GO Transit: Service thread (including extensions)

[reaperexpress]

Right but then there is the cost to procure additional locomotives and train crews not to mention the track time.

Yes. Better service does typically cost more to operate. Though it's worth noting that GO still has some trains in storage, and owns the tracks for the central portion of all lines, if not the entire line.

A notable exception is when you can cut a service's round trip time. For example, getting off the highway to serve a park-and-ride lot adds around 5 minutes to a bus schedule. If your route runs every 30 minutes (e.g. route 40 Hamilton-Pearson-RHC) and you cut out 3 stops (e.g. Main & Longwood, Burlington P&R, Oakville P&R), you save around 15 minutes per direction, which is 30 minutes round trip. And you can remove one bus from the route, while maintaining the same frequency.

The same principle applies to express trains, though the effect is less dramatic because each stop skipped only saves about 2 minutes, or 3 minutes in areas with very high track speeds (e.g. Appleby, Bronte, Clarkson). If you can run from Kitchener to Toronto in 1h40 (as 6-car express trains did in 2021), you can run an hourly service with 4 trainsets. There would be 20 minutes of terminal time on average, partly to change the train's direction, but mostly to neutralise delays before the return trip. If the trip takes longer than about 1h50, running hourly service with only 4 trainsets would result in an average terminal time of only 10 minutes, which is too risky for such a long route travelling along single-tracked lines and unpredictable CN territory. So you'd need 5 trainsets. Compared to a 1h40 travel time, a 1h50 travel time results in 25% higher operating cost and lower ridership demand (revenue).

Bottom line: splitting a 12-car train into two 6-car trains does increase operating costs, but it's not double. On top of the speed related cost savings I described above, you also have the advantage that you can just park one of them off-peak and avoid dragging around 12 coaches all day even when they're not required. 12-car trains might make sense for some trains which run one express roundtrip at the peak of rush hour, but the trainsets which will be running most of the off-peak local service should be kept as short as practical.

 

[smallspy]

Every minute you cut off of a GO bus/train schedule makes it a bit more competitive against the alternatives. Sure, a 12-car train with one 4-axle diesel locomotive may be "adequate" for GO's specifications, but the same locomotive pulling 6 coaches will get people from point A to point B several minutes quicker and attract a few more potential riders - as long as crowding isn't a problem. Hence the need for express services, particularly during busier periods.

Sure, but......

Who's paying for all of those additional costs?

Dan

 

[Deadpool X]

Sure, but......

Who's paying for all of those additional costs?

Dan

Revenue from new passengers who will shift from cars to GO if the latter is faster and more frequent.

 

[EnviroTO]

Bottom line: splitting a 12-car train into two 6-car trains does increase operating costs, but it's not double.

It isn't double, but the highest operating costs for the transport industry are typically staffing and fuel and those costs would be close to double. You would keep the number of train cars the same so that would be equal, but there would be double the locomotives, double the staff, more energy but not double (double the locomotives but not as much energy used to pull the train), and some improvement on speed would mean over time the same train could potentially run an additional trip which is savings. However there are other factors that could make it a wise change such as higher ridership overall due to convenient service, an electrified train which would increase speed more significantly than simply switching to diesel pulled 6-car trains, and of course if there was anything that could be done to reduce staffing that would help too but admittedly that is more easily done in metros than regional rail. Massive trains with a single attendant is pretty efficient on the staffing side of things. At some point perhaps there is more value in having station platform attendants than accessibility car attendants, and a continued push to reduce the number of people needing to see a ticketing counter (i.e. categorizing the transactions happening at ticket windows and determining how to reduce those activities; for example reducing Presto card issues). Driverless trains are probably a ways off yet... but with driverless cars coming it would actually be easier to implement automated trains on heavy rail.

 

[KevinT]

Who's paying for all of those additional costs?

Ideally the increased ridership due to the better service patterns.

 

[reaperexpress]

Sure, but......

Who's paying for all of those additional costs?

In the longer term, the passengers. Full trains are profitable.
In the short term, the taxpayers. You need to have an attractive service before you can fill up trains.

Nederlandse Spoorwegen, who runs 12 trains per hour off-peak on my local line (2 intercity + 6 regional express + 4 local), turned a profit prior to the pandemic. In 2019 they turned a profit of € 215 Million, which was returned to the Government of the Netherlands. Their costs do not include the entire costs of building/maintaining railways (they pay fairly affordable track fees), but the profits of bus companies also don't include the entire costs of building/maintaining highways, and car ownership/operations costs don't cover any significant portion of road/highway construction or maintenance.

GO is currently in the stage where they need to incur losses in order to generate the ridership required to profitably support regular off-peak train service. It takes time for travel patterns and development travels to change in response to improved train service.

GO Transit 2018-2019 Annual Report

GO Expansion Business Case, page 130:

 

[ARG1]

This was from a reddit post discussing the service "increase" from last week.

I really hope this is fake... I hope to god that this is fake.

 

[anb]

That's a whole month later than when I checked the schedules and I couldn't go past May 25-27. This is only for the Barrie line, but the terrifying thought of the overall network not getting an update until all the way June is absurd. Its already a ridiculous date, but I pray to god if anything we can at least get the major change in May and not a second later than that...

 

[ShonTron]

That's a whole month later than when I checked the schedules and I couldn't go past May 25-27. This is only for the Barrie line, but the terrifying thought of the overall network not getting an update until all the way June is absurd. Its already a ridiculous date, but I pray to god if anything we can at least get the major change in May and not a second later than that...

I think the only thing with the Barrie Line is that a lot of construction is going on right now, especially around Davenport Diamond, that resumption of full service on that corridor will come later.

Or so I hope.

 

[LNahid2000]

That's a whole month later than when I checked the schedules and I couldn't go past May 25-27. This is only for the Barrie line, but the terrifying thought of the overall network not getting an update until all the way June is absurd. Its already a ridiculous date, but I pray to god if anything we can at least get the major change in May and not a second later than that...

All the schedules on their website go to June 24 now. Hopefully that date isn't set in stone...waiting until then for more service is insane.

 

[smallspy]

Revenue from new passengers who will shift from cars to GO if the latter is faster and more frequent.

Fare revenue won't cover all of the costs. There will need to be more money given by the government.

I also suspect that Metrolinx's numbers are overstated and that the reality is that the fare revenue will never cover the operating costs.

Dan

 

[denfromoakvillemilton]

Guys, the election is June 6. Don't expect to hear anything until after then. Just the truth.

 

[Urban Sky]

Fare revenue won't cover all of the costs. There will need to be more money given by the government.

I also suspect that Metrolinx's numbers are overstated and that the reality is that the fare revenue will never cover the operating costs.

Dan

I doubt that there are many (if any) cities on this planet with very decent public transit which recover all of their operating costs.

If we look at Germany, the farebox recovery rate for public transit systems in Germany hovers around 75% (most probably much less during Covid times):

Source: German Association of Transport Companies (VDV)

Furthermore, the farebox recovery rate seems to be lower in metropolitan areas as these examples show:

• VGN (Transit network in the Greater Nürnberg Area): 53.8% in 2016
• Rhein-Main Verkehrsverbund (Transit network in the Greater Frankfurt Area): 56% in 2014
• BVG (equivalent of TTC in Berlin): also 56% in 2014
• MVV (Transit network in the Greater Munich Area): 60.5% in 1995
• HVV (Transit network in the Greater Hamburg Area): 74% in 2017 (or 2018?)
• Rheinbahn (equivalent of TTC in Düsseldorf): 78.7% in 2019
• Hamburger Hochbahn (equivalent of TTC in Hamburg): "almost 90%" in 2017

 

[Northern Light]

Guys, the election is June 6. Don't expect to hear anything until after then. Just the truth.

They have until the writ drops to get a gov't photo-op out of service improvement.

Given this gov'ts reliance on the '905' as a path to electoral victory, and given that both I and Smallspy have heard of significant service improvements coming in the near term, I would be surprised
to see everything deferred to post-election. But anything is possible.

I hasten to add, every party will have a transit platform; and GO service will likely be a part of all them in some fashion.

 

[Jonny5]

Fare revenue won't cover all of the costs. There will need to be more money given by the government.

I also suspect that Metrolinx's numbers are overstated and that the reality is that the fare revenue will never cover the operating costs.

Dan

The notes are the most instructive part of that presentation. The exclusion of PRESTO fare collection costs is something that jumps out to me as a significant item. I know that Metrolinx is also billing those costs as operator of PRESTO, but that revenue is then used to cover the operating expenses of a different Metrolinx division, and that makes the published ratio for GO less useful, and that's only one of the exclusions listed. The process is quite opaque, which is very Metrolinx, though it's the same at other transit agencies too. I place little value in the cost recovery ratio as it's so easy to manipulate it given the wide range of possible inclusions and exclusions from any agency and values shifted from capital to operating account. It's useless compared to a detailed income and expense statement, and using it as a comparison to other jurisdictions is truly bizarre and pointless.