Route 11 snapshot: 28 April-25 May

Introduction

This article will discuss service quality on Route 11 between 28 April and 25 May, which is a period of four weeks. As always, data is sourced from Transsee. 

Cancellations

The overall cancellation rate sat at 2.9%, which is a significant improvement over March's 13.4% (!) rate, according to Transit Committee. Eastbound trips had a rate of 2.9% cancellations, while westbound trips were 3.0%. 

Headways

The 11 is noted for its poor schedule adherence. The commonly given reason, or excuse if you ask me, is that it runs on Richmond Road, a congested corridor through Westboro, with high schedule uncertainty. The reality might be a little different. 

In any circumstance, the eastbound trips run worse than westbound trips. Here are the headway adherence charts eastbound: 

Westbound: 

In both directions, the worst times for bunching are at peak, especially the PM Peak when some WB buses are on average all bunched west of Tunney's Pasture. In general, eastbound is worse in the AM, while westbound is worse (but not by much) in the PM, which corresponds with peak direction travel. There is a low-to-medium level of bunching "noise" in both the midday and evening in both directions. Trips falling behind or running ahead are observable especially in the peak, when the variation from the scheduled headway becomes massive in some parts. With the low cancellation rate, this can only happen if trips fall behind schedule, then bunch up with other buses. 

On-Time Performance

On-time performance on the 11 is generally poor at all periods of the day. In this area, we must distinguish between the eastbound schedule and westbound schedule; the eastbound schedule is especially poorly written, with some very poor schedule adherence. Do note that these charts are split across the branches, it's simply hard coded into Transsee. 

Over the weekday, the westbound trips are about 60% on-time at the terminus, with about 30% delayed trips and the remainder being fabulously (not) early. 

Eastbound, the pattern is that the majority of trips are delayed, reaching 80% east of Tunney's Pasture, but receding somewhat to 60% delayed at Parliament. 

It's clear that eastbound trips do not have enough scheduled runtime to make their trips, and this needs to be rectified as soon as possible. Westbound, it is a little trickier, but a solution lies in a combination of active management, branch trimming (in my opinion Tunney's Pasture immediately and Lincoln Fields when Stage 2 opens), stop consolidation, and targeted priority measures. 

We can also break down on-time performance by time of day: 

In the AM Peak, the westbound works okay. The Bayshore branch seems adequately scheduled, with delays mostly stemming from origin delays (delayed trips previously), while Lincoln Fields sees delays from the detour to Tunney's Pasture. Eastbound trips see very large delays from a good on-time performance at Lincoln Fields, a sign of inadequate runtime. 

Eastbound continues to run with not enough runtime in the midday on both branches. In the westbound direction, there are a large number of early trips, which equal the number of late trips - this shows heavy bunching heading west out of Laurier, and what's more, these trips are on-time at Mackenzie King. Something is causing bunching along the 11's alignment in the midday. 

In the afternoon peak, the pattern described for the midday continues. Eastbound trips continue to fall hopelessly behind, Lincoln Fields trips reaching an impressive 0% on-time performance east of Tunney's. The westbound problems are more complex, with some delayed trips causing other delays down the line, while bunching ramps up especially in Chinatown and on the eastern end of the line. 

On weekends, the Bayshore branch runs off-schedule at nearly 100% in both directions, while the Lincoln Fields branch performs somewhat better, though eastbound shows signs of bunching. 

As always, we can look at the string diagram. Here is the weekday PDF, and the weekend PDF. Here are the charts for 7 May, a Wednesday. 

These charts are always instructive. We can see, especially eastbound but also westbound, that bunches are allowed to leave the termina in pairs and nobody is intervening. The blending of Bayshore and Lincoln Fields branches is another concern, with Bayshore runs often catching up to Lincoln Fields runs midway, especially eastbound. 

Some delay points include the Lincoln Fields loop, the Tunney's Pasture deviation, and the entirety of the Somerset corridor, which is slow. 

Travel Time

Eastbound shows the perplexing OC Transpo pattern of scheduling not enough time near the origin, then extra time at the terminus. I don't understand it ... 

This demonstrates the eastbound pattern of delayed trips - the scheduled travel time is at least five minutes too short for the route, and because of the branching at the western end, this can quickly cascade into bunching if it is not managed well. 

Westbound, the problem is less acute, and buses are scheduled with more room to move than eastbound. Additionally, variability of travel time is less, with the top quartile being much smaller in range than going towards Laurier. 

In the afternoon peak, the pattern of loading padding onto the end of a route continues. Here, we see more travel time variation than in the AM, a common pattern across the network. The travel time discrepancy is somewhat less than the AM, but because the trips often depart the origin late, this results in a bunched route anyways. 

Westbound trips are generally adequately scheduled, with some padding west of the Richmond/Churchill point that I arbitrarily picked (but is evident on the charts). The travel time variation is still quite large, with the maximum top quartile being around twenty minutes or even more. In these circumstances, reliable service will need both active and passive measures to ensure that travel time variation is reduced, and to prevent services from randomly bunching or running late due to factors that change everyday. 

Conclusion

Route 11 has a reputation for unreliability, and for good reason. It has consistently been among OC Transpo's most cancelled routes, seeing up to 13% cancellations in the last Transit Committee update. The route has high unreliability along its alignment, with multiple deviations, "slow spots," and a poorly blended service between two services. 

To fix reliability, there must be not only improvements to scheduling, but also passive and active treatments that reduce the time buses spending waiting at chokepoints, and improve the ability of the route to run the same runtime everyday. Stop consolidation is needed, as is cutting the deviations as best as possible, transit queue jump lanes, and measures to remove parking near intersections and bus stops. Additionally, blending the Lincoln Fields short-turn with the Bayshore service produces bunching, both because of poor schedule adherence, but also because the Lincoln Fields trips are emptier than the Bayshore trips, leading to runtime variation. In the long-term, that particular problem can only be solved by removing the Lincoln Fields deviation and running every trip to Bayshore, a change that should be low-cost after Stage 2 West opens. 

Route 11 is an indicator of how OC Transpo manages reliability. It is a long route with many variables, running short-turns and many deviations on the route. If OC Transpo can manage Route 11, it can manage anything. But right now it can't manage anything, not even suburban routes in the late night when there's no traffic. 

Improving transit reliability on the urban routes will require hard choices and fixes, even though they are not expensive. Are we ready to take on that challenge? 

Until next time.