Transit Statistics

[quobobo]

Those spreadsheets are really great, Voony - thanks for sharing them!

[Vonny]

thanks fro your kind words and good to see the datas from nname:

Originally Posted by nname

I wonder what you use to generate the distance data. I tried to use the 'shape' data in GTFS, but they seems to be very inaccurate. Try to plot the shape for Expo and the 97 B-Line, and you'll see..

yes I have noticed the translink gtfs shape datas are not good. the way-point are provided in "random' order what violates the GTFS specs btw, and so you are better to use the straight-line distance between bus stops that the shapes.txt "as is".

I reorder the wpts (starting from the first stop...pick up the closest wpt...then from this wpt, pickup the closest wpt which has not already been picked up yet...up to the last stop).

The Algo written in Perl is here (select: gtfs_compute_shape_length.pl )


I will probably modify it, because it doesn't work well if the route loop on itself (that is typically the case of the M line, which is corrected), but on average I have found it provides a better approximation than straighline distance between bus stop (which are still better that the shape distance provided

It is very hard to determine the vehicle used for route as many routes now operate as mixed vehicles. This is as far as I know:

134, 136, 153, 157, 337, 531 - Shuttles during weekends
188 - 40ft bus during peak, while shuttle during off-peak
345 - Shuttle during evening
C30, C92 - 40ft bus during peak hours, the C92 can get Orions too
97, 143, 150, 160, 190, 257, 403, 701 - Mixed between 40ft and 60ft buses
227, 251*, 252*, 256, 388, 609 - Fully shuttle
311 - Orion
394 - Mixed Orion and standard 40ft bus
C28* - Fully shuttle, used to use 40ft bus during peak

And there are some occasionally weird ones:
135, 145 - The trips made from PoCo bus are usually 40ft instead of 60ft
410 - Few trips run by Orion or 60ft bus
407, C86, C87, C88 - Few trips run by Orion
401, 861 - Few trips run by 60ft bus
C24, C37, C93 - Few trips run by 40ft bus
101, 155 - Few trips (school special?) run by Orion

* = recent changes

Thanks a lot for all those information: I will integrate them whenever time permits

I think the 60ft on the route 403, are bus going or coming of the route 480 (I assume it is also the case on route 401):
normally by using the GTFS block_id field, we could be roughly able to sort-out which run are 60ft vs 40 ft on route 403...
As an example, in the sept 2013 gtfs, I have the bus block_id 1328145 operating a 401 trip to Brighouse, then become 403 to Bridgeport, then become 480 to UBC...so we can probably conclude that the bus is a 60ft

To be sure, I am mainly interested to have typical numbers for cap.km and bus fleet utilization.

What I can roughly guess is that spare ratio on the 60ft trolleys is ~25%...and 90% on the 40ft trolleys

[xd_1771]

^ 410s on the Orion? That's interesting. I thought a 60ft bus on the 410 is impossible, though - 22nd St's bus exchange isn't technically designed for 60 ft I think - unless it was on a Richmond Ctr run. I have, however, seen 60 ft buses on the 407.

The 403 definitely uses the XDE60s, etc. due to feeding of the 620 and the 480; the 480 itsellf feeds the 49.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

[snip]
The 403 definitely uses the XDE60s, [snip]

Can confirm. (Take it daily)

[nname]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

^ 410s on the Orion? That's interesting. I thought a 60ft bus on the 410 is impossible, though - 22nd St's bus exchange isn't technically designed for 60 ft I think - unless it was on a Richmond Ctr run. I have, however, seen 60 ft buses on the 407.

The 403 definitely uses the XDE60s, etc. due to feeding of the 620 and the 480; the 480 itsellf feeds the 49.

There were a few Orion 410 runs for some times before as I had taken them, but not sure if they still have them now. I believe one Orion also turned into an 104, but that's about 8 years ago. I believe there was one 410 trip that are consistently ran using 60ft bus during the last schedule.

In fact, it is possible to see pretty much any type of bus on any route. I've seen 60ft buses on 189 and C30 before - very rare consider most stops along the routes are designed only for shuttles. Also, many 60ft buses were running on the C31 before they renumbered it to 150.

The 403 is mostly 60ft buses on the weekends, when 480 is not running and there are extra buses to spare.

[ninjakafi_81]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

^ 410s on the Orion? That's interesting. I thought a 60ft bus on the 410 is impossible, though - 22nd St's bus exchange isn't technically designed for 60 ft I think - unless it was on a Richmond Ctr run. I have, however, seen 60 ft buses on the 407.

The 403 definitely uses the XDE60s, etc. due to feeding of the 620 and the 480; the 480 itsellf feeds the 49.

Well yea but last month I was able to get a 60ft bus on the 410 and I must say laving 22nd St Stn and that turn up Boundary road was pretty tight but either than that it was ok.

Here is the recording that I got of R12022 on the 410 ( I screwed up on the title as it's supposed to be 2012 )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkHLkFCegPc

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by ninjakafi_81

Well yea but last month I was able to get a 60ft bus on the 410 and I must say laving 22nd St Stn and that turn up Boundary road was pretty tight but either than that it was ok.

Here is the recording that I got of R12022 on the 410 ( I screwed up on the title as it's supposed to be 2012 )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkHLkFCegPc

So 22nd St Exchange can take 60 ft buses! Wait, they used the XDE60 too!? Damn... what trip time is this? I'm always 5 minutes from 22nd and I even take the 410 to school every day so I have got to check this out

[ninjakafi_81]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

So 22nd St Exchange can take 60 ft buses! Wait, they used the XDE60 too!? Damn... what trip time is this? I'm always 5 minutes from 22nd and I even take the 410 to school every day so I have got to check this out

I guess soo and this trip was on a Saturday I think around 11:30 am. I don't think you'll see an XDE60 or even an D60LF on this route anytime soon, unless you take the early morning trips from Railway that uses those buses. But yea check out T-Comm and see if there is an 60ft bus on this route.

http://tcomm.bustrainferry.com/mobile/model

[xd_1771]

^ That website is a dream come true, man q_q
Gad damn, Surrey's D60LFs on the N19. Man, I think this may be the first time Kingsway itself has seen a D60LF. Interesting.

[ninjakafi_81]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

^ That website is a dream come true, man q_q
Gad damn, Surrey's D60LFs on the N19. Man, I think this may be the first time Kingsway itself has seen a D60LF. Interesting.

Yea, when I first saw that site couple years back, I was like ' am I in heaven ? ". Yea, I believe they started using them back when the December sheet started. Actually D60LFs have been running along Kingsway. BTC used artics on ( preferably D/E60LFRs ) on the last N19 run for quite some time, after coming off the N35 SFU.

[AverageJoe]

Originally Posted by nname

...

134, 136, 153, 157, 337, 531 - Shuttles during weekends
188 - 40ft bus during peak, while shuttle during off-peak
345 - Shuttle during evening
C30, C92 - 40ft bus during peak hours, the C92 can get Orions too
97, 143, 150, 160, 190, 257, 403, 701 - Mixed between 40ft and 60ft buses
227, 251*, 252*, 256, 388, 609 - Fully shuttle
311 - Orion
394 - Mixed Orion and standard 40ft bus
C28* - Fully shuttle, used to use 40ft bus during peak

And there are some occasionally weird ones:
135, 145 - The trips made from PoCo bus are usually 40ft instead of 60ft
410 - Few trips run by Orion or 60ft bus
407, C86, C87, C88 - Few trips run by Orion
401, 861 - Few trips run by 60ft bus
C24, C37, C93 - Few trips run by 40ft bus
101, 155 - Few trips (school special?) run by Orion

* = recent changes

I never liked the "C" route numbers. When there are so many routes using a mix of vehicles -- big bus routes using CS vehicles and CS routes sometimes even using 60' buses (I've seen this in Coquitlam) -- I wonder if there's still a point. Personally, I'd like to see the C numbers converted back to normal numbers where there's at least some general pattern as to where the routes are located. Wonder if that'll ever happen.

[GMasterAres]

I find something interesting out of that data. If you take a look at the ridership numbers and statistics provided year over year, between 1999 and 2010 so basically 11 years in a row, you can see directly the population increase, the number of registered cars, and the increase in transit ridership per capita.

What I find interesting and supporting to my opinion that we need to once and for all get over this notion throughout the region that you have to build roads OR transit like they are coupled together and diametrically opposed when the truth is they aren't.

So starting in 1999, the total cars per capita were 0.594 cars for every 1 person in Metro Vancouver. In 2010, the total cars per capita were 0.622 per 1 person. So you have over 11 years, an overall increase per person of 0.028 or roughly 2.8%.

So basically it remained to me, fairly steady with only a minor increase over time pinned basically at the same rate to population growth regionally.

Now you look at transit ridership and it went from 65.42 to 89.21 so went up quite considerably! So even though transit ridership in fact went up quite considerably, it had no impact really on the steady increase of registered cars.

Of course the stats don't say everything and you can't tell for example did transit in some regions decrease cars registrations drastically while in other areas with little transit enhancements the car registrations went up drastically resulting in a flat increase.

But I think the statistics do tell an interesting story of how we still need road infrastructure in addition to increased transit throughout the region simply due to the reason I've harped on about for years now on these forums... that our population is growing and quite frankly it is a pipe dream to think you can make transit convenient for the majority of people in a city this large without bankrupting us into the middle ages.

[Pinion]

I think the drop in car usage has more to do with the affordability of the city than any steps taken to improve things. When every last penny is squeezed out of you, you reluctantly sell your old beater and use transit.

I've noticed the people who do drive in this city seem to always have nice new cars. Very different compared to the US.