Ottawa Transit Strike: Should transit workers be allowed to strike?

[Richard Eade]

From The Citizen http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Co...527/story.html

In December, the city saved $9.1 million, but lost $2.7 million in revenues. In January, it saved $22.1 million, and lost $15.4 million in revenues. In the end, the savings are $31.2 million, with a revenue loss of $18.1 million, for a savings over the 51-day strike of $13.1 million.

However, because in December, OC Transpo was in a deficit of $6.3 million, and there were another $1.5 million in unspecified losses, the end result is a net savings of $5.3 million.

I assume that the December expenses were lower because of the holiday service, and that those revenues would have been low because of the holidays, also.

I wonder what the savings for February will be?

Does the $1.5M include the $700,000 for aid, I wonder? Producing the 'Ride-Share Pick-up Point' signs?

Are the measures to attract back riders enough?

December monthly pass valid for February. As well, people can ride the bus free until Feb. 13, and weekend rides for that month would also be free. Seniors will get to ride the bus on Wednesdays for free in February.

I think that the plan was to make every Wednesday free for Seniors, so that one is not such a biggie. Since the service doesn't start until the 9th, and even then it is a much reduced service for the first week, at least, is 4 free days enough? December is a 31 day month and people were able to use their passes for full transit service during the first 9 days. February is a 29 day month and service will be reduced during that time. Is it any great deal to be allowed to use your December pass for February?

[Richard Eade]

Is the O-Train free until Feb. 13?

[Suzie]

Originally Posted by Dado

Yes.

The express system makes implementing staggered shifts really difficult and that matters since you have to cover 13-14 hours (say 5:00 to 19:00).

On the trunk portions of the system, there's enough scheduling flexibility due to the volumes involved to have some drivers take over from others "on the fly" (we see this already, including on the O-Train, which has a very high rate of revenue time due to the fact that even when its operators take a break, it doesn't).

On the feeder portions the same driver can do the run many times over, so you need to have fewer drivers to cover any one route, which means less time wasted toing and froing sending buses and operators out (you still get some of that on the trunk routes of course, but the aforementioned flexibility lets you get away with it). What's more is that you can do some staggering, so one driver can start at 5:30, work for 3 hours or so to finish at 8:30-9:00 and start again at 14:00 and finish at 17:00 or so (there's some slack needed in there for back-and-forth travel). Another driver can start at 8:00 and work through the day on a straight shift to finish at 15:00 or so. And yet another starting at, say, 7:00, works till 10:00 and starts up again at 15:00 to finish at 19:00. In this way, the entire day can be covered, with extra coverage at peak periods.

And you can mix the routes that drivers do, so in the morning some can drive feeders in the early hours of the morning and then drive trunk/mainline routes in the early hours of the afternoon, and so on.


Now try this with express routes. For the driver who starts the day at 5:00, he has to be back in the garage at the end of the day by 17:00 to stay under 12 hours. Well, 17:00 is in the middle of rush hour when your operators are needed. So you could try starting him later in the morning, except he has to be on his run early enough and for that he has to be at the garage early enough to start the day, then has to drive way out to the edge of the city to begin his run. Nor is it sufficient to just send out one or two; you have to send out a whole whack of them in short succession. And once he has finished one run from one side of the city and goes back to the other side (for interlining) there may not be enough time left in the peak period to justify another (third) trip, so the guy gets paid to do nothing (and you sure wish you didn't have to pay him for it). It becomes quite challenging to have operators check in at say 7:00 and check out at 19:00 and still have them cover all that they have to cover. What's more, the bigger the city gets and the more ridership increases in the more distant suburbs, the worse this problem becomes. So long as most of your ridership was closer in and the city is smaller, you can get away with the scheduling pressures created by the express buses. But as the city grows outwards and along with it suburban ridership, the extent of "slack" provided by inner area routes diminishes for the simple reason that systemwide driver miles and hours come to be dominated by express routes.

I understand what you are saying.

However, the City has been claiming that running an express bus network is cheaper. For example, as part of the planning for the ill-fated North-South LRT and to meet the commitment to reduce the number of buses in the downtown core, the City calculated that the operating costs of a “hub-and-spoke” network would be approximately seven percent higher than the current express bus network. Supposedly, the reason for the higher cost is the significant loss in the ability to interline – http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...#_Toc117938809

[Rathgrith]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

Is the O-Train free until Feb. 13?

Tis. It just happens to be running faster than the buses.