Route 44 snapshot: 24 Feb-23 Mar

This article presents a "snapshot" of service on Route 44 between the 24th of February and the 23rd of March. Data collected from Transsee. 

Cancellations

Over the period of four weeks, southbound cancellations were 6.2% and northbound cancellations were 4.6%. Overall, the cancellation rate was 5.6% (there are slightly more southbound trips than northbound). 

Headways

Please note that week four is missing data for the headway charts. 

In the northbound direction (ie. towards Hurdman), schedule variability appears in the peak periods. It starts low at Walkley, but especially in week two, grows along the route, indicating that the schedule on Route 44 itself encourages bunching. These problems grow along the length of the entire route. 

Midday bunching is problematic. As expected, week three is the least problematic, as it was the March Break of many school boards, reducing traffic on the roads that week. 

In the southbound direction (towards Billings Bridge), similar patterns appear. There is less bunching in the AM Peak, and similar bunching in the PM, with mediocre results in the midday. 

As with the northbound trips, week three is the least problematic. 

On-Time Performance

The times sampled are for week three, which had the least traffic of any of the weeks measured. Even then, results were not good. 

The on-time performance was only 70% at the terminus in the AM Peak, with midday performance being only slightly better. 

This was the best of the three weeks. 

PM Peak on-time performance was much better. However, signs of a too lax schedule appear, with many trips being early. Overall, on-time performance was maybe 70%, with the trips being split between being too early and too late. 

Southbound, the patterns are the opposite. AM trips are nearly all on time; midday trips fall to 80% on-time performance, and the PM trips are often delayed, with some early trips as well to create bunching. 

Overall performance is similar to the AM period. 

Weekend performance is good, with some trips falling behind, but usually recovering before the terminus. 

It looks like someone really overestimated Walkley->Heron travel time. 

String Diagrams

Here are the string diagrams for the 13th of March, the Thursday of week three. 

Even with the March Break, some shameful bunching going on. 

The AM period is generally well behaved. Some larger gaps begin to appear in the midday, and in the PM, they start bunching leaving Hurdman. Because there is no route management, these trips are allowed to continue bunching in round trips from Billings Bridge as well. PM Peak traffic congestion on Alta Vista specifically also contributes to bunching. 

Some notable slowdowns include Walkley/Heatherington making the left turn NB, Walkley/Bank, traffic on Heron, and the slew of intersections entering Hurdman Station. 

Here is the charts for Saturday, the 15th of March. 

You can see the entire week's PDFs here and here (for weekends). 

Travel time

In the AM, the northbound trips are running above their scheduled travel time, with low variability across all four weeks. However, NWTB only redistributes (rather than adds) travel time, meaning more delays for everybody. 

AM southbound trips will see a schedule time increase. Currently, the scheduled time is below the median, and this will bring it above. For the most part. 

In the PM, southbound trips will see an increase in scheduled time. Current trips generally run around the first quartile north of Heron, so this will see an improvement in the runtimes. 

In the northbound direction, the scheduled time will stay the same in the PM Peak. Currently, the runtimes are generally adequate north of Heron and not enough south of there; NWTB will swap these two positions around.

 

Conclusion

Route 44 is another proof that no matter the traffic, it's internal practices that can affect reliability as much as external factors. Route 44 has some problem spots that, if smoothed out, would improve the reliability of transit for users as a whole. However, nobody is interested in fixing those problems. 

Route management would also help with bunching during peak periods, but likewise, there is no route management and no interest in route management among advocates. 

That is it for this snapshot. The Transport Master Plan should release soon, and I will cover that when it is released. Until next time.