Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edition

[officedweller]

Came across this document, which is used by transportation engineers when preparing transit studies (that's where I saw the reference, in an engineering report).

THIS IS A MUST READ - INCUDES LOTS OF INTERESTING DATA - incl. TO, SF and Vancouver

TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 100: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edition contains background, statistics, and graphics on the various types of public transportation, and provides a framework for measuring transit availability and quality of service from the passenger point of view. The report contains quantitative techniques for calculating the capacity of bus, rail, and ferry transit services, and transit stops, stations, and terminals.

This should provide some insight into the carrying capacities of the various modes of bus rapid transit, light rail, heavy rail, etc.

Have a good read! Right click on each chapter and "Save Target as..."

trb.org/news/blurb_detail.asp?id=2326

 

[rbtaylor]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

Another interesting tidbit. Toronto (and most) two track systems can carry 30k passengers per hour.

Hong Kong apparently can put 80k passengers per hour through on one of their two-track lines (New York Quad tracked lines don't reach that throughput -- they peak at about 70k passengers per hour).

Anyone know how they do it? Photos don't show anything strange like 16 car trains.

Obviously they approach 30 second headways somehow -- automated transit in Canada has a 90 second headway requirement for safety.

 

[rbtaylor]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

Learning lots about the TTC at the moment.

Descriptions of our light rail lines are almost funny. Nearly every LRT line in other cities has well under 50 stations is over 40km in length.

Queen Street, by comparison, is 24.5km in length and has 210 stations. If you didn't know how Queen street was laid out compared to the other services (many of which have formal stations) you might think the entire street was one huge platform.

 

[wyliepoon]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

Anyone know how they do it?

1. Extremely high urban density. MTR's urban subway lines are built in some of the densest urban neighbourhoods in the world, so it has a massive passenger base to work with.

2. The biggest single-deck subway train cars in the world (from what I read in a book), with articulated connections between cars, and bench seating only, to hold as many people as possible. Five big doors on each side of the car allows for quick loading times.

3. Things like automated fare collection, designing transfer stations to allow passengers to transfer between lines by crossing an island platform help to move passengers quickly through the MTR system.

4. There are very few delays on the MTR. Even if there is a problem in the system, it is resolved very quickly.

5. MTR offers frequent rider incentives like discount coupons and free collectibles, which make people want to take the subway.

MTR rush hour frequencies as officially posted are 2.1 minutes for morning peak and 2.4-2.6 minutes for afternoon peak on urban lines.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

"Anyone know how they do it?"

Maybe they have much higher turnover along the route.

 

[rbtaylor]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

1. Extremely high urban density. MTR's urban subway lines are built in some of the densest urban neighbourhoods in the world, so it has a massive passenger base to work with.

5. MTR offers frequent rider incentives like discount coupons and free collectibles, which make people want to take the subway.

These explain why they do it -- not how. 2 through 4 help explain the how.

My point was that Toronto's subway system has a theoretical limit of about 35000 passengers per hour though a given point.

New Yorks Quad tracked lines have a theoretical limit of about 65000 passengers per hour through a single point (which they frequently hit). These are technical limitations resulting from train size, signaling (safety) requirements, etc.

The Hong Kong line actually reaches 80000 passengers per hour through a single point on dual-track. Something that is not even possible at any point in the New York subway system -- even the Quad tracked lines.

MTR rush hour frequencies as officially posted are 2.1 minutes for morning peak and 2.4-2.6 minutes for afternoon peak on urban lines.

2.1 minute headway? That's not all that much better than the 3.2 minute headways the TTC achieves today -- we max out at 2 minutes. New cab based signaling and speed controls should allow for 90 second headways that gets us to about 50000 passengers per hour (theoretical limit).

What this means is that MTR trains are capable of holding nearly twice as many people compared to a typical Toronto train. I had no idea they were so big. Toronto trains appear quite large compared to most in New York or London.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

rbt:

I suspect the functional capacity gain after signal improvements would less than expected, due to system choke points at interchanges like Bloor and Yonge) where the station infrastructure (e.g. staircases/esclators) would have difficulty handling the additional load.

AoD

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

"What this means is that MTR trains are capable of holding nearly twice as many people compared to a typical Toronto train."

Asian people are smaller, too. Are there many obese people in Hong Kong? They don't wear winter coats, either. Their trains probably arent full of people dragging suitcases instead of briefcases, strollers, bikes, etc.

 

[El Chico905]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

The Hong Kong trains are just really big compared to Toronto. The Island line is crazy long and the cross platform two station interchanges(one station for each direction) really help.

 

[wyliepoon]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

Here's MTR's explanation on how they do it...

Link

A Service of World-class Quality

We are currently operating a railway network of 91.0 kilometres route with 53 stations. With a daily patronage of over 2.4 million passengers, our system is one of the most intensively utilized systems in the world.

Our railway provides 19 hours of passenger service daily from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. and we carry out all the track and lineside maintenance works during the non-traffic hours between 1a.m. and 5a.m..

To ensure maximum safety and reliability, trains are operated with automatic control and protection systems which regulate the distance between trains, determine the optimal rates of acceleration and braking as well as the coasting speeds on different sections of the track. The routing and timing of train movements are controlled by signalling computer systems according to scheduled timetables from our control centre at Tsing Yi.

The planning of the service timetable is based on passenger demand, taking into account the morning and evening peaks on normal working days. For instance, during the morning peak hours, 8-car trains with a capacity for 2,500 passengers will run at 2.1 minute intervals, carrying 70,000 passengers per hour per direction on the Tsuen Wan Line. Each of the Urban Lines , however, is capable of running 34 trains per hour in each direction. This gives a full capacity of 85,000 passengers for each Urban Line in each direction.

To meet escalating passenger demands, the Corporation expanded its train fleet from 140 cars in 1979 to 1,050 cars in 2005 (including 88 cars for the Airport Express and 12 cars for the Disneyland Resort Line), 88.4% of which are in service to meet the daily morning peak demand.

 

[rbtaylor]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

Very imressive indeed. 2500 people per train.

An 8 car TTC train would have a capacity of around 1328 people at fat Canadians who don't like to touch eachother standards.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Re: Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, 2nd Edit

What's the capacity with fat people with winter coats and those rolling briefcases who don't like to touch each other? Throw in a few homeless guys and thugs onto the trains to further disperse the riders like Dawn in puddle of grease and you probably won't hit 500 per train.