Analysis: Bank St bus lane through Old Ottawa South

Between September 29 and October 18 this year, the City of Ottawa implemented a counter-peak bus lane on Bank Street between Chesley Street and Aylmer Avenue; this lane was supposed to be active between 2:30 PM and 4:30 PM, but signage was mistakenly installed indicating that the lanes operated from 2:30 PM to 5:30 PM, which was the original plan before the extra hour was axed in a motion by Councillor Shawn Menard. 

Yes. All ten hours a week, out of 168 hours in the week. 

This lane is used by the <6> bus, and, for the northern two of the lane's eight blocks, the <7> bus. This piece will only analyse the <6>, which uses the lane's full length. 

Before and after the lane installation

The exact date of the lane's installation is unclear. However, it seems to have been between September 29th and October 18th. I will analyze travel times and schedule variability for three weeks before and after the installation, comparing them to see what affect they may have had on the <6> bus. To compare, I will use travel times from Riverdale to Aylmer, measuring reliability and travel time on just the segment with installed lanes; and schedule variability at Lansdowne, to see if the lanes have had an effect on reliability. 

The section from Billings Bridge to Lansdowne is scheduled to take minute minutes, rising from seven before 2:30 PM. The Riverdale-Aylmer segment is scheduled for three minutes. 

The range of travel times is large, and it was growing before the implementation of the bus lanes. The November travel time remains similar to that in September, with a temporary reprieve in the first two weeks of the lane's installation (week 6/week 7 - October 14th to October 25th), with an increase in travel times afterwards. However, the eight minute travel times, which is an average speed of 5.6 km/h (!), seem to be gone. The trend continues to be upwards, which worries me. 

We can also examine the spread of travel times over a single week to identify problems. Week 5 is the worst of the weeks analysed, but the conclusions are generalizable. 

The travel time spread is very large, with many trips over five minutes; Wednesday is particularly bad, with most trips above five minutes after 3:00 PM. In other weeks, Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday is worse than Monday-Friday, but this pattern is not seen in this week. 

Week 7 represents a best-case scenario, where the travel times are well-behaved. 

The maximum travel time remains under five minutes this week, with little variation between the days of the week. This consistency is key to running a reliable bus service, even if the travel times are slow; however, bus lanes will help with both. 

While travel times increase in the later datasets, none of them show the wild variations seen in week 5: 

It's clear that the bus lanes should have longer hours of operation, as travel times can be inconsistent after 4:30 PM as well. 

The full dataset is available as a PDF here. 

Schedule Certainty

Comparing the headway of service at Lansdowne should give a sense of whether the bus lanes have improved reliability or not. 

The reliability of the service does not appear to have been substantially affected by the installation of the bus lanes. However, this is 5% of a highly congested route that operates two hours a day; there are many other issues that OC Transpo faces in regards to reliability, and this lane may have prevented week 7 from seeing ten minute deviations like week 2. 

The Bank Street bus lane is a success for travel times. Buses move faster, and more importantly, they move faster consistently, through the 600 metre stretch with the bus lanes. However, to make a real impact, we need more bus lanes, and we need lanes that operate through the entire day. It's up to our political leaders to make that happen.