Report to/Rapport au :

 

Transit Committee

Comité du transport en commun

 

and Council / et au Conseil

 

20 October 2009 / le 20 octobre 2009

 

Submitted by/Soumis par : Nancy Schepers, Deputy City Manager/Directrice municipale adjointe, Infrastructure Services and Community Sustainability/Services d 'infrastructure et Viabilité des collectivités

 

Contact Person/Personne ressource : Vincent Patterson, Manager/Gestionnaire, Performance and Quality Management/Rendement et Gestion de la qualité

Transit Services/Services de Transport en commun

(613) 580-3636 ext. 3672, vincent.patterson@ottawa.ca

 

City Wide/à l'échelle de la Ville

Ref N°: ACS2009-ICS-TRA-0015

 

 

SUBJECT:

10-Year TRANSIT TACTICAL PLAN

 

 

OBJET :

PLAN TACTIQUE DE DIX ANS POUR LE TRANSPORT EN COMMUN

 

 

REPORT RECOMMENDATION

 

That the report be received and tabled at the Transit Committee meeting to be held on October 21, 2009 for subsequent consideration on November 6, 2009, followed by deliberation and consideration by Council at a subsequent meeting.

 

RECOMMANDATION DU RAPPORT

 

Que le rapport soit portés à la connaissance du Comité du transport en commun lors de sa réunion du 21 octobre 2009, puis à un examen plus approfondi le 6 novembre 2009, avant d’être soumis aux délibérations et à la réflexion du Conseil lors d’une réunion ultérieure.

 

 

BACKGROUND

 

As Transit Services completed its Strategic Branch Review in 2008, it identified the need for a 10-year horizon operations and financial plan. The Tactical Plan is designed to fill a critical gap between the long-term vision of the Transportation Master Plan (TMP) and the short-term elements that are produced annually, including Transplan, Marketing Plan and budget development.

 

DISCUSSION

 

Detailed research during development of the Tactical Plan confirms Council’s decisions on transit as the right choices to achieve strategic priorities related to ridership and revenue-to-cost ratios.

 

The Tactical Plan maps out the direction Council should consider over the next decade to achieve its vision for both service delivery (Operations) and capital asset management (Financial), and reduced operating costs.  The plan will be reviewed, adjusted and refined each year to account for any changes in assumptions or new information.

 

The main recommendation of the Tactical Plan is to move service provision from the current trunk-and-branch approach to a trunk-and-feeder system. This direction will provide a sustainable transit growth model for the City without the additional tax burden that would come with maintaining the current bus-based system. The current system cannot alone provide the necessary economies of scale to accommodate growth at a lower cost.

 

The 2009 Tactical Plan assumes commissioning of Increment 1 of the Transit Plan and recommends an alternative service delivery model for Transit Services which, if fully implemented, could result in a combined annual operating cost savings of 20 per cent – $100 million – by 2019. This would be achieved by combining the benefits of the new rail system (about 5% savings), operating a trunk-and-feeder network with improvements to bus occupancy (about 8% savings) and adjustments to the area coverage to focus service where most of the transit demand lies (7% savings). This alternative service delivery model would  attract more than 98.6 per cent of the potential transit ridership predicted by 2019, at 80 per cent of the cost.

 

The alternative service delivery model would be gradually implemented through the annual Transplan process over a period extending to 2019, when the Core rail line is expected to open. Its implementation would be a key contributor to bringing the Revenue/Cost (R/C) ratio of Transit Services back to above 50 per cent starting in 2011. While the R/C ratio may be pushed down to slightly below 50 per cent between 2015 and 2018 by the impact of constructing the Core rail line, it would spring up to 55 per cent and above starting in 2019, the opening year.

 

It is also predicted that from mid-2011 onwards, the average fare would increase no more than the rate of inflation. Ridership per capita would continue to increase every year.

 

Other cities, such as Seattle and Sacramento, have turned the introduction of rail in their transit system into an opportunity to transform what had become a complex trunk-and-branch bus network into a simpler trunk-and-feeder network, with a significantly reduced number of distinct bus routes. A trunk-and-feeder operation will typically make better use of capacity, increase reliability and reduce operating costs by making services more productive.

 

The alternative service delivery model that has been developed for the 2009 Tactical Plan assumes that our regional transit system would, by 2019, feature a core rail line between Blair Road and Tunney’s Pasture and the Rapibus between Gatineau and Bayview. Initial modelling of the regional systems of STO and OC Transpo indicate that a direct link from the Rapibus line to Bayview Station could provide direct operational savings and meet customer needs. Bayview Station would become a key intermodal transportation centre for the regional transit system, with a predominance of bus-to-rail transfers that would have to be reflected in the design of the station. This option, coupled with the opening of the rail system, could serve to reduce daily bus traffic travelling through downtown Ottawa from 2,600 daily to approximately 600 to 700 buses daily. This would allow for increased pedestrian and cycling activities in the CBD, as well as urban form improvements

 

For the bus network within the City of Ottawa, the alternative model would feature a number of trunks with feeders, supplemented inside the Greenbelt by a system of cross-town routes roughly approaching a grid structure. Feeder routes would replace local routes and the duplicating portion of longer express branches as they exist today.

 

The introduction of rail requires passengers to transfer. The most challenging type of transfers is from a high-frequency line to a low-frequency line – for example, from a trunk to a feeder in the afternoon – because of the higher likelihood of a long wait. In comparison, transfers to high-frequency lines involve short waiting time, while the transfer time between two low-frequency lines may be minimized through appropriate bus schedule development. Transfer stations should focus on minimizing walk time between transit services and, where suitable, provide amenities such as retail outlets to turn transfers into opportunities for customers.

 

Our recent customer surveys suggest a willingness to trade-off between transferring and service quality (reliability and reduced crowding). Having faced long waiting times and high congestion on certain routes during service resumption following the labour strike, respondents said the likelihood of using transit more did not depend as much on direct service or short access distance as it did before the strike. The results of both focus groups and customer surveys over the past two years consistently link customers’ resistance to transfers with a concern about long waiting times between buses.

 

Area coverage – the degree of transit reach to households – must be balanced against the measurements of other transit policy standards, such as occupancy, economic efficiency, and ridership.

 

During the peak periods, our current service reaches 98.6 per cent of households within 400 meters and 99.9 per cent within 800 meters. The alternative service delivery model could reach 91.1 per cent of households within 400 meters and 99.4 per cent within 800 meters. Predictions suggest that this would generate substantial savings with limited impact on ridership. Yet, for the 0.6 per cent of households that would have an access distance to transit exceeding 800 meters, demand-responsive transit (such as taxi, “taxibus”, etc.) could be explored.

 

The alternative service delivery model would maintain a network speed similar to that of today at 26 km/h. The speed increase realized by the core rail line would counteract the system-wide speed reductions of increased local service and increased traffic congestion on the streets as the region grows. Total travel time – the sum of walking to a transit stop or station, waiting for service, riding transit, transferring to another service and walking to destination – would improve with the new rail line. In particular, the increase in system reliability would prevent the substantial delays of 15 minutes and more, experienced recurrently whenever bus operation on the downtown portion of the Transitway fails because of congestion (it has been predicted that the bus operation on downtown streets would reach capacity by 2017) or incidents.

 

The Tactical Plan sets out how the transit system will operate during construction of the core rail line with the over-arching goals of maintaining fast, efficient service and cost effectiveness. The Plan also provides information on future fleet requirements.

 

A number of additional options have been analyzed for possible inclusion in the alternative service delivery model explored in this Tactical Plan. They are summarized in the table below.

 

Option

Effect on transit operating cost

Effect on ridership

Other effects / comment

Potential benefits to transit?

Rapibus operated as trunk with feeders and all inter-provincial STO routes terminating at Bayview *

(9.3%)

(2.6%)

Capital cost requirement / All STO buses removed from downtown Ottawa streets

Yes

Feeders shortened at Transitway in Kanata, Barrhaven and Orléans **

(17.2%)

(4.2%)

Too aggressive

No

Express service on the

Core rail line **

0%

(0.6%)

Substantial capital cost

No

Early opening of Blair-Campus section of Core rail line if possible ***

(3.6%)

1.0%

Relieves impact of Core rail line construction on road network

Yes

* Compared with an STO trunk-and-feeders operation with buses travelling through downtown Ottawa; effect on transit operating cost is an estimate

** Compared with the Alternative Service Delivery Model

*** Compared with Transitway closed between Blair and Tunney’s during construction phase

 

Conclusion

 

The alternative service delivery model in the 2009 Tactical Plan identifies potential savings of up to 20 per cent of transit annual operating costs by 2019. Its foundations are the new core rail line, the operation of a trunk-and-feeder network and a reduction in area coverage. The findings confirm the core rail line as the right choice to achieve ridership growth targets while increasing the R/C ratio to 55 per cent and eliminating the annual tax burden associated with what would otherwise be unsustainable growth.

 

The alternative service delivery model centred upon the core rail line also aims at improving customers’ transit experience. Regular delays through the downtown core would be eliminated, which would contribute to savings of up to 25 minutes in daily commute time for transit customers from outside the Greenbelt going downtown.

 

CONSULTATION

 

There is no consultation required for the preparation of this report.

 

LEGAL/RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS

 

There are no legal/risk management impediments to the implementation of this report's recommendation.

 

FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

 

This report links to the Fiscal Framework that has identified an R/C ratio target of 55 per cent for Transit Services at the completion of Phase 1, Increment 1 of the Transportation Master Plan.

 

There are no direct financial implications of this report. Any financial implications resulting from possible policy changes or service changes would be reported to Council at the time of their recommendation.

 

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTATION

 

Document 1    City of Ottawa Transit Services 2009 Tactical Plan for Transit Operations and Finances

 

DISPOSITION

 

As a result of the findings of this annual plan, the completion of service plans for 2010, the Inter-Provincial Transit Integration Study and mobilization stemming from an approved rail plan, Transit Services will report to Transit Committee in 2011 on the policy implications and direction in the development of an alternative service delivery model.