Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Yup - YVR contributed $300 million or so to the line and imposed a travel time maximum of 24 minutes (I think) to downtown.

Is that really just travel time or is it travel time plus average or worst-case wait for the next available train to depart YVR station?

[spm2013]

Maximum train travel times during peak period of 25 minutes and 15 minute train intervals for Airport-Waterfront:

http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Document...greements/YVR%20Funding%20Agreement.ashx

[officedweller]

Yeah, in Schedule E, section 1.2.12, the maximum travel time is 25 minutes, not interval.


http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Document...greements/YVR%20Funding%20Agreement.ashx

[spm2013]

Sorry miswrote on my reply, edited.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Yeah, in Schedule E, section 1.2.12, the maximum travel time is 25 minutes, not interval.

It appears that the travel time is irrelevant if what we're discussing is the ratio of trains going to YVR vs. Brighouse. From the looks of the agreement, the only relevant factor in that discussion is the requirement to have trains at 15-minute intervals. And if I'm reading that table correctly, given that the frequency for Brighouse is stated as 7.5 minutes it appears that a 2:1 ratio has already been agreed to.

[spm2013]

There's no Brighouse in that table, it's Bridgeport.

[officedweller]

Brighouse is "Richmond" (as in Richmond Centre).

The max travel time from Richmond to Waterfront is 30 min in section 1.2.1.1

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

And if I'm reading that table correctly,
given that the frequency for Brighouse is stated as 7.5 minutes it appears that a 2:1 ratio has already been agreed to.

Yes, the frequency interval [headway] for Richmond-Waterfront is max 7.5 min in Peak.
The frequency interval [headway] for YVR-Waterfront is max 15 min in Peak.
So ultimately, the table allows a 2:1 ratio in Peak at the slowest headways (with room to vary at higher frequencies),
but the ratio must even out early morning and late evening (at the slowest headways).

The "Combined Bridgeport-Waterfront" is for the current configuration with the wye facing south.
- 2 routes - Richmond-Waterfront and Airport-Waterfront with the overlap/combined being Bridgeport-Waterfront.

The "Combined Bridgeport-Airport" is for the theoretical configuration with a Airport-Richmond route.
See the requirement at the end of Section 1.1.6. for through running from Airport to Richmond.
So in addition to there being combined service on Bridgeport-Waterfront, service on Airport-Bridgeport would also be combined
from 2 routes that overlap/combined being Bridgeport-Waterfront, but the max interval of 7.5 min means that
it would only be implemented if there is high train frequency / demand.

[twoNeurons]

So... you're essentially looking at max 5 minute frequencies at all times of the day if you were going to go with a 2:1 ratio.

What's more likely is a 2:1 ratio during rush, switching back to a 1:1 off-peak

During rush (20 tph one-way):
Vancouver: 3 minute interval
Richmond : 3 or 6 minute interval
Airport : 9 minute interval

Off peak (12 tph one-way):
Vancouver 5 minute interval
Richmond: 10 minute interval
Airport: 10 minute interval.

[officedweller]

Remember that that implied ratio above is just at the slowest headways.
As long as the YVR headway is not more than 7.5 minutes, the Richmond leg could run as often as you can run them.

That's according to the parameters noted above. There could be a "ratio" clause elsewhere in the agreement.

[WarrenC12]

More trains! As always, that's the answer.

[st7860]

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/photos/worl...=X3oDMTBhdnVpNmo3BGxhbmcDZW4tQ0E-;_ylv=3

Vancouver
Vancouver's SkyTrain is a light rapid transit system in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. SkyTrain has 68.7 km (42.7 mi) of track and uses fully automated trains on grade-separated tracks, running mostly on elevated guideways, which gives passengers views across the city and helps SkyTrain to hold consistently high (over 95%) on-time reliability.

[logicbomb]

Oh Translink....First they cut 555 midday and evening service down to every 30 min. Now the 156 ST stop has opened, and there are A LOT of riders using this stop. The 337 is making requested stops near the 555 stop, and a lot of riders from Fraser Heights are opting to take the 555.

The end result? Security were present at Carvolth Exchange this morning to restrict the number of passengers that can board there so there is some room left to allow boardings at 156 ST. Passengers at Carvolth are being forced to wait behind.

Translink will need to up frequencies to every 5 min during peak-hours or put artics on the route. The lineup at Braid was horrendous on Wednesday. A near 2 bus wait.

[red-paladin]

Nanaimo Station has lots of scaffolding / hoarding up. Looks like they are painting all the grids and trusses.

Also, One of the 130 busses never showed at Metrotown station. This led to people getting passed up on the first stops on the leg, even though they'd been waiting a long time. There were at least 7 people at Crystal Mall on Willingdon that were passed up.
I know there are eventual plans for 130 to be a B-line... it can't happen soon enough. Though I agree the 555 is more pressing at the moment.

[DKaz]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

Oh Translink....First they cut 555 midday and evening service down to every 30 min. Now the 156 ST stop has opened, and there are A LOT of riders using this stop. The 337 is making requested stops near the 555 stop, and a lot of riders from Fraser Heights are opting to take the 555.

The end result? Security were present at Carvolth Exchange this morning to restrict the number of passengers that can board there so there is some room left to allow boardings at 156 ST. Passengers at Carvolth are being forced to wait behind.

Translink will need to up frequencies to every 5 min during peak-hours or put artics on the route. The lineup at Braid was horrendous on Wednesday. A near 2 bus wait.

I was passed up by two buses yesterday morning, and then in the afternoon there was a two bus wait because one of the buses broke down.

I had a lot of back and forth with Translink on Twitter Thursday morning, and contacted Translink Customer Relations as well. This included restricting the number of people getting on board at Carvolth to 55 in the short term as the capacity of these coaches is 47 seated + 13 standees. I'm very sorry.

Last night, I printed a bunch of flyers and taped them up at the westbound bus stop this morning to start a campaign to improve the 555 bus route. This included getting people to contact Translink Customer Relations and also tweet any passups with the hashtag #555passup. Someone took a picture of the flyer and Tweeted it.



I get an e-mail in the afternoon informing me that Translink does not have the resources to increase the frequency of the bus route, which was my other suggestion. It's ok, I expected it to be a long battle which is why I created the hashtag.

Just half an hour before, I wanted to print out a copy of the 555 bus schedule to leave at my desk when I noticed something:

http://infomaps.translink.ca/Public_Timetables/98/tt555.pdf

They have increased the weekday morning frequency from 9 minute to 7-8 minutes between 6am and 8am.

Shortest Twitter campaign. Ever.

[logicbomb]

Good job DKaz!

[red-paladin]

Excellent! That's exactly the kind of effective pressure needed on Translink.
Also, it's good for Translink, as they can show the Mayor's Council and Province that specific problems with capacity exist and can be resolved with minor changes.

[DKaz]

Thanks, bit it certainly wasn't just me, it was a good collective effort on everyone's part. I just attempted to cool everyone's heads and get guide everyone to get this done in a proper manner. We all succeeded.

[twoNeurons]

Overcapacity bus route on a fairly new bus route. That's a nice problem to have.

[Mac Write]

To solve capacity issues today (as in pass-ups, over-crowding) how many more buses and hours of service would be required?

Lets say Translink got another 150,000hrs of service (how is that calculated? Quaterly or yearly). How much service improvement would we see?

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

Oh Translink....First they cut 555 midday and evening service down to every 30 min. Now the 156 ST stop has opened, and there are A LOT of riders using this stop. The 337 is making requested stops near the 555 stop, and a lot of riders from Fraser Heights are opting to take the 555.

The frequency reductions to 30 minutes were done from the start of the service (they were never any more frequent than this) as a result of lack of funding and other pressing priorities including the 96 B-Line.

Originally Posted by logicbomb

The end result? Security were present at Carvolth Exchange this morning to restrict the number of passengers that can board there so there is some room left to allow boardings at 156 ST. Passengers at Carvolth are being forced to wait behind.

Translink will need to up frequencies to every 5 min during peak-hours or put artics on the route. The lineup at Braid was horrendous on Wednesday. A near 2 bus wait.

Which is precisely why it's successful at least as long as people are smart enough to realize that TransLink was not in the wrong neither when they introduced the 555 service at 9 mins peak, but when the 156 stop wasn't originally built. At the end of the day, both are issues of the province unwilling to step up and finish the package (the 156 St stop ended up being built with Surrey footing the bill).

The new stop will make for a great device to increase pressure on the province to comply with the need to increase transit funding in this region.