Imagine it’s -10º and you’re standing at a bus shelter, travel mug in hand, waiting patiently for a bus to take you to work. You’re not a regular transit user, but you’re curious whether you can reduce your car expenses, relieve roadway congestion and make a dent in your carbon footprint. Within a few minutes the bus approaches – only to whizz right by your stop because there are too many people on board. You shuffle home, not sure you’ll try transit ever again.
This scenario isn’t uncommon during any given rush hour. That’s why later this week our Transportation Committee will be discussing a report that proposes reallocating resources (50,000 services hours, in fact) from under-utilized routes to high demand routes, thereby improving the service for more people. This change is at the crux of the the ‘coverage vs. frequency’ discussion that is being evaluated during the development of the City’s transit strategy. The concept is wonderfully explained in this short video and it’s a topic I’ve been discussing for a long time.
This week’s report highlights a couple of interesting facts. The routes where ridership is low – in some cases averaging 8 riders per hour – cost the City an average of $9.50 per trip to operate. That’s a $6 loss for the City on each and every trip. Conversely, the average cost per trip across the entire system is $1.30. Broadly speaking, if we are looking at more efficient ways at delivering City services, our transit system is a great place to start. Secondly, the report reminds us that a February audit of ETS reliability showed a decline in the on-time performance of the system and it is falling below the threshold set out in the City’s policy. Reallocation of resources to high demand routes will increase the system’s overall reliability and get us closer to our target of 90% of trips departing within 3 minutes of their scheduled time.
These changes will understandably impact some Edmontonians (City staff estimate 900 weekday passengers) and will leave some communities with little or no direct transit option. I certainly empathize with these people and understand that it will mean a shift in habits for some people. However, some of these routes would need to increase ridership by 100 per cent in order to meet minimum service standards, as established by city policy. Reallocation means tens of thousands of more people will get a more reliable, more frequent transit service that wins customers over rather than pushes them away. In December, ETS began implementing some schedule enhancements like the kind that are being proposed and the results show the level of service has improved significantly.
Every day, Edmontonians step onto a bus or train 400,000 times and every year ETS provides about two million hours of service. Even if you don’t take transit yourself, you likely rely on someone who does. Which means having a high performing transit service supports business and economic development, along with the city’s environmental and social goals.
You can help with the development of our Transit Strategy by helping us refine the tradeoffs before us. FIll out the new survey here.
Reallocation of resources to high demand routes is clearly the only way to go. ETS used to have 5 minute service on the high demand routes, 15 minute service was the lowest service on any route. Now 15 minute service is the highest service, showing just how much the service has deteriorated.
The biggest mistake the City ever made was getting rid of trolleybus service. Ridership on the former trolley routes has declined noticeably, with up to 4 trips daily dropped on some of those routes. The promised “hybrid” replacements for the trolleys STILL have not arrived, and the promised savings have not materialized. Don’t forget that a commitment was made that the savings from getting rid of the trolleys would be used to fund half the cost of the Gorman LRT extension. What do you think the chances of that happening are?
The ETS is the most wasteful service I have ever seen. Buses with no riders going down the street on off peak hours shows how incompetent the management of ETS has become. They must be blind. They say they are just following council guidelines. Guidelines Written in 2007 when oil was over $100. These guidelines are costing Tax payers millions of dollars in wasteful mismanaged ET services. The mayor needs to take so leadership and sack a few of these so called managers. Buses running through residential areas every 15 minutes just shows how out of touch the city council really is. Next time your going down the street and a bus is beside you have a look at the ridership or fill levels. Ask yourself why? So they can say they have service every 15 minutes. Anyone need better service? You can have my empty bus route.