This article analyses service on route 12, which runs from Blair to Parliament through Vanier, over the four-week period from October 14th to November 10th. The data is sourced from Transsee.
Cancellations
- October 14th: 1 EB, 1 WB
- October 15th: 7 EB, 2 WB
- October 16th: 2 EB, 5 WB
- October 17th: bad data
- October 18th: 0 EB, 0 WB
- October 19th: 5 EB, 6 WB
- October 20th: 5 EB, 3 WB
- October 21st: 5 EB, 5 WB
- October 22nd: 11 EB, 7 WB
- October 23rd: 0 EB, 0 WB
- October 24th: bad data
- October 25th: 0 EB, 0 WB
- October 26th: 7 EB, 5 WB
- October 27th: 0 EB, 4 WB
- October 28th: 8 EB, 5 WB
- October 29th: 10 EB, 6 WB
- October 30th: 9 EB, 6 WB
- October 31st: 0 EB, 0 WB
- November 1st: 6 EB, 7 WB
- November 2nd: 6 EB, 3 WB
- November 3rd: 3 EB, 9 WB
- November 4th: 3 EB, 4 WB
- November 5th: 5 EB, 5 WB
- November 6th: 3 EB, 2 WB
- November 7th: 6 EB, 3 WB
- November 8th: 0 EB, 0 WB
- November 9th: 1 EB, 1 WB
- November 10th: 2 EB, 0 WB
This route runs:
- EB weekday: 79 trips
- EB Saturday: 68 trips
- EB Sunday: 55 trips
- WB weekday: 69 trips
- WB Saturday: 68 trips
- WB Sunday: 55 trips
The cancellation rate in these four weeks is 5.5% eastbound and 5.1% westbound. As always, the average obscures the fact that some days may have no cancellations, while other days may see cancellations upwards of ten percent.
Schedule Deviation
We can look at gaps by hour of day to see if there are any times of day during which the route is particularly troublesome.
Going eastbound towards Blair, there is very large variability over weeks; sometimes, the AM Peak or late evenings are a problem, but the PM Peak is consistently the largest problem. Additionally, there are higher peaks at Rideau than at St. Laurent, indicating that downtown, including interlines, may be causing problems.
In the westbound towards downtown, there are very large peaks in weeks 2/3 in the PM Peak; however, all weeks show large deviations in the peak periods, both of them. Additionally, they remain consistent going west towards Rideau outside the late evenings.
On-Time Performance
These two charts show the route on its best behaviour, during week 1. Even so, over a quarter of trips are delayed entering Blair in the EB, and in the WB, it's a third of trips delayed at Rideau. The percentage of trips delayed increases from the origin to the terminus, so they are getting delayed on the route. This is a case where OC Transpo should be adjusting scheduled to ensure that we aren't publishing fake schedules for the misinformation of the public.
Week 2 is the worst of the four weeks in the charts above. In this case, the problems stem elsewhere; trips start their journey delayed, especially WB where 15% of trips start 10-or-more minutes late; the proportion of late trips grows, but not hugely. EB is worse, with a large delay from Rideau to the Cummings Bridge. Nearly half of trips are delayed this week; this is the kind of problem that using a monthly average across the system hides. It may be that 75% of trips (still a low number) are "on-time", but that's no comfort to the student or worker in Vanier who arrives to their destination late twice in a week.
Like with the general chart, we can find even more sources of delay by looking at the peak periods, whose delays can propagate out to other routes and later periods, and, with the highest rider volume, have the most imperative to extinguish delays to improve OC Transpo's reputation:
There is significant relay propagation, especially eastbound; again, the section between Rideau and Cummings Bridge seems to be a problem. WB, more trips are delayed heading inbound (presumably due to interlining from Orleans routes), but delays do appear on-route, until 10% of trips are 20 minutes delayed.
In the PM Peak, the delays are even worse; they start bad, probably from interlining problems, and get worse going WB, though this mostly seems to be on-time trips getting 5 minutes of delay.
I "cherry-pick" charts, not because I hate OC Transpo, but because the worst experiences are what transit users remember. Nobody has bought a car because the bus got them to work on time; but if the bus gets them to work four days late in a row, and then does that once a month, they will consider buying a vehicle. One bad experience can have a rider reconsidering; multiply that with a 50% on-time performance in the AM peak, both directions, and worse in the PM, and you will have lots of people reconsidering their decision to use OC Transpo.
Let's look at some tracking charts.
String Diagrams
On October 23rd, the Wednesday in week 2, trips show signs of bunching by 8:00 AM, with buses leaving Blair or Parliament in pairs, and sometimes forming triplets along the route. This problems is particularly acute in the PM Peak, with a gap of 45 minutes during rush hour, but appears even into the night, with two buses completing a round trip in pairs. (is it the wrong time to make a snarky remark about marriage?)
We can spot problems:
- Westbound, turning left from Ogilvie onto Montreal Road;
- The Aviation Parkway is a problem both directions, during the peak periods;
- Many trips, in both directions but especially eastbound, encounter delays between Rideau and St. Laurent, especially before the Cummings Bridge.
The weekends are not immune either. Here's the string diagrams for November 3rd, the Sunday of week 3:
The bunching begins early, with an eastbound gap of an hour in the morning followed by a bunch. These problems persist into the day, with large gaps followed by a bunch of buses; while it seems that a meagre effort at route management was made, there are some very large gaps, including a 40 minute gap in both directions around noon. Reminder: this is a Sunday, not a weekday. With service like this, it's no wonder ridership is not growing - I'm shocked there's anybody around who wants to take this bus at all.
That wraps up another route to get mad about. If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, feel free to leave them below. Until next time.
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