Dear OCTranspo,
At its meeting 5 February 2007, the Hunt Club Community Organization discussed and passed the following motion:
WHEREAS each extra OCTranspo stop increases travel time for members of our community,
and
WHEREAS each extra stop increases pollution and noise within our community, as well as
increasing OCTranspo costs for fuel, snow clearing etc., and
WHEREAS about 20% of OCTranspo stops system-wide are within 200 metres of an
existing stop, closer than required to meet City Council directives regarding distances between
residences and bus stops,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the HCCO requests OCTranspo to examine all
routes serving the Hunt Club Community with a view to consolidating bus stops that are within
200 metres of each other.
We would appreciate it if you would comply with this request and inform us of any results that might improve bus service to our community. It was noted during the meeting that stop 4167 is within 200 metres of stops 4166 and 8451. It was also noted that stop 8451 is a very short distance away from an all-way stop sign at Huntwood Court, and that moving this stop to the north-east corner of the intersection would save an extra stop for buses.
Yours truly,
John Sankey
Director, HCCO
Mayor and Members of Council
The main criteria examined when planning bus stop locations are walking distance for transit customers and travel time for customers already on board.
In 2005 Council established a standard (part of the Transit Service and Fare Policies, guided by the Transit System Management Policies) that the home locations of 95 percent of the population of the urban area will be within a five-minute walk (400 metres) of their nearest bus stop in peak periods and within a ten-minute walk (800 metres) of their nearest stop seven days a week. Bus stop locations need to be chosen carefully to ensure that this standard continues to be met.
The travel time for customers on board buses can be made faster and more attractive if there are fewer stops. Each additional stop adds approximately 20 seconds to the travel time, counting deceleration, passenger service time, and acceleration.
The location of individual stops along a bus route is constrained by the physical layout of the road and the physical layout of the pedestrian links leading from travellers' home and work -locations to the road on which the bus route operates. In older, central parts of the City, where a grid of streets exists, or on major collector or arterial roads in suburban areas, bus stops are usually located at the intersections with principal streets, where traffic signals or four-way stops often exist to allow customers to cross and where buses could be stopping anyway. In lower-density parts of the suburban areas of the City, bus stops are often located where local streets or pedestrian walkways intersect the collector or major collector roads. In the newest areas, bus stop locations are decided as part of the initial planning for the area.
To recognize that there is a logical balance between the need for short walking distances, the need for fast travel times, the need for safe bus stop locations, and the need for bus stop locations to be compatible with adjacent land uses, bus stops are usually planned to be an average of 250 metres apart. In areas where the development is more linear along the bus route, where road speeds are higher, or where greater numbers of customers are carried, the spacing will usually be greater than the average. In areas where the pedestrian network is constrained, where boarding and alighting customers make up a large fraction of the total ridership, or where bus stops have historically been closely spaced, the spacing will usually be less than the average.
Fuel consumption has been measured on several bus routes as part of the assessment of diesel-electric hybrid propulsion systems. These measurements found that the fuel consumption for a bus that stops three times per kilometre is 81 L/100 km and a bus that stops five times per kilometre is 83 L/100 km. These figures indicate that, on average in day-to-day travel, the fuel required for a bus to make one additional stop costs approximately one cent. This cannot be measured specifically. The increased maintenance cost (affecting brakes, engine life, and transmission life) for a single stop is minute and not readily measurable.
The noise heard 15 metres away from a bus that is either decelerating to a stop or accelerating from a stop is 77 to 78 dBA, depending on the type of bus. This is below the standard set for buses in the Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, 83 dBA. The time of exposure to this sound level is longer than if the bus were not to stop, as the bus takes more time to decelerate, receive and discharge passengers, and accelerate away. While the bus is idling at the stop, the noise level is 66 to 68 dBA.
Additional emissions are released from the bus engine each time the bus accelerates away from a stopped position. This is the time in the duty cycle when the engine is least efficient and thus when it produces the most emissions. Sometimes, these emissions can be seen as a plume of smoke as a bus departs. Emissions at this particular point in the duty cycle have not been measured and there is no standard way established to measure them.
There is no increased maintenance cost for the road surface at most bus stops. Except at the busiest bus stops on the busiest streets (for example, on Slater Street or Albert Street), the road surface at bus stops does not normally require replacement or rehabilitation any earlier than the road surface along the rest of a street used by buses.
The increased travel time for customers, increased costs, and increased emissions and noise are incurred every time that a bus needs to stop, whether that is to pick up and drop off customers or whether that is for operational requirements. For this reason (among others), staff in the Traffic and Parking Operations Branch and Transit Services Branch work together on transit priority measures so that as much as possible, buses do not need to stop for any reason other than to pick up and drop off customers. Transit priority measures include ways for buses to bypass automobile traffic congestion, ways for buses to have the first opportunity to move through a signalised intersection, and ways for the phasing of traffic signals to be adjusted so that buses do not need to stop both at a red light and at a bus stop. By removing as a first priority the unproductive stops of buses (unproductive in that the stops do not provide a benefit to transit customers) this gives improvements in travel time, cost, emissions, and noise but without causing inconvenience to transit customers. Removing bus stops is a second priority because of the inconvenience caused to customers, and when it is considered, the benefits of reduced travel time for through travellers are compared against the inconvenience of a longer walk for customers who board or alight from buses at that stop.
Data on stop locations and distances between stops are contained in the City's automatic passenger counting system, but the information is stored in the database in such a way that staff cannot readily tabulate it to answer the question on the number of stops falling into each category of distance. To retrieve the information from the database in this form would require retaining a consultant to prepare a small, customised computer program. There is not currently budget available for this work. Staff are able, however, to provide an estimate to address the question. Staff estimate that, of the approximately 6000 bus stops in the system, 3000 are spaced 250 metres apart or further, 1800 are spaced 200 to 250 metres apart to conform with the actual lengths of city blocks in the central area, 900 are spaced 150 to 200 metres apart based on land uses or specific destinations, and 300 are spaced 100 to 150 metres apart to meet particular local accessibility requirements or to stop on both sides of an intersection where local conditions n-require.
Staff will continue to plan bus stop locations with a view to continuously improving service for transit customers, balancing travel time against walking time, while making the bus stops compatible with adjacent land uses and other local conditions.
Dear Mr. Sankey
I am writing in reply to your letter of March 8, 2007, in which you forwarded a motion passed by your organization.
We have reviewed the locations of all of the bus stops along Uplands Drive between Hunt Club Road and Riverside Drive. Based on the current ridership, the current operating conditions, and the experience from the past, we are not planning to make any changes to the bus stop locations.
As you know from your previous discussions with transit staff, the precise location of bus stops is affected by adjacent land uses, the configuration of the streets that lead away from the street with transit service, and the availability of safe locations for the bus stops along the street. The policy adopted by Council that directs the placement of bus stops is that bus service should be available within 400 metres (a five-minute walk) of 95 percent of the population of the urban part of the City. There are circumstances where the local residential street network results in deep, long roadways and pedestrian links from the interior of a community to the road with transit service. When this happens, bus stop spacing is usually closer in order to ensure as many homes as possible are within 400 metres.
In particular, you wrote about the stop on the north side of Uplands, midway between Huntwood and Gillespie (this stop carries 560-1000 number 4167) and about the stop on the north side of Uplands just east of Huntwood (this stop carries 560-1000 number 8451). The mid-block stop provides convenient service to the Coady Co-op, and we do not support either removing it or consolidating it with the stop to the east or to the west. The stop at Huntwood is a few metres east of the stop sign at the intersection, and we do not support moving it to the intersection because that would increase intrusion for the house on the northeast corner.
Thank you for writing and for advising us of your organisation's concerns.
Yours truly
Pat Scrimgeour
Program Manager, Service Planning
Transit Service Planning and Development
cc: Councillor McRae, City of Ottawa