Action for Public Transport (NSW)

P.O. Box K 606, Haymarket NSW 1240

www.aptnsw.org.au

22nd August 2003

Ministerial Review into Bus Services

The Hon Barrie Unsworth

C/- Ministry of Transport

GPO Box 1620

Sydney NSW 2000

Email: busreview@transport.nsw.gov.au

Phone: 9268 2825

Dear Mr Unsworth,

We welcome this opportunity to have input to the review of the current bus services arrangements in New South Wales.

Our submission is attached, including a copy on disk..

Because we have little or no expertise in regional and rural bus services, we have generally confined our comments to metropolitan services.

I will be happy to provide any further comment or explanation that you require.

You may contact me by phone on 9516 1906 or by email to

actionforpublictransport@hotmail.com

Yours faithfully,

Allan Miles

Secretary

Action for Public Transport (NSW)

1. Introduction

2. Summary

3. Terms of Reference

4. Terms of Omission

5. Format of the Submission

6. Submissions to Other Enquiries

7. What is Action for Public Transport?

8. The Public Transport Task

A Strategy for Melbourne

A Strategy for Toronto

What’s Next?

Nightride Buses

Conclusion

ATTACHMENT "A" - The Thirty-Nine Steps: A Role for Local Government

ATTACHMENT "B" - Aspects to Consider when Evaluating Public Transport Services

ATTACHMENT "C" - Ridership Growth Strategy: Toronto – a City that Has a Strategy

ATTACHMENT "D" - References

1. Introduction

This submission is in response to the Minister’s invitation "to comment on the current bus services arrangements in New South Wales with a view to delivering better access and services with the existing bus network while considering whether taxpayers are getting value for their investment in the bus system".

Its preparation has certainly provided a challenge, adjusting the submission after the daily announcements by the Minister about changes in transport directions. There was another last night concerning the integrated ticketing system, but I have yet to see any details of that.

2. Summary of This Submission

There are no really stellar recommendations from this submission, but some themes that stand out are:

• more flexibility in the interpretation of the Act regarding contract areas
• more co-operation between operators in adjoining areas
• involvement by more parties in the planning processes
• analysis of why previous reform attempts were not entirely successful
• a management action plan to implement any recommendations of this review
• disappointment with the "cost neutral" requirement
• the need to spend some serious money to gain long term improvements

There are dozens of ways bus services (generally and individually) can be improved and no end of web sites to find those ways, but a serious effort requires serious money. We recognise that this Review is making a reasonably quick assessment of the current bus system and seeking some solutions that can be implemented quickly and cheaply. There is nothing wrong with that, but we hope it is not the end of the matter. We would hope to see more and substantial changes flow as a result of Dr Parry’s Funding inquiry.

It is also unhelpful to discuss bus services in isolation from trains, trams, ferries or whatever else people in Sydney use. However, we accept that this is a one- off, short, sharp special purpose review, and so we have worked within those bounds.

1. Terms of Reference

1. The opportunity provided by integrated ticketing to establish a consistent state-wide fare regime.
2. The potential benefits of a network of strategic bus regions across the Greater Sydney metropolitan area which integrate with rail services and other travel patterns;
3. Improving the structure of the network to respond to changes in the future capacity of rail, and the future development of the metropolitan area;
4. Improved Bus Priority measures, Transitways and other options that may impact on services and suggested desirable service standards;
5. Improved use of resources in rural and regional communities to ensure more flexible solutions to local transport needs.
6. Funding, contractual and regulatory arrangements and any legislative changes required to implement these improvements; and.
7. The best mix of recommendations to achieve improvements in a cost neutral manner.

The terms of reference and the discussion papers put forward reasonable questions to help consider how the bus system in the metropolitan area might be improved. However, the squeeze is literally in the tail – the last words of the last term say "in a cost neutral manner". We found this requirement constrained the flow of thought somewhat – rather like the python asking its victim which way he would like to move.

1. Terms of Omission

Any recommendations issuing from the Review will be in danger of either vanishing in a puff of smoke or dying a slow death in a bog of inertia unless there is a plan for implementing them. The following Term of Reference should be added:

8. A project plan for managing the implementation of any recommended changes.

The McKeown report into the Millenium train project made six recommendations, commenting that the following basic procedures of project management were absent:

1. do a cost-benefit analysis
2. check out the contractor’s ability
3. establish acceptance criteria
4. involve all stakeholders
5. similar to (iv)
6. seek independent advice on technical matters.

Similar concerns were recently expressed by the Auditor-General after a Sydney Water system development was abandoned (SMH 02.05.03). The Smart Card ticketing project does not seem to be involving all users, especially the commuters. The Performance Assessment Regime (PAR) for buses is still bogged down after so many years because it wasn’t properly thought out. We do hope that there is an accepted plan for seeing this Review and any proposed changes through to a successful conclusion.

1. Format of the Submission

The Minister’s Review covers seven Terms of Reference. The Discussion Paper on metropolitan services has 23 questions under six different topics. The topics don’t integrate easily into the seven Terms of Reference. This submission follows the Terms of Reference, and the questions in the Discussion Paper have been slotted in as appropriate.

We have recorded many responses to the topics. However, this was difficult because of the apparent occasional ambiguity, lack of clarity or lack of logic in the questions.

 

 

2. Submissions to Other Enquiries

This is the fifth rather lengthy submission that I have made on public transport matters since January, and the year is not two-thirds gone. I sincerely hope that my time is not being wasted. There were two submissions to IPART on government fares, one to IPART on private fares and one to Dr Parry’s Inquiry on funding. Our arguments in the IPART submissions seem to have been largely ignored or breezily dismissed by IPART and by the transport authorities. The results of our submission to Dr Parry’s Inquiry have yet to be seen.

Some of the matters that I have raised in the other submissions are repeated here if relevant. The review panel can see all the other submissions on the web sites of the Ministry, IPART and APT.

3. What Is Action for Public Transport?

Action for Public Transport (NSW) is an association that campaigns for better public transport. A necessary corollary of this is a campaign for reduced spending on roads.

We are concerned about, and opposed to, government transport policies that are driven by vested interests instead of the public interest, particularly the unsustainable use of private motor vehicles in urban areas, and the unacceptable level of long-distance freight on our roads.

APT is not a front for unions, or for the government, or for the industry or for a political party, although we may reflect the views of one or more of them from time to time. We are simply a front for the public transport users. Our funds derive solely from subscriptions and donations by members. Further details about APT can be obtained from our web site: http://www.aptnsw.org.au

Because we have little or no expertise in regional and rural bus services, we will generally refrain from comment in those matters.

4. The Public Transport Task

Sydney is a city of about four million people. The CBD is about eight km inland from the coast on the southern shore of Sydney Harbour. The main suburban area extends east to the coast and north, west and south about 30 or 40 km in each direction. These suburbs are connected to the CBD by frequent train, bus or ferry services. In the outer suburbs, the buses, for the most part, run to railway stations to connect with trains. In the inner areas, most buses run direct to the city but there are many cross-suburban routes. There is only one cross-suburban rail line, but a second is under construction. Unfortunately this second line was emasculated by a Ministerial decision only yesterday.

All the railways and nearly all of the ferries are government owned. The buses in the more densely populated inner region are government owned, and those in the outer areas are privately owned (but government regulated). Some private companies run express buses into the CBD along motorways and freeways.

A monorail circles the CBD and Darling Harbour, passing near many new apartment buildings and car parks. It is patronised by tourists, residents and motorists. A new tramway from Central Railway Station passes through Chinatown, Darling Harbour and the Casino, then serves the inner-west along an abandoned railway line.

Beyond the suburbs are the commuter areas – the Central Coast to the north, the Blue Mountains to the west, Campbelltown to the south-west, and the Illawarra district to the south. These areas are joined to Sydney by fast inter-urban trains.

Some figures will be useful in gauging the size of the tasks involved.

State Transit (from 2001-02 annual report)

• 1,935 buses (Sydney and Newcastle)
• 32 Sydney ferries
• 2 Newcastle ferries
• 212 million passengers per year
• 15,000 services every day
• $495 million turnover
• 4,800 employees
• 300 routes in Sydney and 29 in Newcastle
• 77 million km run by Sydney Buses per year
• 1 million km run by Sydney Ferries
• 8 million km run by Newcastle services
• 95,000 route services a week run by Sydney Buses
• 2,000 route services a week run by Sydney Ferries
• 7,000 route services a week run by Newcastle services

Sydney Buses (from State Transit 2003 IPART submission)

• serves 600,000 customers per week day
• provides 16,000 services per week day
• costs $1.5 million per day
• provides 25% of trips to the CBD by all modes
• provides free trips for 150,000 school children per day
• provides 145,000 subsidised trips per day for concession card holders

CityRail (from the SRA Annual Report 2001/02)

• 276.4 million passenger journeys
• 306 stations – 302 owned by CityRail plus 4 on the Airport line
• 2,080 km of track
• !,459 electric carriages
• 30 endeavour carriages
• 7 rail motors (620 class)
• 7 rail motors(720 class)
• Passenger revenue $518.9 million
• Social Program Funding $634.1 million
• Total Revenue excluding Government Funding $680.2 million
• Operating Expenses $1,875.7 million
• Capital Program (Including capital grant to RIC) $274.5 million
• Costs per passenger journey $6.19
• Staff as at 30/06/02 9,121

Bus and Coach Association (from the BCA web site)

The private bus industry is a major provider of public transport in New South Wales; 1,000 members carry approximately 650,000 school children to and from school each day and passenger journeys in Wollongong, Blue Mountains, Central Coast and the Greater Sydney Metropolitan area total more than 100 million per annum. In addition, the Association also represents the owners of the New South Wales coach fleet. The members of BCA (NSW) operate some 6,000 buses and have approximately 10,000 employees.

The Charter Vessel Association (CVA)

The CVA represents the private ferry owners, but, as shown in the recent IPART enquiry, both the Association and its members are very reticent about giving away any secrets concerning costs and patronage.

Firstly, I assume that "integrated ticketing" means "the proposed smart card system". Integrated ticketing has been around for a hundred years or more, without the help of computers, or even electricity..

Rephrasing question 21 as "What opportunities does the smart card present to direct funding to priority service areas? What fare arrangements work best with the smart card?" The answer is "We don’t know." The Project Team has not had any meaningful two-way consultation with commuter groups, so we don’t know how the new system will work. When we ask "Will it do such-and-such?" the project team says, "Yes, it can." When we ask again, "Yes, we know it can, but will it?" the answer is, "That depends on what CityRail, State Transit or somebody else wants." Nobody has told the commuters what the operators or the department or the bank wants, and nobody has asked what the commuters want.

Having got that complaint out of the way, I will try to be more helpful.

I can’t see the logic in the first part of the question. If the question revolves around the collection of statistics, then surely statistics can be collected by other means. I can’t see the connection between (a) integrated ticketing, (b) selection of priority areas and (c) allocation of funding to those areas.

The second part of the question is easier. The best fare arrangements are the simple ones, with as few variations as possible. Ideally, the same fare system (not just an integrated ticket system) should apply all over the metropolitan area. However, I will have used my last one-way ticket to Rookwood long before that happens, so we should go for the second best option, an integrated ticket and fare system based on simple fares.

It strikes me as odd that, while we are talking here about networks and integration, the Minister announced yesterday the "dis-integration" of the suburban rail network.

Network planning could be done at two levels, just as a network itself can be defined at two levels. One is the company or operator or local network, and the other is the broader or regional or Sydney-wide network. The grand vision of the broader network has appeared as lines on maps for decades, but there was little evidence of any action on the ground until the Olympic Park bus routes about five years ago and the Transitway this year. Most of the network planning has been at the local level - inside individual fiefdoms with little regard for what was happening across the border.

The success of State Transit’s route 400 and the integration of the Ryde-Parramatta routes show what can be done when the one operator controls a large area. The success of the Olympic Park routes shows that the heavy hand of a body like ORTA can be useful. Some lessons might be learned from this. The Liverpool to Parramatta Transitway cannot be seen as a success yet, although we would not call it a failure either. More time is needed, plus the co-operation of the local bus companies.

The term "to reflect people’s travel patterns" needs some analysing. Do we mean "travel needs" rather than "travel patterns"? A person today travels from A to C via B because that’s the way the buses and trains go. If he drove a car, he might go direct from A to C.

The government, with other parties, should do more than just meet or reflect people’s travel patterns. They should meet the travel needs, or go further and manage the travel patterns – enticing, urging or gently nudging people into different patterns.

The second desired result, "to ensure integration", is really one of dozens of factors that lead to the third desired result, "to increase patronage". I will therefore elaborate on this third outcome.

We had a lot to say on this subject under the heading "Options for Enhancing Use" in our submission to the Parry Funding Inquiry, and we repeat our comments here.

If the desired objective is to increase patronage, operators should be ready to meet any increased demand by having additional staff and vehicles available. It is no good attracting more people if they will be turned away by overcrowded buses.

Both should play a part, at the two levels mentioned above.

Then we might ask, what does "Government" mean? Just the Ministry of Transport? Or does it include other departments that control schools, hospitals, airports, social and sporting venues, etc.? Perhaps the federal government’s CentreLink might have some useful input.

Does it include local government? APT has a list of ways in which local governments can help to improve public transport. We call this "The Thirty-nine Steps" and it is listed as Attachment A.

What about the local retailers and business community? What about the local work-sites (commercial, retail, industrial)? Do they get a say?

What about the existing and prospective passengers themselves? How will they be involved in planning?

This is difficult to answer without knowing what is meant by "a network of core bus routes". If they are "complementing the existing network" then presumably they would be additional routes, and the exercise would not be "cost neutral".

Again, it is difficult to see the logic behind this proposition. If the words "in the future capacity of rail" were deleted, it would make more sense.

I will deal first with that amended proposition – "changes in the future development of the metropolitan area". A fabled advantage of buses is "flexibility", a word that is always rolled out by proponents of bustitution. It should therefore be easy to adjust "flexible" bus services to suit a changing community. This is more difficult in the case of Transitways, but, as with other "fixed" transit like railways and tramways, a new route seems to attract patronage rather than having to chase it.

However, as mentioned above when discussing travel needs and travel patterns, the bus services need not always be the clay waiting to be moulded by the community. In years gone by, urban development often followed the transport. Indeed, I believe that the original Rockdale to Brighton tramway was financed by a developer. Not much has changed. Sydney continues to sprawl because of greater mobility given by freeways. New dwellings have sprung up around the new railway stations at Green Square and Wolli Creek like new friends around a lottery winner.

New bus services should be planned at the same time as the housing estates are planned to avoid breeding more suburbs where the street layout works against efficient and fast bus services. Once the streets are built the buses must start running a substantial service (not just a token one) before the occupants move into their new houses. People can then include buses in their travel plans with confidence.

Bus priority schemes on existing roads are designed to improve the reliability and travel times of buses. It is difficult to see how they would improve the frequency, unless as an indirect benefit of greater patronage because the buses are faster and more reliable.

Bus priority techniques on existing roads include:

1. bus only lanes
2. bus lanes (shared with taxis and others)
3. transit lanes (T2, T3, etc)
4. contra-flow bus lanes
5. "B" bus lights to allow buses in a bus lane to depart before the cars
6. right turn arrows to allow buses (and other traffic) to turn right at busy junctions
7. "no right turn – buses excepted" signs to allow buses to follow a desired route
8. priority for buses re-entering traffic from a bus stop
9. bus stops located where they best suit the bus passengers (not where they least inconvenience motorists)
10. absolutely no parking in bus stops
11. strict enforcement of all the above

However, note that

1. not all "bus lights" are effective "bus priority lights". I know of two places, and there are probably more, where bus drivers follow the ordinary traffic lights because the bus lights are too slow.
2. not all "bus only lanes" actually improve the travel times for buses. The bus lane beside Anzac Parade seems to be simply a device for getting buses out of the way of cars. Bus trips are actually made slower while the buses wait for the lights to move on and off the bus lane.

Before thinking about alternatives, it may be best to allow the Transitway to become fully operational – that is, with local buses feeding into it or traversing part of it.

Other similar Transitways could only be built where a corridor has been reserved. Using the median strip of a freeway or highway is not the same thing.

As a start, refer to "Aspects to Consider when Evaluating Public Transport Services" at Attachment B.

Regarding vehicle quality, it is not possible to define a standard bus, as different characteristics are required for different parts of the Sydney area. They might need one or two doors, large or small capacity, strong or light construction, ability to operate in stop-start or smooth traffic, on flat or hilly routes, and so on.

Customer Charters should also be considered. These are commitments made by a bus operator and published in an open document. They need not be a contractual arrangement that might result in penalties (or rewards) but simply an honest promise from the operator to the travelling public.

The Minimum Service Levels (MSL) arrangement is detailed in a wonderful document that I have recently seen for the first time. It was obviously thought up by someone with a PhD in Applied Mathematics who had nothing better to do on a wet weekend.

It involves maps, census collector districts, fourteen categories of areas depending on how close other transport is, coloured textas and hi-liters, a count of people and cars, averages, thresholds and a formula with 14 factors for calculating net patronage potential. The average census collector district for Sydney contains about 650 people, but there are more in the higher density areas and fewer in the outer areas.

It is beyond my belief that this procedure is faithfully followed for every new or changed bus route, and that it is revisited after each census or after each change in circumstance in the area.

But, to answer the question - given the number of different categories in the schedule, and the allowable variations therefrom, I must admit that the categories should be adequate for anywhere.

The Discussion Paper provided for the Review contains the following comments:

• does not capture travel into a contract area;
• allows the population size of a contract area to influence MSL standards, irrespective of other factors; and
• does not reflect infrequent routes such as express and cross regional services that operators may provide.

There would first have to be some process for determining when an operator fails to meet standards. Who complains? To whom do they complain? Who checks? Who decides? What are the standards? What does "fail to meet" mean? Is there some scaled report card? How to distinguish between isolated failures and chronic failures? Between a slight slip and gross neglect? Between failures inside or outside the operator’s control?

Assuming that a "failure" is established, perhaps the following sequence could apply:

• an investigation of the facts and circumstances
• a formal warning including corrective action required and a completion date
• assistance and guidance offered to the operator
• a second and maybe third stronger warnings
• an appeals system
• a fine
• temporary management by an administrator (as for Local Governments)
• loss of accreditation
• cancellation of the contract
• take-over by another operator

Procedures are also required for cases where the operators decide they have had enough and just hand in their licence. This happened in the inner west about fifteen years ago, and it happened with Hegarty’s Ferries earlier this year.

As mentioned before, our group has little or no experience in these areas, and we offer no specific comments. However, some of our general comments may be applicable, such as for failure to meet standards.

It may be relevant to mention here the "taxi-bus" that operated on the Campbelltown to Ambarvale route from December 1981 to November 1984. Ordinary buses provided the service six days a week, but such a bus on Sundays would have been unprofitable. Under an arrangement with the then UTA, the BCA and the Taxi Council, a taxi provided the Sunday service using the same timetable, route and stops as a bus, and charging bus fares. At the end of those three years, a normal bus replaced the taxi. Such an arrangement might be worth considering for regional areas or for the developing suburbs of Sydney.

Tendering is certainly one way in which contracts could be awarded. However, a danger here is that the contractor could bid low to win the contract and next year cry poor and ask the government for more subsidies to prop up a basic service.

The Melbourne experience with tendering needs to be remembered.

We might be looking at two different sorts of benchmarking here. The first is internal benchmarking with figures such as passenger/kilometres per dollar cost or the ratio of passengers to staff. The second type would measure passenger concerns such as on-time running, capacity, reliability, safety, ticket types, etc.

An old management principle says, "If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it". On that basis, any measurement of performance against a benchmark should result in better management of performance, and, as a consequence, show a path to "service improvements, efficient costs and enhanced accountability".

Some methods might be

• call tenders to meet specific requirements
• call for proposals to offer a service following general guidelines
• allow large (and reliable) operators to buy out smaller ones
• offer a newly developed area to an adjacent operator without tendering.

A contract should give the holder (subject to some flexibility)

• exclusive rights to an area
• a reasonable term
• compensation for loss of patronage due to causes beyond his control
• representation on local traffic committees

There must also be obligations, and these are mentioned throughout this paper.

Obviously it is desirable to have the same operator awarded the contract for a large area, but within that contract there may be room to define the scope of trunk routes differently to the scope of feeder or part-time routes.

Maybe there are inefficiencies caused by the contract area system. Maybe two routes, one on each side of a contract boundary, could be amalgamated into one route, crossing the boundary where necessary, with appropriate adjustments to the contract holders.

Contract terms of five to seven years may be needed to enable operators to make borrowing arrangements for the purchase of buses, other equipment and perhaps a new depot. The BCA says that banks are not keen to lend if the contract is short-term, or nearing the end of its course.

However, the operator (or the bank) could always sell the buses at the end of the term or the department could guarantee a fair price.

This has been taxing the minds of more knowledgeable people than me for decades. When researching the submission to the Parry Inquiry, I came across a newspaper article dated September 1983 bemoaning the escalating costs of the school transport subsidy scheme. Not much has changed.

First, we should ask what is meant by "return for the taxpayer dollar". How is this to be measured? By a crude ratio of dollar income to dollar subsidy?

Subsidies are provided because governments recognise that public transport provides external benefits. There are various papers on evaluating external benefits. One was commissioned by IPART in February 2001. However, if this is all too hard, and the crude income/subsidy ratio is used, we do not wish to be continually assaulted with emotive words like "enormous subsidy" or "huge loss". Mention of the subsidy must always be tempered by mention of the social and environmental benefits of providing the transport, or the real dollar costs of not having the transport.

We are also disappointed to note the word "existing" alongside "taxpayer dollars". In other words, the door of the vault is already locked shut.

In that case, we would like to know now, before any changes start, the total existing dollar figure for this subsidy, so that we can be prepared for any smoke and mirror statements afterwards.

Now, to the first part of the question – how can the government re-target spending? The first job is to find out where the spending is going now, and how much. Then perhaps see who can pay afford to pay more, or who is being wrongly subsidised. The payments for phantom school children would be a good start.

Also, as we have mentioned in submissions to IPART for years, the cost of the Pensioner Excursion Ticket needs to go up – or, if it stays the same, it should be available only in smaller regions, and not Sydney-wide. The subsidy paid by the government to State Transit and CityRail could then be reduced. We repeat here the argument from our January 2003 submission to IPART.

Operators may grow (or lose) their fare-paying patronage through no credit or fault of their own. The change might have been caused by the opening or closing of a large traffic generator in their area. Any such event must be quarantined from a general assessment of growth.

Presumably, given the basic "cost neutral" premise of this exercise, any incentive would not take the form of further subsidies or government payments. An incentive might be the extension of the contract term, favourable consideration of proposals to take-over an adjoining operator or to run an express route through another’s territory.

Those are the carrots. There are also the sticks mentioned under Reference Term 4.

Before we answer that question, we should ask, why should the sustainability of the bus industry be ensured? Or any industry for that matter. However, in the context of this review, it is obviously a basic premise that the bus industry should continue.

The sustainability of the bus industry can be helped, but not necessarily ensured, by:

• good management
• good business acumen
• economies of scale
• patronage growth (this, of course, is the result of dozens of other actions mentioned elsewhere)
• good regulatory supervision
• flexible interpretation of rules
• responsiveness to change

This is generally in the hands of the operators and owners (not always the same people).

I assume that "maintain cost-efficiency" does not mean "put a ceiling on expenditure", but rather means maintaining some sort of cost/passenger/income ratio while improving services. It must be remembered that additional passengers and revenue don’t walk in the door the day that the money is spent to improve the services. There is a period of building up.

Again, it is a question of definition. Equity doesn’t mean a five-minute frequency down both Glebe Point Road and Mulgoa Road. The procedure for determining Minimum Service Levels in different areas defines what is equitable. Also, I presume that the equity sought is between STA and non-STA areas – or is it between one non-STA area and another?

As for equity in delivering services, it is not just a matter of the level of subsidies. It also involves the management of the business.

The government may have a good reason for inequitably distributing subsidies, such as recognising the social and environmental benefits of good bus services in some areas, or encouraging people in other areas to get out of their cars.

One must assume that bus operators think that their capital is being efficiently utilised, otherwise they would sell up and buy a block of units at Port Macquarie.

There may be occasions when two operators might increase efficiency by sharing a bus route or a depot or other facilities.

A small but possible example of this is the apparent current under-utilisation of one North Shore operator’s fleet and the shortage of buses in another’s. Forest Coach lines runs express buses from the northern suburbs to Wynyard in the morning peak and then presumably runs them empty back to the depot to await the afternoon peak. Meanwhile, according to last week’s Mosman Daily, dozens of people queue up in vain at Cammeray to get on STA’s express route 201 buses to the city. Perhaps the Forest bus or buses, on leaving Wynyard, could go to Cammeray and take a load of STA passengers into Wynyard again. It is an express run, so fares would be collected at only one point. No doubt everybody will have reasons why it can’t possibly be done, and I can see some difficulties myself. However, if this Review is serious, somebody will find a way. Perhaps not for this particular case, but another like it. Twenty years ago, a private ferry regularly ran one evening service to Darling Street for State Transit, or whatever it was called then.

I understand that Mr John August has already made a submission dealing principally with the topic of competition and contract areas. Rather than repeat all his arguments, I will just generally endorse them. It seems that the Act is concerned with services that provide "substantial competition" to a contract owner, but it does not forbid minor incursions.

It is apparently not the Act that makes life difficult, but the convention that has built up around the Act. This convention is not totally opposed to the Act, but it does obstruct what seems to have been a flexibility originally written into the Act.

Firstly, I always object to the words "transparent" and "transparency" in this context. In my former workplace, if a change was "transparent to the user" it meant that the user didn’t know about it and didn’t need to know. The user saw right through it – it was transparent. I am not sure what is intended here. Do we mean transparency? Or visibility? Or consistency? Or accountability?

Reporting and data collection arrangements should first of all be simple. They should not be a burden. They should be consistent across all respondents. The data should be honest and verifiable. Some sampling arrangements should be implemented – that is, don’t ask everybody for all information every month. Some respondents might want their data kept confidential.

The mere reporting, collecting and reviewing of data will not ensure compliance with service expectations. Will an operator be honest and report how many times last month his buses were late, or broke down in traffic, or his drivers are rude to customers? Even if he did report honestly, how is that going to help make things better? The figures could be compared to a Sydney-wide standard, or to a neighbour’s figures, but that won’t make the buses more reliable. Somebody has to get out and do something.

Again, the response depends on definitions. The "recommendations" would presumably be those that Mr Unsworth makes after reading all the submissions. I do not have sufficient knowledge to propose a mix of recommendations.

We wonder whether "cost neutral" means that each change, either in procedures or in region, is to be cost neutral in itself, or whether the blanket of neutrality covers the whole state. Can more money be spent here as long as less is spent there?

As mentioned before, the whole "cost neutral" restraint is rather unfortunate. With the announcement yesterday that the Epping to Parramatta railway line is stillborn, there is clear reinforcement of the message that the lid has been put on the money box. Meanwhile, cash for freeways continues to pour out of a hole in the side.

In 2002, our sister organisation in Victoria, the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA), published a well-researched book called "It’s Time To Move". While many of the recommendations are obviously specific to Melbourne and Victoria, the general circumstances, problems and solutions are relevant to any large Australian city.

Some of the section headings from the book are given below:

Part I: The Importance of Public Transport

Triple Bottom lines

1. Economy
2. Environment
3. Society

Part II: Making Public Transport Work for Everyone

1. Policy, Management and Ownership
2. Services and Infrastructure

• Minimising the total journey time
• Why Park and Ride doesn’t work
• A system serving passengers, not vice versa
• Summary

Part III: Getting There From Here

• Getting over the "It Can’t Be Done" factor
• A Question of Politics

A complimentary copy of the book is attached.

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) in Canada, which operates most of the public transport in a city the size of Sydney, has recently issued a Ridership Growth Strategy. It is a pity we don’t have a similar document here.

The first few paragraphs of the Toronto document are reproduced below:

The full Executive Summary can be seen at Attachment "C". The complete document can be seen on the web site

We would be interested to learn what will happen after the review is presented to the Minister. Who will do what, and when? Will there be further public consultation? Consumers need to be represented in the project implementation team along with government, operators, regulators, bean-counters, unions and other stake-holders.

Nightride buses replace train services from midnight to dawn. The discussion paper says that the management of Nightride bus contracts will pass from the Ministry to the State Rail Authority. I hope that the SRA will be able to manage something that has been beyond the ability of the Ministry for two years now – to put Nightride timetables in the empty display cases on the corner of George and Bathurst Streets.

This submission has concentrated mainly on responding to the questions in the department’s discussion paper, as we thought it would be more helpful that way. We have therefore made few, if any, recommendations of our own.

A list of reference web sites is attached as Attachment D. Many ideas can be found from there. We especially recommend the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (Canada) site.

END

Councils must actually do something themselves to reduce car usage and increase public transport usage, rather than just lobbying State and Commonwealth authorities to do it.

Councils must actively promote what transport already exists, and do what they can to improve the conditions for bus, ferry and train passengers. For bus users, this can include the ride, the stops, the waiting and the information, while for ferry and rail users, the options are similar but more limited. The needs of taxi users must also be considered - taxis are an important alternative form of public transport.

Some things that Councils can do (in no particular order) are:

1. Include public transport information when advertising the Council’s own facilities or events (swimming pools, libraries, parks, social clubs, street fairs, carnivals);
2. Encourage businesses, clubs, schools, sporting and social organisers, etc, to advertise (and not just parking arrangements) in their publicity:
3. Locate bus stops where it suits the buses and bus passengers, not just where they will cause the least inconvenience for motorists. (Move the traffic to suit the bus stop, rather than move the bus stop to suit the traffic.);
4. Provide better lighting, seating, shelter, space, etc at bus stops and ferry terminals;
5. Provide better lighting and signs at entrances to railway stations. Some station entrances and even the stations themselves are invisible from a distance;
6. Provide bus timetable information at major bus stops (not just an empty display case, but organise the display and regular maintenance of the actual timetable);
7. Arrange for timetable leaflets to be available at street carnivals, festivals, etc;
8. Provide safer crossings for pedestrians to railway stations and bus stops;
9. Print a cut-out route map or timetable for a different bus, ferry or train route in each issue of council newsletters;
10. Reward shoppers who come by public transport (competition prize, fare refund, purchase discount, lucky passenger, etc);
11. Don’t offer a chance of winning a car to people who pay their rates early. Instead offer ten or twenty prizes of yearly TravelPass tickets (or anything except a car);
12. Don’t allow existing bus shelters to be removed by previous advertising contractors before the next contractor has the new shelters ready;
13. Encourage private bus operators to match the generally higher standards provided by State Transit Authority buses;
14. Print a pocket-sized Council Guide to Public Transport (with maps). Advertisers could help pay for it. Get two or three councils to make a combined one.
15. Mail out a transport guide with the rate notices;
16. Sell TravelPass, TravelTen, BusTripper and DayTripper tickets at Council offices and libraries;
17. Stock bus, ferry and train timetable leaflets at Council offices and libraries;
18. Reward council employees who travel by public transport and for whom the council doesn’t have to provide an expensive car parking space;
19. Arrange for the Council to buy yearly tickets for the staff and allow the staff to repay by way of regular salary deductions;
20. Let the mayor, councillors, manager and staff travel and be seen to travel on public transport both during their job and on their way to and from work;
21. Don’t include cars as part of employees’ packages, but give some other benefit if one is necessary;
22. Ensure that directional notices are adequately displayed when buses are diverted during temporary street closures. Some councils charge fees for such closures, which should help cover the cost of putting up notices at bus stops;
23. Support the transport authorities when residents object to extensions of bus routes down "their" streets;
24. Provide more pleasant waiting areas for bus passengers at major bus stops where it is not appropriate to construct shelters;
25. Give rate rebates or discounts to residents who don’t own a car;
26. Co-operate with transport authorities in their efforts to give priority to buses (traffic lights, lanes, turns, kerbside space, pulling out from stops, etc) or even have the Council initiate the moves;
27. Oppose moves to terminate suburban buses at the CBD perimeter, thereby forcing passengers to change into some other transport for the trip to the city centre;
28. Penalise hard and regularly all motorists who park in bus stops. They not only disrupt the bus drivers and passengers, but delay other motorists who are held up behind the "double-parked" bus;
29. Reduce the car parking requirements in building regulations in locations where there is good public transport nearby. Don’t apply the same standards across all areas of the municipality;
30. Limit the number of parking spaces required in new residential developments near good public transport to encourage occupation by people who don’t have cars, or who have only one;
31. Limit the number of car parking spaces required in commercial developments near major transport hubs or spines to encourage staff and clients to use public transport;
32. Monitor the condition of bus stops and quickly replace broken or missing items;
33. Locate any new council facilities near established public transport routes;
34. Encourage the development of higher population densities close to shopping centres and public transport;
35. Reduce parking availability in large commercial centres, and introduce parking regulations with maximum limits for new development applications;
36. Include accessibility to public transport and basic services in the approval process for new residential developments;
37. Establish a network of safe and pleasant walking routes through the municipality, linking shops, schools, residents, recreational areas and public transport services;
38. Improve pedestrian priority at traffic lights, and introduce automatic walk signals;
39. Ensure that future public transport corridors, above and below ground, are protected against development that would make the transport route unviable or impossible.

1. Frequency of services (over-serviced, sufficient, inadequate)
2. Capacity (buses crowded or lightly loaded)

High frequency doesn’t necessarily mean a good service. In the morning peak hour, buses leave Bondi Beach at a rate of better than one every two minutes, but they soon become so crowded that passengers waiting further along the way still can’t get on them.)

3. Memory time-table (or are buses run at odd intervals to suit drivers’ shifts)
4. Hours of operation (early morning, peak hours, off peak, late night, weekends,

school holidays, public holidays)

5. Express buses, limited stops and all-stops services
6. Reliability of service (cancellations, late running, early running)

CityRail’s definition of "on-time " only covers arrivals at Central at peak hours five days a week. It doesn’t cover arrivals at other places and at other times.

Some trade-off would also have to be allowed between on-time running and passenger inconvenience. For instance, every train from Bondi Junction could be ten minutes late but nobody would notice because the trains run every ten minutes.

7. Connections with other transport (buses, trains, ferries, waiting for late trains)
8. Interchanges with other transport (buses, trains, ferries, taxis, car parks)
9. Facilities at interchanges (walking distance, shelter, seats, security, lighting,

information, signs, bicycle racks, telephones)

10. Bus stops (location, identification, shelter, seats, security, lighting, information,

view of oncoming buses)

11. Coverage of area (how many people live beyond walking distance)
12. Destinations served (buses go where the people want to go)
13. Circuitous routes or direct routes
14. Street layouts, width, roundabouts, etc affecting efficient bus services
15. Bus priority measures (bus lights, transit lanes, bus lanes, bus only lanes)
16. Buses delayed in traffic
17. Fares (level of fares, off peak discounts, pre-purchase discounts, children,

pensioners, transfers)

18. Tickets (returns, weekly, periodical, pre-paid, off-bus purchase, all-day tickets,

transfers, families)

19. Standard of buses (age, reliability, seats, capacity, grab rails or straps, lighting,

destination signs, route numbers, air conditioning, cleanliness, number of doors, radio or phone to base)

20. Personal safety while travelling
21. Announcements by staff on-board or at stations, stops and wharves
22. Accessibility for wheelchairs
23. Accessibility for the disabled and elderly (information, stops/stations, vehicles)
24. Accessibility for children (children under 17 can’t drive, no matter how rich)
25. Accessibility for shopping trolleys, baby strollers
26. Obtaining information (phone number, operating hours of enquiry line, web site)
27. Printed timetable leaflets (availability, clarity, maps, phone number, other

information)

28. Advertising the service (aggressive marketing? Or "everybody knows about us"?)
29. Multi-lingual information
30. Alternatives (private car, taxi, bicycle, walking, going elsewhere, staying home)
31. Customer surveys (to see what the passengers and potential passengers want)
32. Driver training and courtesy
33. Efficiency in handling complaints
34. Supervision or monitoring by the regulatory authority
35. Compliance with service standards (below, average, above and beyond)
36. Ease of cancelling the contract for non-compliance with service standards

• Care for Children
• Frequency of Service
• Reliability
• Accessibility
• Capacity
• Customer Information
• Cleanliness of Vehicles and Premises
• Journey Comfort
• Value for Money
• Telephone Enquiries
• Lost Property
• Customer Contact Staff
• Customers (that is, the obligations of passengers)
• Customer Suggestions, Complaints and Compliments
• Consulting You.

Sydney and Toronto are similar in some respects. Each has a total urbanised area of about 1,500 sq km and a total population of about 4 million. They have large, diverse, and generally well patronised public transport systems, but grossly under-funded in both cities.

There are big differences, too. Toronto has snow at Christmas, a flat landscape, long straight roads and it sits lakeside instead of straddling a harbour. Toronto has one municipal council covering the central 630 sq km of the urbanised area (roughly a 20 km radius semi-circle from the CBD). Toronto has only one main transit provider, the TTC, which carries 90 percent of all local trips in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

And Toronto has a Ridership Growth Strategy.

First, to set the scene, here are a few statistics on the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), which comes under the jurisdiction of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. These figures are roughly comparable to Sydney. CityRail and State Transit figures are inserted in italics where appropriate (but private bus figures are excluded).

http://www.insidetoronto.ca/to/features/transport/

• Average daily trips: 1.3 million rides
• Total passenger trips: 419.9 million (STA 212 m and CityRail 276 m)
• 1,480 buses (State Transit 1,935 buses)
• 133 bus routes (300 routes in Sydney)
• 4,083.9 route miles (bus)
• 248 streetcars
• 11 streetcar routes
• 190.0 route miles (streetcar)
• 692 subway cars (CityRail 1,459 electric carriages)
• 3 subway lines
• 35.1 route miles (subway)
• 28 Scarborough RT cars
• 4.0 route miles (RT)
• Number of TTC employees: 10,185 (STA 4,800 and CityRail 9,121)
  
  2001 RIDERSHIP TRENDS
  
• 90 per cent of all local transit trips in the GTA are carried by the TTC;
• 76 per cent of the Toronto population use the TTC at least once per month;
• 89 per cent of the Toronto population use the TTC at least once per year;
• 92 per cent of Toronto residents who have used the TTC in the past year have used the subway;
• 94 per cent of Toronto residents who have used the TTC in the past year have used surface vehicles/routes
  

In March 2003 the TTC presented its Ridership Growth Strategy to the municipal and provincial government. As far as we know, nothing like this strategy exists in the files of any transport provider in Sydney. There may be fragmented and unco-ordinated attempts to increase patronage on this bus route or that rail line, but no overall long-term strategy. In fact, it is obvious to any casual observer that Sydney’s rail and bus system, and roads, couldn’t handle any more riders at peak hours.

APT thinks that this is such an extraordinary and courageous document that we have reproduced here the Executive Summary, and recommend that readers view the whole 85 pages at

Just change the names and it could apply almost untouched to Sydney.

TORONTO TRANSIT COMMISSION

Ridership Growth Strategy - March 2003

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1 INTRODUCTION

1. Background

2 HOW TO INCREASE RIDERSHIP

2.1 Why people choose to use transit.

2.2 Improving Surface Transit Speed and Reliability

2.3 Cost of Travel and the Relationship between Service and Fares

2.4 Summary

3 THE NEED FOR TTC AND CITY COMMITMENT TO IMPROVE THE

QUALITY OF TRANSIT

3.1 The Importance of Passenger Focus in TTC Service Delivery

3.2 City Actions Required to Improve Transit Service

4 WITHOUT STABLE FUNDING, THE TTC CANNOT DO ITS JOB

4.1 Funding Transit Expansion Through Development Charges

5 PROPOSALS TO INCREASE RIDERSHIP

5.1 Service Proposals

5.1.1 Increase Service on Existing Routes

5.1.2 Commuter Parking Expansion

5.1.3 Expanded Traffic Signal Priority Program

5.1.4 Constructing Bus and Streetcar Rapid Transit

5.1.5 Increase the Capacity of the Scarborough RT

5.1.6 Continuous Program of Subway Expansion

5.2 Fare proposals

5.2.1 Options Which Maintain the Existing Fare System

5.2.2 Changes to the Existing Fare System

5.3 Innovative Technologies

6 EVALUATION OF OPTIONS AND ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

6.1 Evaluation of Options

6.2 Alternative Investment Strategies

6.3 Summary

6.4 Implementation Staging and Short­Term Budget Implications

7 RECOMMENDATIONS

Appendix A ­ Summary of directions and requests received from the

Commission and City Council

Appendix B ­ TTC Market Research

Appendix C ­ Automobile Versus Transit Cost

Appendix D ­ Evaluation and Screening of Surface Rapid Transit Proposals

Appendix E ­ Fare Proposals To Increase Ridership

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

There is a growing expectation that transit in general, and the TTC in particular, must take on an increased role in providing travel for people in Toronto if the City is to grow and thrive economically and in an environmentally-sustainable way. Each level of government has recently announced plans and policy initiatives, that highlight the need for greater use of transit in urban areas - the City with its Official Plan, the Province of Ontario with its "Smart Growth Council" and "Gridlock Subcommittee", and the Government of Canada with its approval of the Kyoto Accord. Achieving these policy objectives will require a fundamental shift in transit's role in Toronto and the relative importance of automobile travel.

Unfortunately, these initiatives follow on the heels of a consistent lack of government support for the TTC in the past decade. Provincial funding was reduced a number of times in the mid-1990's and is only now being partly restored. The TTC’s ridership and market share has fallen significantly during this period, to a large extent because of lack of government support.

While there is no simple "magic answer" that will reverse this trend, government support for the TTC must be real and pronounced if the current widespread public and government expectations for improved transit are to be met.

The TTC's mandate is to operate and maintain transit services that provide safe, fast, reliable, convenient, and comfortable travel in a cost-effective way. The TTC's highest priorities are to our current passengers, and to maintain the existing system in a state-of-good-repair. The TTC needs a substantial, ongoing, funding commitment to meet these basic priorities and fulfil its role of providing transportation services to a large proportion of Toronto's population. Once these needs are met, the TTC could attract more people out of their automobiles and onto transit with a stable source of increased funding and a commitment on the part of the City to implement policies that support efficient transit operations and transit-oriented development in Toronto.

This report outlines a Ridership Growth Strategy for the TTC which will allow the TTC to contribute significantly to achieving the objectives of the City’s Official Plan and help create truly "smart" re-urbanisation in Toronto. Increasing transit ridership in a substantial way, however, will require action on the part of the TTC, the City of Toronto, and senior levels of government.

In the preparation of its Official Plan, the City of Toronto identified a range of policy, regulatory, and enforcement actions that it could take to improve transit operations and encourage ridership growth. These are described in the background report entitled Transportation Building Blocks for Official Plan and include:

# extending the hours when parking is prohibited on major arterial roads to better reflect the realities of the extended hours of traffic congestion on the roads;

# introducing additional bans on left-turning vehicles on major transit routes;

# establishing a dedicated team of personnel to continuously enforce parking and turn restrictions and designated transit lanes on roads;

# constructing right-turn "queue jump" lanes for transit vehicles when major roads are being rebuilt in Toronto; and,

# requiring developers to minimise the amount of parking they provide close to rapid transit lines and "higher-order transit corridors".

These actions do not have major financial implications for the City and can be implemented quickly if there is political will. Strong support from City staff and politicians will also be necessary to implement surface rapid transit on the higher-order transit corridors identified in the Official Plan. There will be negative impacts for some users of these corridors but introducing higher-order surface transit services provides large benefits for transit users and is central to achieving "smart" city-building. Introducing surface rapid transit improvements must be supported if transit is to become a more-attractive travel alternative in Toronto.

The TTC’s experience over the past decade dramatically illustrates the damage that is caused to transit use when government funding is in a continual state of flux. The TTC’s funding arrangements have been changed annually, typically with final approvals for any one year being received well into the year when the expenditures are already underway. This should be completely unacceptable for a $1.3 billion-a-year business that requires investment decisions for vehicles with 18- and 30-year lives, and facilities that last 40 years or more. This funding environment prevents the establishment of any longer-term strategic business perspective on investing in the future of transit in Toronto.

Some funding for transit expansion can be provided through development charges, and the City is currently updating its Development Charges Bylaw. There is, however, a limit to what is realistic for the City to charge in the way of development fees. It is unlikely that development charges, even if applied in an aggressive way, will ever provide more than a small proportion of the TTC's capital needs for growth as outlined in this strategy.

In the current situation, short-term actions to increase transit ridership at the TTC will not be effective in creating ongoing patterns of increased ridership if there is no long-term funding arrangement established to allow higher ridership levels to be sustained. A strategic approach to increasing transit ridership requires a clear, consistent, long-term funding arrangement that realistically reflects ongoing operating costs, state-of-good repair capital needs, and the funding requirements of system and fleet expansion.

This strategy presents a comprehensive, staged, approach to transit service improvements, fare initiatives, and the construction of new facilities at the TTC to increase ridership. The overall approach is summarised in Exhibit E1. It is based on extensive research and factual data relating to how and why passengers use transit, and what has been effective in the past, and elsewhere, in attracting new riders to transit.

Exhibit E1

Ten Year Ridership Growth Strategy - Funding Priorities

Order of funding priorities

1. Meet current system needs (2003)

­ Operating requirements

­ State of good repair

2. Increase Service Capacity

­ Increase fleet and level of service

­ Surface "right of ways" to improve service reliability

­ SRT capacity increase

3. Fare Initiatives

­ Reduce price of passes

­ New passes

­ Overall fare adjustment

4. Subway Expansion

­ Five kilometre extension of Sheppard or Spadina

There is a substantial amount of population and employment growth forecast for the GTA in the next decade and, while only a quarter of the growth is forecast to occur in

Toronto, the opportunities for increased transit ridership are much greater in Toronto than in the low-density areas outside the City over the next ten years. Unlike many recent proposals for transit improvements in the GTA, the TTC’s Ridership Growth Strategy is based on a systematic cost-benefit analysis of options to determine where the greatest benefits can be achieved from scarce taxpayers dollars. The strategy minimises risks by allocating funding first to the programs that have already been proven to provide the greatest benefit at the lowest cost. Funding can then be progressively increased as the success of the overall program is demonstrated.

The TTC's Ridership Growth Strategy recommends making the following transit investments:

# a 10% increase in peak period service on busy routes. This requires that the bus fleet be expanded by 100 vehicles, over and above the current forecast needs, and an advancement in the timing of construction of a new bus garage. Improved service in the afternoon peak period can be implemented in 2004 and 2005; improvements in the morning peak period can be implemented when the additional vehicles are available, likely in 2006;

# increasing off-peak service on major routes in 2004, with ongoing additional increases between 2005 and 2008;

# a staged program of construction of surface rapid transit rights-of-way on major corridors beginning in 2004;

# construction of additional commuter parking in at-grade surface lots;

# the installation of additional transit signal priority equipment on an ongoing basis beginning in 2004;

# proceeding with the Volume Incentive Program (VIP) Green Pass fare discount, conditional on the current test being successful, along with a set of modest fare incentives targeted at increasing student and senior ridership starting in 2004 and 2005;

# a reduction in the cost of Metropasses by $5.00 in 2005, and the introduction of a weekly pass in 2006;

# increasing the carrying capacity of the Scarborough RT to accommodate ridership growth;

and, # a reduction in fares, in real terms, in 2006/2007.

When introduced, these initiatives will provide immediate benefits to TTC users and will attract new passengers to the TTC system in conjunction with planned re-urbanisation in Toronto as envisioned in the City’s Official Plan. Significant increases in transit ridership, however, will take many years to develop. The recommended strategy is expected to increase system-wide ridership by 10 %, or 40 million additional passengers on the system annually, once fully implemented. Coupled with the expected growth in travel from the population and employment growth forecasts from the City’s Official Plan, TTC ridership could reach 500 million riders by 2011.

The strategy features a substantial reinvestment in increased service levels on existing routes. This will increase service reliability, reduce passenger waiting times, decrease crowding, and allow some additional passengers to get a seat. Service improvements at off-peak times can be implemented over a six-to-twelve-month period, which allows time to hire and train operators, but service improvements at peak times would require the purchase of additional vehicles, so these would require a two-to-three-year lead time for implementation.

Transit operating in mixed traffic cannot realistically be expected to provide a quality of service that is attractive enough to convince large numbers of people to shift over from the automobile. On a number of major transit routes in Toronto, passenger volumes require services that are at, or close to, a frequency and capacity of operation that cannot reliably be operated in mixed traffic. This situation is expected to become more widespread as ridership grows on the system and traffic congestion worsens. For ridership to grow on these routes, additional priority must be given to transit on the road network.

For this reason, the strategy also features a continuous program of upgrading major surface transit routes by converting them to surface rapid transit rights-of-way. Streetcar rights-of-way, such as those on Spadina Avenue, or an equivalent bus operation, were reviewed for every "Avenue" and "Higher-Order Transit Corridor" identified in the City’s Official Plan. Many of these corridors already have high transit ridership – often with transit vehicles carrying more people than automobiles these road sections. These corridors are also targeted for additional transit-oriented growth in the City's Official Plan. As illustrated in Exhibit E2, a total of 13 roadways were identified as practical, cost-effective, candidates for such treatment.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) is being used successfully in Richmond B.C., Boston, Los Angeles, and a number of other locations world-wide. In the Toronto context, it is envisioned that bus rapid transit rights-of-way could be constructed in the centre lanes of major arterial roads allowing buses to operate at speeds approaching those of the subway. This would result in a dramatic improvement in the quality of transit services provided in these corridors and attract new riders to transit. It would also strongly support transit-oriented re-development in these corridors over time. The proposed strategy will allow nine of these projects to proceed over the next decade at an average annual cost of $45 million per year.

Typically, in the older parts of Toronto, where road rights-of-way are 30 metres or less on major roads, and buildings are often right at the edge of the right-of-way, there is no opportunity for road widening. In these situations, the establishment of surface rapid transit rights-of-way would require taking an existing traffic or parking lane – an option that may not be feasible in many cases. In these locations, the importance of much-more stringent regulations, and stricter enforcement of those regulations, will be essential to give greater priority to transit vehicles.

The situation with the Scarborough RT is unique. The line is currently operating at capacity at peak times, and cannot absorb any significant ridership growth. Because of this capacity constraint, ridership growth on the line has now been suppressed for a number of years. The line was originally constructed to accommodate the small, 40-foot vehicle currently in use and, at a minimum, will require major reconfiguration or reconstruction before 2015 when the current vehicles reach the end of their useful life. However, in order to accommodate the demand not currently being met, and to achieve the objectives of the Official Plan in Scarborough, a substantial increase in the capacity of the Scarborough RT will be required over the next ten-to-fifteen years. An acceleration of this program has been included in the Ridership Growth Strategy.

In establishing the strategy, careful consideration has been given to the relationship between fares and service. Transit fares, and price sensitivity, are rarely the reasons why people do not choose transit over other modes. For transit to compete effectively with the automobile, it must provide an attractive level of convenience, comfort, speed, and reliability compared to the equivalent automobile trip, and this is the first priority in this strategy. The fare initiatives focus on encouraging increased pass usage. Pass users are the most-committed and most-frequent users of transit. Providing this market with additional flexibility in terms of both cost and convenience is a cost-effective way of increasing ridership. However, introducing fare discounts, without first addressing service issues, would have little chance of attracting significant numbers of new riders. A strategy to increase ridership at the TTC should, therefore, initially involve service improvements, followed by fare incentives once additional capacity is available on the system.

The potential benefits of introducing fare-by-distance or fare-by-time-of-day pricing schemes have been considered. The TTC does not currently have the complex fare equipment that is required to implement fare-by-distance without substantially inconveniencing existing riders who enjoy a simple fare system with easy transfers between connecting services. While there are a small number of examples of transit operators who have special peak-period fares, a number of major operators have recently abandoned this pricing regime, including Chicago, Cleveland, Ottawa, and Edmonton. At this point in time, there is not a business case for implementing such pricing arrangements at the TTC, primarily because of the high costs and risks involved in introducing the new technology required. TTC staff will continue to monitor the research and trial implementations of these systems that are occurring in other cities.

The Ridership Growth Strategy provides a consistent, long-term, staged program of providing priorities for, and investing in, existing transit services using proven technologies and operating strategies. This offers the greatest likelihood of achieving sustained increases in transit ridership. It will, however, require additional capital and operating funding for the TTC; annual operating subsidies would need to be increased by $80 million per year in constant 2003 dollars. This would result in the TTC's revenue/cost ratio falling to approximately 72% - an operating ratio that is still far above most other major transit properties in North America. The TTC's Capital Budget would need to be increased by $59 million per year initially and by a further $40 million per year over the three-year period when the Scarborough RT is being reconstructed. These capital costs are over and above the TTC's current basic capital needs which are expected to average $375 million per year over the next decade. It is absolutely essential, however, that the TTC's state-of-good-repair capital needs be met before expansion programs are undertaken. Exhibit E3 illustrates that the proposed Ridership Growth Strategy represents a small proportion of the TTC forecast capital needs over the next decade.

Further work is required to establish when extensions to the subway system are warranted, based on the City's need for subway-oriented developable land, and the rate at which the City wants to achieve development in subway corridors. When a program of subway expansion is initiated, the continuous program outlined in this report will increase capital needs at the TTC by a further $175 million per year on a long-term basis.

The Ridership Growth Strategy presented here provides a realistic program of expansion at the TTC to put in place a transit system that will attract new riders, and support the City's Official Plan vision for a transit-oriented re-urbanisation in Toronto. The strategy is modest compared to the mega-projects being proposed elsewhere in the GTA, and has a much higher probability of success in terms of actually attracting new riders to transit in the next decade. Its success is not contingent on large-scale re-development in particular locations or corridors – modest re-development on many corridors is both more practical and more likely to actually occur – and the program is flexible enough to respond to changing conditions compared to a single major initiative.

This Ridership Growth Strategy is the TTC's response to all levels of government that are advocating increased transit use through the cost-effective use of tax dollars. For this to occur, these governments will, collectively, have to commit to adequate, stable, funding for the TTC over the coming decade and beyond, and to take those actions necessary to make transit a truly effective alternative to the automobile in Toronto.

The whole document can be viewed at

Public Transport Users Association, "It’s Time to Move", PTUA, Melbourne 2002.

http://www.ptua.org.au

Walker, B. and Walker, B.C. "Privatisation: Sell off or sell out? – The Australian Experience", Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sydney, 2001.