Frequency Vs. Coverage

If we lived in a perfect world, a transit agency would not only be able to provide both an extensive network of core bus routes running frequently and a network of lines that is able to blanket the area with coverage.

However, few transit agencies have the resources to provide both and  with as budgets continue to be squeezed and the future of federal funding in doubt, transit agencies are having to squeeze where ever they can. The question that transit agencies and the citizens it serves has to answer do we provide the best service possible to the busiest routes or do they provide the most coverage possible?

People waiting for a bus 

Here are some pro's and con's to each service. Like previous pro and con postings, I will only point out some important pros and cons to each and if you have one that you think should also be considered be sure to throw it out in the comments.

First lets do the pros and cons of coverage:

Pro's:

The one major pro with a coverage network is that most people should be able to access a bus route both at home and to work. Until the 90's many transit systems focused on coverage to ensure that they could serve the maximum number of people possible. Even if you lived in far flung suburbs so long as you lived in the transit area you would have service.

Con's:

The biggest con is that if you are providing service to far flung areas of the system, the chances are you can only provide mediocre service. Everyone may have service but the busiest routes will not have the resources to have the amount of frequency that is demanded which will lower ridership potential.

A second con is that your bus routes will perform poorly overall. While some routes will have good ridership their ridership will be hampered by the lack of enough frequency while you run routes to areas with limited to no ridership potential.

This leads to a third con and that is the empty bus syndrome. People who already have a bent against transit will see lots of buses running around empty and will guess that they all run empty so "no body rides transit". Of course these people would say it anyway but you are just giving them some added ammunition.

Transit Center in Miami. 

Now lets look at a service network:

Pro's:

The biggest pro is that routes that have the most potential will have the best service. You focus your resources on routes that are winners. By creating a network of frequent service lines you create market synergies because a customer knows that if they miss one bus the next one will not be far away.

The second positive is that performance of the overall network will be better because you will be concentrating your resources where your ridership potential is the highest. Your resources are being concentrated where they will get the most use.

Con's:

The major con is that there is some people who will lose bus service and of course they will not be happy. Even a route that has week ridership will have people screaming up a storm if you try to cut the route. For those who want to use transit service it can limit the choices you have in housing.

Beaverton Transit Center, Beaverton, Oregon Trimet Route 57 is a frequent service line along TV-Highway from Beaverton to Forest Grove. 

When Seattle first started working on a major revamp of bus service for September the numbers were telling. 4000 riders would be affected by routes being cut. Now I am not saying that these people don't count. However, it was point out that the routes that were going to see increase service with the modifications served about 50 times that number or more.

Sadly some needed decisions in Seattle were put off in order to keep everyone happy and ironically some of the people who complained will have less service (the current service) than they would have if the changes had taken effect.

It would be wonderful if we had the best of both worlds, were we could provide extremely frequent service to the busiest areas of the network and good coverage across the service area. Hopefully the day will come when both types of services can be provided.

Improving Bus Service...

Image via WikipediaThe Transit Sleuth twitted a question: " “Hmm, what would increase bus ridership in Seattle? I want to create a top 10 list. :)”

The Seattle Transit Blog responded to the twitter:

11 Steps to Bus Ridership

I thought it would be fun to look at the Seattle list and see how it would apply to the UTA. So here is the answers from the Seattle Transit Blog and my response on how they would apply to us.

1. More density. Density begets ridership.

As I have discussed we need to add smart density to both transit stations and to areas with good bus service and that will help increase ridership. By increasing ridership on the busy lines by adding new riders, the cost of those services will go down allowing funds to be used for other services that we cannot currently afford.

I have previously discussed how we need to build smart developments along the major 15-minute bus routes especially in areas where those 15-minute routes intersect.

2. Bus lanes and signal priority. Slow buses are a frequent complaint.

Well signal priority would be nice but I don't see it happening on a region wide basis. I also don't see bus lanes being addapted in many areas except maybe in the downtown area. Once again what we really need to do now that we have a majority of routes served by low floor buses (and almost exclusively by low floors in the next couple of years), is to make boarding and discharging faster. This can be done by making bus stops level with the floors on the low floor buses and also cutting out bus stops that are too close together.

3. Higher gas prices. Tackle the demand side. See 2008.

Of course higher gas prices also affect transit since they use fuel. I will not even get into a discussion of the true cost our lust for fuel has cost us as a nation. However, what we do know as China starts to lust after oil even more than we do, we are going to come to a reckoning of the true cost of gasoline and its hidden costs that we have not had to face before.

4. An end to socialized and/or regulated parking, possibly a higher commercial parking tax.

A parking tax would be one way to pay for the city of Salt Lake buses I mentioned before or could be used to provide additional UTA service in the area and improved pedestrian access to the core.

However, the cost of parking can be such a polarizing issue as people don't equate that their parking at the suburban malls are subsidized by the retailers giving them that wonderful free parking that they complain about paying anywhere else.

5. A branded frequent-service network. RapidRide is a start.

Well we do have a dedicated 15-minute service and UTA has wrapped a couple of buses promoting it, but beyond that UTA has done little to brand the 15-minute service. We also have MAX but as I have pointed out just recently, UTA is not doing well with that one either.

6. More frequency, particularly East-West. Too many dense places in the city are too far apart by bus.

Anyone who knows the geography of Seattle can see how east-west routes are difficult to service and need special attention and while we do not have those kinds of problems in Salt Lake County, our friends to the north and south in Utah, Weber and Davis counties do have those kinds of issues.

An additional problem in these counties the lack of density making providing bus service even more difficult. The best solution for the Bountiful area would be a Call N Ride service similar to the ones in Denver that will provide guaranteed connections to Routes 455, 470 and Front Runner.

In Ogden area we have the 603 and 640 that do provide some semblance of north-south service but eventually routes need to be added to the north. The problem is the route will probably have to be a modified U-shaped route or giant S.


7. Payment reform. This is also part of speeding things up. More off-board payment would help. Popularizing ORCA through a small fare discount would speed adoption and boarding time. There are couple of ways to get rid of the pay-as-you-leave policy, but the important thing is to introduce the board in front/get off in the back and improve flow on the buses.

The ORCA card in Seattle is the Tap On or what ever they call it card here in Utah. The card seems to working pretty good here in Utah as I have only seen one bus recently that was having problems with it. The problem of course is the few number of people using it.

As many regular readers of this blog know, I do not have a problem with eliminating the fare free zone in the downtown area. We could do what Portland has done and make it apply to rail only, but it also could go away. By eliminating the zone all every bus would be pay as you enter causing less confusion for customers and eliminating the slow process of getting passengers on and off leaving on buses leaving downtown.

8. More presence by transit security.

Agreed, more presence both on TRAX, the stations and on buses would make customers feel more secure.

9. Real-time arrival where possible. GPS is being installed over the next year and will improve the accuracy of onebusaway, but RapidRide is the only part of the system that is planning message boards at stops.

10. Stop consolidation.

Metro in Seattle has been consolidating bus stops on several several routes recently. While some oppose it, I can see places where it needs to be done both there and here in Utah. There is many spots where stops are too close together and could be moved farther apart speeding up bus service along with other actions as mentioned above.

11. More standing room on crowded routes.

Anyone who rides frequently in Seattle knows that the buses can be packed. Here in Utah we usually don't have that problem although even routes such as the 213 can be packed when Cottonwood High lets out.

However we have not reached the point where standing room only is an issue for an extended period of time but will be great when it does.

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