we need more buses, just that we need to make more efficient use of the ones we already have.

I cannot agree more. Stop spacing is a huge issue for me. Routes like the #7 on 33rd avenue are ridiculous. It stops almost every block! Can people not walk a single block extra? I believe we can improve a lot of routes by simply removing stops and making the route more direct. Don't even get me started on union rules and the need to hire part time bus drivers.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

You would have to raise fares quite a bit to raise enough capital to do appreciable expansion. $100 million a year would raise cash fares by more than $1 and monthly passes by at least $42 a month. And those are the fares without any ridership drop off - I doubt Calgary users are special and wouldn't exhibit significant ridership effects which over the long term would cut in significantly to the amount raised according the elasticity presented on the earlier page.

If building transit paid for itself companies would be itching at building lines without state subsidy.

If you are just talknig about the bus system, you want to reduce subsidy on currently successful routes to provide even greater subsidy on routes that don't justify high service now because they are marginal. Unless you think that transit planners are so awful that they are leaving potential gold mine routes unserved it just doesn't follow.

Moreso my thoughts were that differentiated pricing would improve the efficiency of a project and perhaps allow it to be approved earlier than otherwise possible even if the projects were subsidized at the same rate as the current overall system. Take for example the NCLRT alignment, there is probably a number of people that would be willing to pay at a higher price and really it does cost more if people are using the entire line, rather than just a portion of the line, or the line during peak periods. 20 km? There's also some people that may find it too expensive to pay a flat fare rate and not use the line if they only plan to travel short distance. Having a flat fare makes it so the customer has no choice over the qualities they receive from transit services and cuts out these potential revenue sources.

I also think the rate of the subsidy is an entirely different question than that of fare differentiation. One can keep the subsidy rate the same and have fare differentiation. Fare differentiation that reflects the cost of service also allows customers to pick and choose the optimum route to get to work depending on what they are trying to optimize (time, money, fitness level, lifestyle).

[MalcolmTucker]

To provide a trip anywhere on LRT, the LRT needs to make the same full line trip. Unless there are a lot of trips not happening that wouldn't displace current users (ie a Dalhousie --> Banff Trail trip taking up a space that would otherwise be filled with a Dalhousie or Brentwood --> downtown trip) there is little arguement for a shift.

As for a universal lower LRT only fare outside of peak service hours, I think that has lots of merit, but it would be difficult to justify raising taxes to make the change if there were significant revenue implications.

As for higher fares for longer trips on a line to help pay for a line like the NC LRT, the amount of revenue raised lets say a differential fare on the 6,700 per peak hour when Calgary has 1.5 million people (lets say 40,000 users over 6 peak hours) from north of Beddington, if it was $1 would pay for, at 237 work days per year (weekdays minus holidays, 2 weeks vacation)


Ends up being $9,527,400 a year from commuters, could probably add some more in from non commuter trips, but you also have to remove some for displaced trips (some people would take a slower crosstown to a lower priced LRT instead of paying the differential). Not accounting for interest, that is barely enough to add one extra station over 30 years. I doubt the extra charge would last that long politically either, unless it was put in under a referendum by local communities in exchange for a very specific benefit that wouldn't have been paid for differently 5 years later by taxpyaers at large.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by DarkKeyo

SCrowfoot is the only one, as far as I know; and that would be because "inside the station" covers the middle half of the platform. It is a very good idea, but only happens because of the unique design of Crowfoot. I would certainly appreciate one inside at Dalhousie, Brentwood, or one of the south stations like Heritage and Chinook that I often use.

Yeah, I've been wandering around other stations since my post and Crowfoot seems to be the only one with it. I agree, it should be done in the other stations as well. Middle of winter, plenty of people gather inside. And especially at these stations where the train doesn't sit for several minutes - would be nice to have warning, so you could walk out and spread out on the platform a bit. On a very cold day, every single person crams into the leading car heading into downtown on the NW.

[freeweed]

Originally Posted by kap384

So can anyone enlighten me as to what is going one when a c-Train has to be slammed to a stop and shut-down. Happens somewhat frequently it seems, and a few days ago, happened on 7th right in the middle of an intersection. Overload? Seems to be some alarm condition, or why so abrubt. If its a U2 in the middle of winter, always worried it won't resart.

Also, am I imagining it, or is it more prevalent with the old U2's vs the SD's?

Thanks

I had a driver once come on the PA and actually say that he was going to "reboot" the train. Rush hour downtown office crowd, I figured the audience was appropriate so I made a joke about using Windows to run the LRT. I got quite a lot of appreciative laughter.

[AgentGibb]

Originally Posted by fusili

I cannot agree more. Stop spacing is a huge issue for me. Routes like the #7 on 33rd avenue are ridiculous. It stops almost every block! Can people not walk a single block extra? I believe we can improve a lot of routes by simply removing stops and making the route more direct. Don't even get me started on union rules and the need to hire part time bus drivers.

Also this.

Again, it's probably fine for the "collector" routes to have fairly tight stop spacing, but the crosstown routes should probably have a wider stop spacing to reduce the time penalty.

The section you pointed out (according to google transit) has 6 stops in 1.1km (something like 180m between stops on average). The route as a whole has an average stop spacing more like 250m which is probably a bit more like it for a "collector" route (which I presume is the intended function of the #7).

For crosstown routes, I'd propose that something more like 750m is appropriate. Even at that, it would take about 9min to walk between stops, meaning that any point on the route could be walked to in no more than 4.5 minutes from the nearest stop (if they were evenly spaced). Obviously adjusting the spacing such that stops can coincide with routes that cross it would be preferable for transfers.

Having the bus stop more frequently is nice for the people whose trip starts or ends closer to a stop as a result, but it degrades the service for everyone else.



As for differential fares... not necessarily a *bad* idea, but there is likely also a cost associated with administering such a system. While the contactless fare cards would take a lot of the confusion out of it, that's only a solution if you're going to require *everyone* to have a contactless card (even people who don't live in Calgary). If so, you need to provide lots of places for people to buy fare cards (not just in train stations). If not, you need to worry about differentiated tickets (based on the fare paid) and/or differentiated bus transfers. It probably also prescribes changing the fare from being "unlimited use for a period of time" to "price per trip". In other words, it gets pretty awkward in a hurry. It also makes doing "spot checks" on whether someone has paid the correct fare a nontrivial operation, and allows people to plead ignorance if they've paid an insufficient fare.

Train systems where I've seen differential fares implemented well had one thing in common: ticket gates. Pay the wrong fare? The ticket gate will let you know about it when you try to leave.

I've also seen buses in some places in Japan where you take a ticket on the way into the bus, and have to pay on the way out based on how far you traveled. This also means that it's "per trip" and if you transfer to another bus you have to pay another fare. It becomes exactly "pay per distance" to a high granularity.

All of this would represent a pretty major change in the way that Calgary Transit collects and enforces fares. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would be a pretty major project to do it properly.

[suburb]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

As for catholic schools, they are protected in the constitution, not going anywhere soon. But yeah, stop funding pure private schools and save the government around $200 million a year overnight going to mostly well off people. It is an odd system.

I didn't mean to say they should be eliminated - meant to say we should look to the precedents from other provinces where they are not funded the same as public schools. At a fundamental level, the 100 catholic schools in Calgary dilute the density to a point where some schools need to be closed for not enough students and buses need to travel all over the place. Anyway - different thread I think.

[Radley77]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

To provide a trip anywhere on LRT, the LRT needs to make the same full line trip. Unless there are a lot of trips not happening that wouldn't displace current users (ie a Dalhousie --> Banff Trail trip taking up a space that would otherwise be filled with a Dalhousie or Brentwood --> downtown trip) there is little arguement for a shift.

As for a universal lower LRT only fare outside of peak service hours, I think that has lots of merit, but it would be difficult to justify raising taxes to make the change if there were significant revenue implications.

As for higher fares for longer trips on a line to help pay for a line like the NC LRT, the amount of revenue raised lets say a differential fare on the 6,700 per peak hour when Calgary has 1.5 million people (lets say 40,000 users over 6 peak hours) from north of Beddington, if it was $1 would pay for, at 237 work days per year (weekdays minus holidays, 2 weeks vacation)


Ends up being $9,527,400 a year from commuters, could probably add some more in from non commuter trips, but you also have to remove some for displaced trips (some people would take a slower crosstown to a lower priced LRT instead of paying the differential). Not accounting for interest, that is barely enough to add one extra station over 30 years. I doubt the extra charge would last that long politically either, unless it was put in under a referendum by local communities in exchange for a very specific benefit that wouldn't have been paid for differently 5 years later by taxpyaers at large.

There is also the benefit that it improves the capital efficiency of the LRT network by reducing the need for things like four car trains for a couple of years as peak commuters shift to nonpeak times, or allowing people to move in contraflow directions. In this way, it frees up capital in the city's operating budgeting to focus on more capital efficient objectives or pay down debt.

I think that probably the lowest hanging fruit in terms of implementation and targeting something that is already operating at a profit would be to offer a discounted price for those travelling in contraflow modes on the LRT or at offpeak times. On buses, like you mentioned, the majority rely on large subsidies anyways so would be just incentivizing using a part of the system that is already operating at a loss.

There are some other benefits where you could offer people that live at the end of line a discount in the AM if they are travelling on a short trip as well even during peak periods because the LRT really doesn't fill up until it is near downtown in the AM. Same with offering discounts even during peak period say from University of Calgary to the end of the line in the evening, because by that time it is already starting to empty out.

Short trippers as well have the ability to increase profitability of the system, as for example, could have ideally up to 29 full LRT stops in best case scenario versus 2 in worst case scenario. I don't think this potential to expand service quality should be ignored, and while I agree that I don't think the full differential system would pay for a lot of capital, it is revenue that could be borrowed against to fund other opportunities. People gripe about spending too much taxpayer money all the time, this is something that can be done that has the potential to allow users to optimize service delivery that is more reflective of the costs involved.

Regarding the ticket gates. I don't see this being an issue because the current system is honour system and I think most people are honest. The cost of the fine should be greater than (1 + overhead margin) * ((fare * (1/(detection rate)))+(annual cost of policing)/(infractions per year)). A big enough fine, and it shouldn't require a lot of police resources. I'd think transit could switch to a ticket gate system if it'd pay out over a ~5 year time period over the cost of policing.

[MalcolmTucker]

I'd think transit could switch to a ticket gate system if it'd pay out over a ~5 year time period over the cost of policing.

Fare gates don't stop fare evasion unless they are pretty intense (floor to ceilling, fully enclosed) like some entrances at the TTC:

source:http://www.canada-toronto.com/2011/03/toronto-subway/

Even then, in New York where they have similar gates, you still need emergency exits, it is rather normal for one person to pay a fare, then trip an exit to let others in, or someone exits through an emergency exit due to congestion at the exit gates, letting fare cheats in. http://admin.nyunews.com/news/2010/09/20/21gate/
http://freakonomicsradio.com/bring-on-the-pain.html

I doubt you would be able to avoid similar problems unless massive changes to station designs were undertaken. Plus, even if you secured things fully through normal access, it might be that you incent dangerous access, for example walking down or across tracks then attempting to jump onto a platform. Having a 0.5% fare cheat rate but a couple accidents that shut down the system for a couple hours, plus a rash that cause momentary delays would likely 'cost' much more than your lost fare revenue.

[magnetite]

Originally Posted by outoftheice

Electronic Fare Payment June 2012

How does that work with people that are on the low income pass? Would they still need to go down to 7th avenue to get their pass?

[Blader]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

Fare gates don't stop fare evasion unless they are pretty intense (floor to ceilling, fully enclosed) like some entrances at the TTC:
I doubt you would be able to avoid similar problems unless massive changes to station designs were undertaken. Plus, even if you secured things fully through normal access, it might be that you incent dangerous access, for example walking down or across tracks then attempting to jump onto a platform. Having a 0.5% fare cheat rate but a couple accidents that shut down the system for a couple hours, plus a rash that cause momentary delays would likely 'cost' much more than your lost fare revenue.

Agreed, I've seen many young males, with impunity, jump over the turnstiles in Paris - turnstiles don't prevent fare evasion. Plus the Paris system still pays the salaries of transit cops - I've, many times, seen the transit cops swarm buses and subway cars in groups of six, entering from all doors looking for fare evaders.

Rapid transit needs to move large numbers of people efficiently and cost effectively with minimal interruption.

[J-D]

Originally Posted by Blader

Agreed, I've seen many young males, with impunity, jump over the turnstiles in Paris - turnstiles don't prevent fare evasion. Plus the Paris system still pays the salaries of transit cops - I've, many times, seen the transit cops swarm buses and subway cars in groups of six, entering from all doors looking for fare evaders.

Rapid transit needs to move large numbers of people efficiently and cost effectively with minimal interruption.

I think it's understood that you still need transit cops but I think they'd be better utilized you know... thwarting criminal activity as opposed to nabbing fare evaders in an honor system. I've been asked quite frequently at night on the weekends to see my fare and yet they never seem to be around when people are fighting or vandalizing the train at 2am.