MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

In the era of nextbus, there is zero point to clockface scheduling
 
jass said:
In the era of nextbus, there is zero point to clockface scheduling
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I disagree, even as a very enthusiastic consumer of tracker apps.

Every X minutes" delivers value lots of ways:

1) Very often X is more frequent than the old service. Technically this isn't a matter of dividing evenly into :60 but as a practical matter, going clockface means you deploy more buses because you're no longer free to leave random gaps in your dispatching.

2) X stays consistent throughout the day. If you miss the last rush hour bus today, there's a whole wave of worry that washes over you (Before nextbus can intercept it) as you worry how sparse the buses are about to become--or you actually *know* (from next bus or experience ) that buses suddenly become sparse at 9:30a or 8pm

3) That X is a constant is reassuring on a subconsious level. That there's an organizational commitment to consistency. Until Borg implants let nextbus connect directy to the emotion centers of the brain, clockface is reassuring.

4) Nextbus sometimes lies. Real buses disappear and phantoms appear. When a strange gap shows in nextbus, if we really are delivering clockface--and know that the MBTA has a clockface system--riders may be willing to tough it out, despite bad data. 4a) Buses are physical realities. Living near the end of the 80, I know that if I see one going to the end of the line, I know that that's a promise that 10 minutes from now it'll be back, even if no tracker saw/sees it. )

5) It may also work to reduce bus bunching or to reduce its impact.

A lot of people drive even when they own unreliable cars because they've come to *think* of their car as reliable despite knowing that almost no commutes come off without some kind of crisis (icy windshield, won't start, flat tire, traffic jam, no parking when you get there)

Clockface will allow people to accept buses as reliable, predictable. Nextbus has clearly been a breakthrough on this path, but I think now we need another if we're going to keep driving BRT/Bus market share.
 
And what percentage of bus riders use nextbus? I bet it's really small.
 
Arlington said:
I disagree, even as a very enthusiastic consumer of tracker apps.

Every X minutes" delivers value lots of ways:

1) Very often X is more frequent than the old service. Technically this isn't a matter of dividing evenly into :60 but as a practical matter, going clockface means you deploy more buses because you're no longer free to leave random gaps in your dispatching.

2) X stays consistent throughout the day. If you miss the last rush hour bus today, there's a whole wave of worry that washes over you (Before nextbus can intercept it) as you worry how sparse the buses are about to become--or you actually *know* (from next bus or experience ) that buses suddenly become sparse at 9:30a or 8pm

3) That X is a constant is reassuring on a subconsious level. That there's an organizational commitment to consistency. Until Borg implants let nextbus connect directy to the emotion centers of the brain, clockface is reassuring.

4) Nextbus sometimes lies. Real buses disappear and phantoms appear. When a strange gap shows in nextbus, if we really are delivering clockface--and know that the MBTA has a clockface system--riders may be willing to tough it out, despite bad data. 4a) Buses are physical realities. Living near the end of the 80, I know that if I see one going to the end of the line, I know that that's a promise that 10 minutes from now it'll be back, even if no tracker saw/sees it. )

5) It may also work to reduce bus bunching or to reduce its impact.

A lot of people drive even when they own unreliable cars because they've come to *think* of their car as reliable despite knowing that almost no commutes come off without some kind of crisis (icy windshield, won't start, flat tire, traffic jam, no parking when you get there)

Clockface will allow people to accept buses as reliable, predictable. Nextbus has clearly been a breakthrough on this path, but I think now we need another if we're going to keep driving BRT/Bus market share.
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The other thing you need is starter/driver discipline to hold to schedule.

I have missed numerous buses while using an App, because the the App projection is based on schedule, until the bus actually goes in motion. At a stop near the start, you can arrive at a stop only to discover your App updates and shows the bus went past early, ahead of schedule.
 
JumboBuc said:
And what percentage of bus riders use nextbus? I bet it's really small.
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Jass said "in the era of nextbus," which to me conveyed "in the era of transit-vehicle-tracking-and-prediction"

And actually a lot of bus riders use tracking. As apps improved customers' use-experience, apps were cited as possible contributors to the MBTA's fast-rising bus ridership (including a recent year when a fare hike didn't scare off any riders).
 
Arlington said:
I
1) Very often X is more frequent than the old service. Technically this isn't a matter of dividing evenly into :60.
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This is actually my only issue.

Sure, 60 is great because it allows 2,3,4,5,6,10,15 and 20...

But what Ive seen happen too often is if a route can operate every 9 minutes, it is made 10 to keep the clockface schedule, for example.

I do not think opps should be restricted from scheduling every 7 or 9 minutes in an attempt to keep clockface.

Additionally, once your schedule is more frequent than every 8 minutes or so, theres no point in pretending to keep to one. Just send the buses out as they are ready.
 
How many buses lack the bike rack on the front? 0645 (?) Lacks. Is this part if a fleet that lacks them or just a hasty bumper replacement?

I have found it really useful to mix bike and bus commuting (bus when weather is dire for only a "to" or "from" trip, or yesterday when bike's freehub failed mid trip)
 
jass said:
Additionally, once your schedule is more frequent than every 8 minutes or so, theres no point in pretending to keep to one. Just send the buses out as they are ready.
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Actually there is a huge issue with not keeping the schedule, bunching of service.

This happens all the time on the Silver Line Washington. Worst case I saw was 5 buses clustered together inbound at Tufts Medical Center. That means there is a HUGE service gap behind those buses out the line. (Clusters of 3 and 4 buses are common on the Silver Line Washington).

Schedule discipline is mandatory for quality transit service.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Actually there is a huge issue with not keeping the schedule, bunching of service.

This happens all the time on the Silver Line Washington. Worst case I saw was 5 buses clustered together inbound at Tufts Medical Center. That means there is a HUGE service gap behind those buses out the line. (Clusters of 3 and 4 buses are common on the Silver Line Washington).

Schedule discipline is mandatory for quality transit service.
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The issue isnt schedule, its management. When bunching happens, management needs to order express
 
jass said:
The issue isnt schedule, its management. When bunching happens, management needs to order express
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Unless there is a fundamental issue that keeps causing the bunching - going express seems more like a band-aid/quick fix for once in awhile/random things issues vs continual service problems. Like - a bus breaks down, or a tractor trailer flips or something random act, sure, express buses once its cleared to try to return the system to normality. If this is just happening every day though due to normal traffic conditions/etc, then having to keep doing express/limited service to try to catch up doesn't seem like a great thing.
 
Arlington said:
How many buses lack the bike rack on the front? 0645 (?) Lacks. Is this part if a fleet that lacks them or just a hasty bumper replacement?

I have found it really useful to mix bike and bus commuting (bus when weather is dire for only a "to" or "from" trip, or yesterday when bike's freehub failed mid trip)
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All non-electric MBTA buses should have front bike racks on them. They are only removed if the rack was damaged and/or rack removal was needed to make repairs to the bus. The racks are usually replaced relatively quickly, unless additional work is planned, there's a big maintenance backlog, etc.

The Silver Line dual-modes and the electric trolley buses do not have racks on them.
 
JeffDowntown said:
Actually there is a huge issue with not keeping the schedule, bunching of service.

This happens all the time on the Silver Line Washington. Worst case I saw was 5 buses clustered together inbound at Tufts Medical Center. That means there is a HUGE service gap behind those buses out the line. (Clusters of 3 and 4 buses are common on the Silver Line Washington).

Schedule discipline is mandatory for quality transit service.
Click to expand...

Would it ever make sense to "intentionally" bunch buses? That is to say on very busy routes to send off 2-3 buses on the same route at the same time. If dwell times were reduced because of greater capacity, would service times improve?
 
Tom Bombadil said:
All non-electric MBTA buses should have front bike racks on them. They are only removed if the rack was damaged and/or rack removal was needed to make repairs to the bus. The racks are usually replaced relatively quickly, unless additional work is planned, there's a big maintenance backlog, etc.
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So all "Yellow" buses. That's great. It was only my 4th time trying the bike-on-rack thing (I scoped out a lot of others using it before I tried for the first time), so I figured it might have been a damage/repair cycle issue (we had a lot of fender benders a few weeks ago in the snow, so I accept that the T is working hard to keep them all deployed)
 
When I lived in Brighton and routinely took the 57, I remember watching a second 57 tailgate the scheduled one. The second one would be empty and the first one packed. At least once I saw a driver pull out of Kenmore at the same time, with both busses having been parked at Kenmore for a while.

I complained to customer service, but only got crickets. I hope the situation has improved in the past decade.
 
RandomWalk said:
When I lived in Brighton and routinely took the 57, I remember watching a second 57 tailgate the scheduled one. The second one would be empty and the first one packed. At least once I saw a driver pull out of Kenmore at the same time, with both busses having been parked at Kenmore for a while.

I complained to customer service, but only got crickets. I hope the situation has improved in the past decade.
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I LOVE that I can take the 65 bus from Brighton over to either BIDH or the Diabetes Center and back to Brighton. Eliminates the hassle of trying to find a spot to park over there! :cool:
 
Semass said:
Would it ever make sense to "intentionally" bunch buses? That is to say on very busy routes to send off 2-3 buses on the same route at the same time. If dwell times were reduced because of greater capacity, would service times improve?
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I think to do that you would need to have bus stops that were large enough to allow two buses to discharge and board simultaneously. Essentially they would act like a very big bus.

The bunching on the Silver Line Washington is basically due to the single door fare collection process. One or two passenger stumbling through paying on the bus can screw the schedule.

All door boarding with tap and go fare collection would go a long way to solving the problem. (Front door could be used for pay on the bus, other doors for passes).
 
RandomWalk said:
When I lived in Brighton and routinely took the 57, I remember watching a second 57 tailgate the scheduled one. The second one would be empty and the first one packed. At least once I saw a driver pull out of Kenmore at the same time, with both busses having been parked at Kenmore for a while.

I complained to customer service, but only got crickets. I hope the situation has improved in the past decade.
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I notice this seemingly purposeful bunching happen quite often. Most often I see it when the one driver stops for a layover but doesn't leave until the next bus (one that doesn't layover) arrives.

This is either the product of irresposible drivers, poor layover policy, or poorly-used 'run as directed' buses.


On a similar note, the MBTA needs to spend some time identifying effectively scheduled bunching on lines that run concurrently for much of their routes. I'm specifically thinking of the 89(C)/89(D)/101 from Sullivan.

The 89 (branching to Clarendon Hill and Davis) and 101 should have clock-facing, 15 minute headways for each of the three routes during rush hour. They should be scheduled so that the shared portion of their routes (East Somerville and Winter Hill on Broadway) are served every 5 minutes. Something similar should be done off-peak, just with a 45 min to 1 hour individual line headway.
 
Semass said:
Would it ever make sense to "intentionally" bunch buses? That is to say on very busy routes to send off 2-3 buses on the same route at the same time. If dwell times were reduced because of greater capacity, would service times improve?
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No, if you have many small (normal) buses, users would generally prefer to have the higher frequency rather than bunch them on purpose. High frequency means you never miss a bus.

If you really need to deliver a whole lotta bus seats at once, labor-efficiency favors articulated buses, (eg Silver Line) or even bi-articulated buses (eg this bad boy:
image_preview
 
Scipio said:
The T is almost finished with a survey of its 7,600 bus stops and plans to eliminate or modify 209 of the worst ones in the name of safety
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Let's remove another 760 in the name of faster trips and creating bus service worth walking to and waiting for and stops with amenities that make waiting less onerous.
 
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