crazy idea for improving transit service allocation
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Andrew Cencini
Mar 15, 2010, 3:00:23 AM3/15/10
to steering, soa...@transitriders.org
wouldn't it be nice if the pool of (future) service hours to be allocated for metro were to be doled out based on how much a subarea or municipality successfully invested in right-of-way improvements to speed transit / improve efficiency rather than just ridership alone?
for example, if sdot were to add transit signal priority in key places along the trolleybus routes on capitol hill as well as extend peak parking restrictions to be all day along key arterials, this would actually likely save a considerable amount of schedule hours that would result in a net savings for metro. those savings should be passed directly back to the city in terms of additional service hours. i'm only giving seattle as an example since it is the place i know the best - this should be fair and applicable anywhere. obviously, this scheme mathematically highly prioritizes improvements for things like the fast-and-frequent bus corridors and places where they would intersect with neighborhood circulators. on the flip side, some (lesser, but real) penalty would be applied to penalize subareas / municipalities where a large proportion of service hours are unnecessarily wasted - sort of the "stick" of this carrot and stick approach.
the reason i suggest this is that this is one good way to jumpstart a process of improving route efficiencies - by providing both a carrot and a stick to motivate metro "customer" municipalities/subareas to make more pro-transit infrastructure choices on issues big and small. it could be the case that, for example, removing just 6 parking spots could return (add) over 500 service hours into the system (the equivalent of over $60,000 per year). since the savings would be passed back to the city or subarea (as well as to metro) in the form of additional transit service (rather than having to buy it or find other funding), all of a sudden the argument has much sharper teeth than improvements-for-transit usually have. the example i give here is actually not entirely bogus - see (http://cencini.blogspot.com/2009/05/tsp-12th-e-and-e-john.html).
of course, there are many details that would need to be worked out but it seems like an interesting proposal that doesn't seem like an immediate non-starter. i'd be interested to hear what others think - i've shopped this around to a few people and most seem to think it's a reasonable-to-exciting idea.
metro and the various regional and local transportation agencies likely know about 75-80% of their worst bottlenecks big and small. it would be great for us to also compile a list of the absolute worst "transit bottlenecks" that could be easily solved - this could be a separate project but it would fit in nicely to advocating for the proposed fast-and-frequent bus network (http://www.transitriders.org/SeattleFastFreqBus.pdf) and ensuring its success and growth.
just a few thoughts on a warm sunday night.
for example, if sdot were to add transit signal priority in key places along the trolleybus routes on capitol hill as well as extend peak parking restrictions to be all day along key arterials, this would actually likely save a considerable amount of schedule hours that would result in a net savings for metro. those savings should be passed directly back to the city in terms of additional service hours. i'm only giving seattle as an example since it is the place i know the best - this should be fair and applicable anywhere. obviously, this scheme mathematically highly prioritizes improvements for things like the fast-and-frequent bus corridors and places where they would intersect with neighborhood circulators. on the flip side, some (lesser, but real) penalty would be applied to penalize subareas / municipalities where a large proportion of service hours are unnecessarily wasted - sort of the "stick" of this carrot and stick approach.
the reason i suggest this is that this is one good way to jumpstart a process of improving route efficiencies - by providing both a carrot and a stick to motivate metro "customer" municipalities/subareas to make more pro-transit infrastructure choices on issues big and small. it could be the case that, for example, removing just 6 parking spots could return (add) over 500 service hours into the system (the equivalent of over $60,000 per year). since the savings would be passed back to the city or subarea (as well as to metro) in the form of additional transit service (rather than having to buy it or find other funding), all of a sudden the argument has much sharper teeth than improvements-for-transit usually have. the example i give here is actually not entirely bogus - see (http://cencini.blogspot.com/2009/05/tsp-12th-e-and-e-john.html).
of course, there are many details that would need to be worked out but it seems like an interesting proposal that doesn't seem like an immediate non-starter. i'd be interested to hear what others think - i've shopped this around to a few people and most seem to think it's a reasonable-to-exciting idea.
metro and the various regional and local transportation agencies likely know about 75-80% of their worst bottlenecks big and small. it would be great for us to also compile a list of the absolute worst "transit bottlenecks" that could be easily solved - this could be a separate project but it would fit in nicely to advocating for the proposed fast-and-frequent bus network (http://www.transitriders.org/SeattleFastFreqBus.pdf) and ensuring its success and growth.
just a few thoughts on a warm sunday night.
Rodney Rutherford
Mar 15, 2010, 2:17:17 PM3/15/10
to Andrew Cencini, steering, soa...@transitriders.org
Yes, I think these are all excellent ideas. "Transit bottlenecks" would be very interesting, and we could probably figure this out by looking at existing schedule and real-time bus data (i.e., pull mileage and time between each time point, divide mileage by time, and sort the list; of course, identifying specific problems and solutions would require a closer look at the segments with the worst numbers). You'd also need to adjust the formula for some exceptions like planned layovers (i.e., transfer points where the bus waits for ~3-5 min, such as transit centers).
I'd suggest creating a new 'page' on the soapbox ideas page for this:
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