Ridership grows and sets new record in 2010

Do you notice your bus getting more crowded? OC Transpo has seen a large boost in ridership in 2010 and has reached a new record level for ridership. According to 580 CFRA, “99 million people used OC Transpo last year, up from 83 million in 2009.” OCTranspo.com reports the number as 99.3 million. Still, this is approximately a 19 percent increase in ridership, which is significant because the national average increase was only 4.1 percent. The record for the highest OC Transpo ridership was 95,646,026 in 2007.

So, what happened in 2010 that caused such a large increase? The following are some major events in 2010 that may have affected ridership:

--Update (2:26pm): The 19 percent growth may not be as large as it may seem due to the fact there was the transit strike in late 2008 and early 2009, which caused a decline in ridership during that period and immediately after the strike ended.  Nevertheless, there is still an increase in ridership from 2008 to 2010.

--The Next Stop Announcement System (NSAS) was installed on over 500 buses by October according to OCTranspo.com. NSAS probably does not attract more riders, but it certainly helped the visually impaired, night users, and anyone travelling in unknown areas of the city. Riders frustrated with inconsistent stop announcements in the past were likely more satisfied with the new system too.

--The rise of gas prices in late 2010 have made car users consider taking public transit to get to work. However, there was also a fare hike in March 2010 for passes, tickets, and cash fare. Of course, the increasing price of gas had a role in the rising operating costs and fares. Taking both gas price and transit fare changes into consideration, the net effect on ridership is a bit unclear.

--Two Park and Rides opened on Millennium Boulevard in Orleans and on Leitrim Road in south Ottawa. Millennium Park and Ride can hold 168 cars while Leitrim Park and Ride can carry 292 cars. The new park and rides should be convenient, especially for those who are not within walking distance of a bus stop.  Those driving from the south of Ottawa can park at Leitrim without fighting for a spot at Greenboro and being forced to take their car to work.

--In September, the U-Pass was introduced for the University of Ottawa and Carleton University students. This is probably the most significant factor in the rise of passenger volume. Peter Raaymakers wrote in April about the U-Pass' effect on ridership in the fourth quarter of 2010. The city reported an “additional 300,000 student trips each month” during that time. Although many students take public transit anyway, the U-Pass gave those who drove or biked, an extra incentive to take public transit. Since they paid for the U-Pass through tuition, they perhaps felt compelled to use it.

OC Transpo bus stop calling complaints rise

In June, OC Transpo received 20 cases of bus operators not calling out stops and most of them are related to the Bank street detour. This up from “11[incidents] in May and six [incidents] in April”

Neco Cockburn of the Ottawa Citizen says:

“Drivers were told by text messages and general radio bulletins that they must call out stops on the detours, according to OC Transpo. Supervisors conducted random checks on affected routes, and the service's "mystery shopping" program was also stepped up, OC Transpo said.”

Some may wonder why the Next Stop Announcement System (NSAS) does not call out the stops on the detour. NSAS probably does not have the temporary bus stops programmed and OC Transpo may not feel the need to have these stops announced by NSAS since they are just temporary stops.

As for the drivers who fail to call out the stops, they face discipline:

“OC Transpo ... applies "progressive discipline," which can range from a letter of expectation for a first offence, to suspensions and job termination.”

The Bank street detour is expected to last for at least a few more months and can still be confusing for passengers who don't live in the Glebe. So, any kind of assistance from bus operators, such as announcing the stops along the detour, can improve the detour experience.

All buses are now low-floors and have Next Stop Announcement System

Mayor Jim Watson, transit commission chair Diane Deans, and OC Transpo general manager Alain Mercier announced on Tuesday morning the full accessibility of its bus fleet and the installation of the Next Stop Announcement System on all of its buses.

All old high-floor buses are now retired, so the bus fleet consists of only low-floor buses. Deans and Mercier said that the number of types of buses is down to four, which should reduce maintenance costs and overall, make it easier for them to maintain. I suspect there were specialty parts for the older buses that were not mass produced anymore, which likely made them more costly to maintain.

This change in the bus fleet is apparently three years ahead of schedule, which is a pleasant surprise for people with disabilities and transit users in general.

OC Transpo to be fully stop-call compliant by March

Although the city had originally planned to have the Next Stop Announcement System installed on all OC Transpo buses by the end of this year, it has been delayed and has March 2011 as an estimated date of completion, according to 580 CFRA. Once the system is fully installed, the transit company will be compliant with Canadian Transportation Authority (barring technical problems, of course).

The city also announced that there will be a change to the "next stop" chime sound that has confused so many riders to make it easily distinguishable from the bell-ringing of a stop request. Good decision.

"Please ring the bell"

I thought this entry from the OC Transpo LiveJournal was kind of funny:

I know the next stop announcement system goes "Bing Bong" but that doesn't mean the bus is going to stop. Please ring the bell if you want to get off.

One morning when I was riding in to work, I remember on one route, riders neglected to ring the bell twice and both missed their stops as a result. And both times, they--naturally--were up in arms and angry with the operator. Neither seemed to realize that the fault was theirs.

And although it seemed obvious to me, it mustn't have been very funny for those people who'd missed their stops. OC Transpo might need to consider a new tone besides the bing-bong the next-stop announcement system is currently making, because it's obviously confusing people.

OC Transpo stop-calling hits high, complaints hit low

In what should have been expected as soon as the OC Transpo fleet began being retrofitted with the Next Stop Announcement System (NSAS), the rate of stop-calling compliance has hit a 2010 high of 92 per cent, and the number of complaints related to stops not being called out reached a 2010 low (at least by OC Transpo's own measures). Because not all buses in the fleet have been outfitted with the system, the rate of compliance hasn't yet reached 100 per cent.

It took a while, but it looks like the chapter may finally be coming to a close. All it took were repeated warnings from the Canadian Transportation Authority, as well as a couple fines from them for good measure.

'Next Stop' system means no more fines

By this point, most OC Transpo riders have probably had the chance to hear the Next Stop Announcement System on many of their buses--according to 580 CFRA, half of the fleet had the system installed as of this Monday. And although there have been some issues with the service--stops for wrong routes called out, or multiple stops called out at once--at least we can look forward to one thing (aside from knowing where the bus is, obviously): No more fines from the Canadian Transportation Authority.

The CTA had fined the City of Ottawa $5,000 in July 2009 and then another $12,500 in March 2010 for failing to call out the stops, determined by the tribunal to pose an undue obstacle to the visually impaired, among others. And although OC Transpo tried to have drivers call out stops, if just wasn't reliable enough: Some drivers were great about it, some less than enthusiastic, some refused to do it, and some were just too darn pre-occupied with driving a huge vehicle filled with people to worry about it. But now it's on.

My favourite stop so far? Alta Vista, because when translated into French it, for some reason, becomes Aulta Veesta.

Technical issues, please stand by...

Photo from OC Transpo LiveJournal user rickyrooster

Tough month so far for OC Transpo.

On August 6, an OC Transpo bus was hit by a cement mixer, resulting in four injuries to bus passengers. The next day, in the midst of an audit on scheduling practices, the Ottawa Citizen printed an article on OC Transpo's "poisoned" working environment, citing several workers' experiences.

Then last week, a bus engine caught fire (see above photo) on Monday. On Wednesday, the utility released their stop-announcement numbers: Still only 77 per cent, nowhere near the 100 per cent demanded to avoid further fines from the Canadian Transportation Administration (CTA) to comply with accessibility regulations. Then on Friday, a collision between a car and a bus left two individuals (the operator and a passenger) with minor injuries. And later on Friday, a second bus caught fire (by all appearances the same bus model: the Orion VI, according to the OC Transpo Livejournal community), bookending a pretty rough week for the corporation.

And on Saturday, more bad press: With unreliable elevators at major transit stations, some riders are faced with time-sucking detours, missing connections and wasting time. It is a serious accessibility problem, and could make OC Transpo vulnerable to more fines if an accessibility complaint is made (similar to that made about the previously-mentioned stop-calling deficiencies, which have cost OC Transpo $5,000 and $12,500 in separate fines).

Bus-rapid transit is a "subway on the street"

A few weeks ago, Robert Sullivan of New York Magazine published a feature article about the resuscitation of bussing in Manhattan as a viable--and sometimes preferred--form of transportation, when it's offered within a bus-rapid transit (BRT) system. It's a really interesting look at BRT from someone in a city which had largely ignored it until today, and Sullivan's perspective makes for a good read.

The article discusses how buses, building on some serious technological and service upgrades over the past decade or so, including rear-door boarding, traffic signal prioritization, reserved bus lanes, and--perhaps eventually--GPS tracking systems to alert riders when their bus is coming, have become a popularly accepted way to commute. Many of those features might sound like old news in Ottawa, where the Transitway was launched almost 30 years ago, but they're not as well-known in cities like New York, where rapid transit has focussed largely on improving subway systems.

From the NY Mag article:

In fact, the city’s urban-planning activists are almost all singing buses. “They’re the smartest possible transit investment there is right now,” says Noah Budnick, the deputy director of Transportation Alternatives.

[...]

“The bottom line is buses are back, and people are waking up to the fact that they’ve never really been out of the picture here in New York,” says [Department of Transportation] commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, who has been talking buses since her days in the private sector. We [New York] already have the largest fleet in North America—6,250 buses covering 900 square miles of territory, much of it in neighborhoods underserved by the subway system.

That last sentence, though, is telling. BRT systems have a huge number of advantages, first and foremost their flexibility--buses can go on just about any paved roadway, while trains are restricted to their tracks--but also their low up-front costs, in terms of bus acquisition and transit system construction. But there is a point where BRT reaches its carrying capacity, and at that point the more expensive, but more reliable, predictable, long-term cost-effective, and--most importantly--higher-capacity system. And Ottawa, according to city staff, has reached that point.

With Ottawa moving towards light-rail, including a subway downtown, it's important to note that there won't be an abandonment of BRT in the process. Ottawa's BRT system remains one of, if not the, best on the continent in terms of its infrastructure, and the design of the LRT line seems to be one to complement it, rather than to replace it. Which is a nice idea, of course, but time will tell how well that theory translates into reality.

Creative ways to call out stops

Calling out the stops along OC Transpo bus routes has been a hot topic in Ottawa recently, made hotter by the $12,500 fine the city was assessed for failing to do so, as directed by the Canadian Transportation Authority (CTA). The city has voted to have automated stop-calling technology installed on its fleet, but that process will take some time; in the meantime, operators are expected to call out the stops themselves.

With 60-foot buses and sometimes dozens of riders to worry about, calling out stops isn't always at the front of operators' minds, but one driver in particular has found an ingenious way to get stops called automatically--apparently, there's an app for that.

From Centretown News:

A Centretown News reporter riding the 9 Hurdman noticed a robotic female voice calling out stops. When asked for a demonstration, the male driver pressed a button on his iPhone. The mechanical voice said “Vanier and Coventry.”

What a simple, effective solution to a problem that the city's spent almost two and a half years trying to solve--the CTA handed down their decision in November 2007, informing the City of Ottawa that not having 100% of stops called out posed an undue obstacle to the visually impaired, and that they would have to ensure that stops were called out. In the last few months, council finally decided on a $12M bus retrofit program to have stop-calling technology, among other upgrades installed on the fleet.

Having an iPhone call out stops may not have been a long-term solution for the issue at hand. But at least it was a solution.

UPDATE: JCL commented on this post offering some videos of another clever device one operator used to have stops called out on his or her bus: an mp3 player with the station names loaded in. Below is a video with a few stops being called out.

Otawa fined another $12.5k for failure to call out stops

The Canadian Transportation Agency fined the City of Ottawa $12,500 today for failing to call out stops along bus routes. The fine stems from a decision made back in 2007, where it was found that OC Transpo's failure to announce stop names posed an undue obstacle to the visually impaired, and is the second fine that has been levied on the city since said decision. In July of last year, Ottawa was fined $5,000 for failure to call out stops.

The city had made steps toward retrofitting their bus fleet with SmartBus technology, which would have met the requirements (and offered further technical benefits, including real-time location tracking) for $12M, but that was kiboshed by council when peculiarities in the bidding process raised the prospect of a lawsuit from opposing bidders. Since that October 2009 decision was made by council, nothing further has been done to address the problem. Although the deal was cancelled initially, council ultimately voted in favour of the SmartBus enhancements in order to avoid lawsuits.

Realistically, this situation can not continue. Obviously, it's not desirable to continue being fined by the CTA, particularly given the fact that the fines are increasing. There's also the ethical fact that this failure is posing an undue obstacle to those with visual impairments. The city needs to get serious about one (or both) of two things: Either get serious about installing some automatic system to have stops called out [Ed: or get serious about getting it done quickly], whether that's covered under SmartBus technology or something else; or get serious about ensuring operators are consistently calling out stops. Until one of those is implemented, we're going to continue hearing about this--and continue paying for it.

SmartBus a no-go with council

Even though city staff recommended Ottawa go forward with the installation of SmartBus technology on OC Transpo buses, and paying the $17M tab that goes with it, a potential lawsuit put the decision on hold--and possibly off the table.

From 580 CFRA:

A contract to install an automated next-stop announcement system on OC Transpo buses has been parked.

City Council voted 11-10 against a $17 million contact with US-based Clever Devices to install the system on all OC Transpo buses.

Stop-calling gets worse as SmartBus upgrade put on hold

The compliance rate for OC Transpo drivers calling out stops on buses hit its lowest point of the year in September, dropping to 78 per cent according to OCTranspo.com. The City of Ottawa was fined $5000 in July for failing to achieve 100 per cent compliance with stop announcements, and has yet to address the problem.

Attempts to address the problem, however, have recently hit a snag. While the City decided they were willing to pay nearly $12M to Clever Devices to install SmartBus technology across the OC Transpo fleet, Bell Canada has threatened legal action stemming from the City's bidding process, according to Metro Ottawa. While the city put out a call for bids on a system to call out stops, Clever Devices' bid included a number of other technological upgrades which were not included in the "scope of request" for the bidding process.

Who knows what'll happen. Another setback for the necessary upgrade to the bus fleet, risking another fine from the Canadian Transit Authority, and--more importantly--continued accessibility barriers for transit users.

Can we get cars to pay for buses? Should we?

In one instalment of Public Transit in Ottawa's ongoing "Funding Ottawa's Transit Plan" series, the possibility of having non-users, specifically personal automobile drivers, pay a levy which would fund transit plans. It's a possibility at least as interesting as it would be divisive, but there's no doubt it would help offset the investment in public transit, and encourage more people to get onto the bus or train.

Just a few weeks ago, British Columbia transit company TransLink's commissioner Martin Crilly. In his first review in the position, Crilly suggested three possibilities, including raising vehicle registration fees, charging road tolls, and increasing insurance as possible ways to, ahem, drive people out of their cars and onto public transit, according to The Globe & Mail.

The measure is one of several possibilities transit utilities are going to have to look into to keep up with operating costs--to say nothing of capital and expansion costs. According to that Globe story, increases in operating costs are outpacing inflation, fuelled by improving--and expensive--new technologies, such as the $12M SmartBus technology which the City of Ottawa's Transit Committee recently approved for installation on the OC Transpo fleet.

Traditional measures for dealing with increasing costs, such as raising fares, are not working for transit utilities, so this isn't likely the last we've heard of such measures. It seems probable that these discussions will gain steam in cities all over the world, and Ottawa will be no exception.

In the news: $36.7M to get nothing, and more Ottawa transit headlines

Quite a few transit-related news items this week, beginning with one of the most controversial transit-planning related issues of the day: Ottawa's cancelled north-south transit line, and the $36.7M settlement it may require stemming from lawsuits around its cancellation.

The Ottawa Citizen quoted Mayor Larry O'Brien about the lawsuit, which he says is a necessary cost for the City to "move away from the old, tragically flawed LRT plan and move on to something the citizens of Ottawa would really embrace". Recently some politicians, including Ottawa Centre MPP Yasir Naqvi in an interview with Public Transit in Ottawa as well as Capital Ward councillor Clive Doucet, have questioned whether the cancellation of the north-south line, which would be finishing at around this time, was the right decision. The project was to cost an estimated $600M (EDIT: and the actual contract for which was $778M), two-thirds of which was already pledged by federal and provincial governments, and $54M has already been spent on preparing for the transit plan--money which will now be written off by the City, the Citizen says.

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With reports that only 80 per cent of transit stops are being called out by OC Transpo operators, and the Canadian Transportation Agency demanding that number be 100 per cent, the City is still looking into an automated system to ensure compliance with the regulatory body's order. Council had previously approved a $6.7M expenditure on the technology, but 580 CFRA is now reporting that the system will cost the City almost twice as much; $12M to install on the entire OC Transpo fleet.

The $12M bid, from Clever Devices, would also include "bus time arrival information and vehicular system condition monitoring", and would be presented visually as well as aurally in English in French.

According to CBC.ca, the city might take a step further with the retrofit, bumping up the cost to $17M but including further increases in bus-tracking and efficiency, as well as a move to ease the installation of a wireless SmartCard system.

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OC Transpo is making moves to help prevent 'free rides' on buses, including a Communication Plan to inform people of the fees that come with detected non-paying riders, according to 580 CFRA. The transit utility may also implement measures including no back-door boarding, but they're saying the real solution will be implementing a SmartCard system through the entire fleet.

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Finally, the City is looking into a number of measures to lower the 'carbon footprint' of the public transit system, accoring to an official press release. The measures include looking into the following actions:

• Examining the cost of bio-diesel as an alternative fuel
• Providing annual greenhouse gas emission reports for buses and trains
• Completing the implementation plan for 177 diesel-electric hybrid buses, which will be used on low-speed transit routes with frequent stops
• Converting the fleet to more environmentally friendly No.2 diesel fuel
• Preparing to use urea as an exhaust after-treatment agent in buses with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2010 certified engines
• Completing a study on tire pressure monitoring and tracking
• Finalizing the testing and evaluation of its three double-decker buses

More on OC Transpo calling out stops

A couple of weeks after OC Transpo was fined $5000 for failing to call out major and requested stops on buses, 580 CFRA announced that, for the month of July, OC Transpo drivers called out 81 per cent of stops. Although 81 per cent seems like a respectable number, it's far off the 100 per cent demanded by the Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), and amounts to one out of every five stops missed.

Earlier this week, OC Transpo Manager of Performance and Quality Vincent Patterson told 580 CFRA that--although the call-out rate could and should be higher than 81 per cent--drivers may not hit every stop announcement due to the distractions that come with operating a bus. For that reason, it's unlikely that drivers could ever reach a perfect 100 per cent call-out rate.

Meanwhile, Ottawa still has $7M budgeted for an automated system to call out stops, but has yet to award the contract. OC Transpo has already violated the CTA's deadline for having 100 per cent efficiency, and it is unclear how often the transit authority may fine Ottawa's transit utility.

OC Transpo fined for not calling out stops

The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA), an independent administrative tribunal tasked with ensuring federal transit regulations are met, has fined OC Transpo $5,000 for failing to call out stops along bus routes. The CTA told OC Transpo in November 2007 that failure to call out stops was "an undue obstacle to transportation for persons with a disability", and the utility has, to date, failed to address their responsibility satisfactorily. In March 2009, a second CTA decision gave OC Transpo 20 days to fix the issue, but their failure to do so resulted in the above-mentioned fine.

The failure is, quite frankly, inexcusable on the part of OC Transpo. The agency was given over 18 months before a fien was handed down, and although general manager Alain Mercier was using the OC Transpo's 80.7 per cent efficiency--as opposed to a mandated 100 per cent efficiency--to apply for an extension (according to Metro), any less than 100 per cent isn't good enough. The undue obstacle is not just there for the visually impaired, but also for those who may not know exactly where their going or tourists looking to get around the city. Calling out stops isn't just simple courtesy, as Metro editorialized on Monday, but it's also good business.

OC Transpo is reportedly pursuing an automated system to call out stops, but it hasn't been implemented yet. Hopefully it will be soon, for transit users as well as taxpayers.