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  #21  
Old Posted Feb 4, 2017, 11:54 PM
GlassCity's Avatar
GlassCity GlassCity is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jlousa View Post
This thread shouldn't have been created and belongs in the general transit thread. The reason isn't just to keep things confined, it's to bring structure to the forum as a whole. It's not great for the forum in general when a typical user searches for new threads and has 20 threads out of 100 coming out of ssp:Vancouver, it drives them away needlessly. I'm sure we can cope with slightly less threads. I will leave this open for now and let the other mods discuss. Going forward before opening a new thread just ask yourself if the discussion could fit into an existing thread, if in doubt you can always pm one of us, we don't want to stop people from creating threads, lets just think it thru beforehand.
I fully agree. I don't see the need for creating separate threads for every possible discussion topic there is. This conversation would work just fine in the Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion thread. The more open the topics, the better.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kisai View Post
I'd rather it be all one zone, but you can't tell me there isn't something inherently unfair in letting someone use one fare to go from North Van to White Rock vs someone going from Joyce to Metrotown where the latter is charged more.

I wasn't thinking about the UBC B-line in this case, but rather the buses that cross a geographic/municipal barrier (eg Richmond/Vancouver, Surrey/New West) that are also served already by the Skytrain to dissuade the kind of problem that was also created by having a Toll Bridge and a non-toll bridge to cross from Surrey/New West.

Like, if/when the Surrey BRT/LRT comes online, someone who doesn't need to leave Surrey could just pay the Surrey local fare, and as long as they don't cross into New West, the distance is X cents per km.

(Keep in mind that paratransit is the by FAR the most expensive form of transit)

http://www.translink.ca/-/media/Docu...08_12_2016.pdf

CMBC average: $5.19/km (not including fuel)
Access Transit: $40.52 per trip

(Expo/Millenium Line)
Skytrain vehicle: $2.67 per km
Skytrain passenger: $0.150 per km

WCE per vehicle: $13.73 per km
WCE passenger: $0.219 per km


Let's assume that the "real fare" cost of taking the bus is $5.19/km, regardless if the vehicle is full or empty

A "full" bus has 36 seated passengers or 81 total possible
A "full" 6-car MKI Skytrain (480) or 4-car MK III (532)
Canada line has a capcity of 334

For one bus to drive one person one km, it should cost them $5.19/km
For one bus to drive 80 people one km it should cost 0.064875/km
A completely empty Skytrain should cost $2.67
A completely full Skytrain should be (MKI: $0.0056/km, MKIII:$0.0051)

If you stay on one bus, that is relatively full the entire trip, and the maximum trip length (from another thread) was roughly 45km(#504) that trip in theory costs $233.55 for trip if there was only one passenger, with 80 it's $2.92

So taking that into account the most expensive bus fare inside one zone should be $2.92. The reality is that only trips from the Ferry (eg #601) are ever this full on every trip.

This is why Translink would suggest time-of-day, because off-peak is actually more expensive, and they save those costs by cutting the service frequency. Since you're not going to hire a bus driver to just drive an empty bus for 8 hours off peak, that is the problem with the bus.

The Skytrain on the other hand has no reason to have an off-peak or on-peak time at all. They can use the fare gates to determine how many trains are needed at specific times and send more/store a few at the pocket track segments in anticipation of that passenger load.

So, same logic:
The longest possible trip on the Expo line Skytrain alone is 29.7km x $2.67 = $79.30 if there is only one passenger. If it's full, end-to-end that is $0.15 (exactly what was quoted in the pdf?)

So the Skytrain subsidizes the bus system, no matter any way you look at it, when it's efficient.

So that gets into the fare calculation, a full train, Surrey to Waterfront, the fare can't be below $0.15, where as the bus, an "all-zone" fare can't be less than $2.92 otherwise it doesn't even begin to cover the longest routes.

So if we look at distance only, let's say that longest trip Translink justifies charging 2.95 ($2.92) for, and a short trip (eg equal to two skytrain stops or about 6km) about $0.40 cents (0.39)

We already know that the buses are more efficient in Vancouver/Burnaby/NewWest and the Skytrain is efficient, so perhaps a fair "distance" rate for that area works out to about 7.5 cents per km or we can call this the "express fare" scale.

Surrey is one of the more expensive bus areas, a full trip from White Rock to the Skytrain is roughly 20km (the same as Waterfront to Columbia via road.) If there was an express (eg White Rock/South Surrey, Newton to King George or Scott Road) B-Line, it could be rated at the same 7.5 cents/km "express fare" scale if it's well used, while all the other routes could be on the "South Fraser" distance scale that averages out the cost of all the bus routes in Surrey (and the City of Surrey would likely claim they could run it cheaper, because they are that full of themselves.)

At any rate we should be encouraging people to use the rail system because it costs less to operate than the buses, however the current fare structure makes people avoid taking the train for trips during peak time unless they have a daily/monthly pass. That suggests that the bus system is carrying more passengers than it needs to because people are trying to save $2 in fare.

Let's assume for a second (these aren't realistic, and are based on nothing for the sake of not wanting to rub it in anyones face how expensive their transit area is)
Vancouver/Burnaby/NewWest = 7.5c/km travel
Richmond/Port Moody/Coquitlam/Poco = 8c/km
Delta/Surrey/Langley = 10c/km
West/North Vancouver's = 12c/km

If an area wants a doubling of it's frequency, it needs to take a doubling of the distance for it's region.

That solves the "well why does X bus system suck so much" problem by having Translink take the money given by the city and using it to subsidize the fares distance rate, or the city can complain about tax hikes till they are blue in the face and Translink ends up cutting frequency instead.

Use the obvious geographic barriers (eg the Fraser River, Pitt River) where a bridge is crossed instead of arbitrarily trying to carve out areas that people don't really know the municipal boundaries of anyway.

There's likely other ways to go about this, but again, it would only make sense if people could tap-in/out from a GPS-enabled smartphone, because they could keep track of where they are, and when their fare card will not have enough for a return/home trip.
I fully agree that it's unfair for a Maple Ridge to White Rock trip to be cheaper than a Joyce to Patterson trip. This is why I support a free first fare crossing with increased zones, no zones at all, or even just distance-based. I just want to make sure we keep simplicity in mind if we go the distance-based route, because it could affect a lot of people—specifically those that would have the hardest time dealing with it.
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  #22  
Old Posted Feb 5, 2017, 4:34 AM
cganuelas1995 cganuelas1995 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jlousa View Post
This thread shouldn't have been created and belongs in the general transit thread. The reason isn't just to keep things confined, it's to bring structure to the forum as a whole. It's not great for the forum in general when a typical user searches for new threads and has 20 threads out of 100 coming out of ssp:Vancouver, it drives them away needlessly. I'm sure we can cope with slightly less threads. I will leave this open for now and let the other mods discuss. Going forward before opening a new thread just ask yourself if the discussion could fit into an existing thread, if in doubt you can always pm one of us, we don't want to stop people from creating threads, lets just think it thru beforehand.
Yeah, well, the fare review thing is just as big as or maybe even bigger than a new piece of infrastructure. The MV transit general discussion thread became flooded in regards to it and I quite honestly thought it would be best to attempt to migrate it to a specific thread. Apologies for failing to message you first, I wasn't aware that it was required. I didn't see any other threads that it could fit into and the topic was to specific for general discussion.
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  #23  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2017, 9:08 AM
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fredinno fredinno is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by GlassCity View Post
I fully agree. I don't see the need for creating separate threads for every possible discussion topic there is. This conversation would work just fine in the Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion thread. The more open the topics, the better.
Well, more threads also allows people to find specific subjects and previous discussions easier. It's taste I guess.
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  #24  
Old Posted Feb 8, 2017, 5:24 PM
cganuelas1995 cganuelas1995 is offline
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Originally Posted by fredinno View Post
Well, more threads also allows people to find specific subjects and previous discussions easier. It's taste I guess.
This is also a monumental thing as well. The first time in 30 years, that's three decades or 30% of a century, that they are reviewing their fares and this could result in huge changes.
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  #25  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2017, 4:09 AM
casper casper is online now
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I would keep busses as one zone. However it may make sense to rethink bus routes.

in some cities the role of the "bus" to bring people to the nearest station.

I would charge based on the number of stations transited. On station is $0.50, two station $1.00, three station $1.25, and so on. A bus trip at one end or another counts as another station.

bus+1station = $1.00. bus+1station+bus = $1.25.

You structure bus that go over a major bridge as a second hop.
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  #26  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2017, 5:19 AM
cganuelas1995 cganuelas1995 is offline
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Originally Posted by casper View Post
in some cities the role of the "bus" to bring people to the nearest station
That's pretty much the case in Greater Vancouver.
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  #27  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2017, 10:03 PM
BCPhil BCPhil is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jlousa View Post
This thread shouldn't have been created and belongs in the general transit thread. The reason isn't just to keep things confined, it's to bring structure to the forum as a whole. It's not great for the forum in general when a typical user searches for new threads and has 20 threads out of 100 coming out of ssp:Vancouver, it drives them away needlessly. I'm sure we can cope with slightly less threads. I will leave this open for now and let the other mods discuss. Going forward before opening a new thread just ask yourself if the discussion could fit into an existing thread, if in doubt you can always pm one of us, we don't want to stop people from creating threads, lets just think it thru beforehand.
I fully disagree.

It might be easy to keep your head in the game on one single thread when you post every day, but I've been busy for 2 months, and all I want to do is read up on the fare review policy and read a few posts about transit fantasies (and keep my eye on the Downtown Streetcar), without having to read a hundred posts about the snow. I just want the posts on the topics I'm interested in. There is no way I'm reading that thread at all after even a week away.

It's like showing up at a party, and everyone is having a completely different conversation with each other occupant in the room. How do you jump into a discussion about The Expanse, when 80% of the volume in the room is dedicated to Trump?

Imagine, if instead, you show up to the party, shout out, "Hey, who's talking about the Expanse (and not Trump)?" And the small group in the corner all raised their hands, so you could go over there and talk to them about how awesome last weeks episode was instead of going through the room person by person and listening to them talk about Trump.

Sure, having a party in one big room makes your party look successful and popular, but it sure doesn't condone useful discussion, which is what this whole forum is about.

If the logic of fewer threads makes sense, then why have ANY threads at all? Why not just post our brain vomit on twitter and be done with this website?

Quote:
Originally Posted by GlassCity View Post
I fully agree that it's unfair for a Maple Ridge to White Rock trip to be cheaper than a Joyce to Patterson trip. This is why I support a free first fare crossing with increased zones, no zones at all, or even just distance-based. I just want to make sure we keep simplicity in mind if we go the distance-based route, because it could affect a lot of people—specifically those that would have the hardest time dealing with it.
On topic:

I disagree. The cost in the current fare system doesn't directly reflect trip length and cost per passenger. It also reflects complexity. It also reflects capital cost. It also reflects prioritizing limited resources and encouraging use.....

The trip from Maple Ridge to White Rock is cheaper than the trip from Joyce to Patterson is because it is an awful trip to have to make.

From Joyce to Patterson, I could leave my house at any time of the day, and my trip not deviate in length my more than a couple minutes. From Maple Ridge to White Rock, you would be lucky if the trip is available every hour during peak periods.

The lower costs is meant to encourage use. The lower cost is meant to make up for the fact that there isn't a bus leaving from Maple Ridge direct to White Rock every 2 minutes.

Look at the cheaper fare as compensation for the poor sap that needs to make that trip. Without that compensation, you would just drive.

And if transit were just about facilitating the most popular trips to make money, instead of providing a service to the general population, then you could just privatize it and let them cut 7/8ths of all bus routes.
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