Bus shortages: how do they work?
We’ve all seen news that the STM is short of buses, but I’ve seen no explanations how they decide where to distribute the shortages. Do they cancel departures on different routes in turn? (My customary 55 bus has vanished this week, for example. I’m blogging from a bus stop after Transit told me to expect a 17-minute wait, which has already elapsed.)
brett 10:40 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
Ugh, the buses are terrible. I waited in vain on Wednesday for the 110 to show up at Angrignon station at 14:44 – and this is a bus that comes every half an hour! Just imagine the size of the lineup..
Out of curiosity, does anyone fill out the complaints form for no-show buses on the STM website?
dhomas 10:42 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
My bus used to pass every 6 (or maybe 10) minutes during rush hour when I moved in here, The other day, there was 24 minutes between buses. Not impressed. Luckily, I live 2 stops away from the metro , so it’s only about a 7 minute walk, but on cold days it’s nice to have the bus available.
Daniel 10:55 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
We’re half a block from a bus stop where, depending on the time of day, the bus is supposed to come every 30 minutes. The other day we checked what is supposedly the live bus tracker on the STM website and then shot out the door to wait a minute or two for the next bus. We ended up waiting 15 to 20 minutes.
I was trying to do everything right! We can often be flexible with timing, but it would be nice to avoid standing around in the cold for no reason when our warm home is just steps away.
Spi 11:39 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
Aren’t buses and bus routes assigned to certain bus depots? So if your bus depot has a deficit of buses then you’d be chronically short, it would be more logical to have planned reduction (not announce it or acknowledge it) in services given a reduced fleet size than rotating cuts to lines.
Meezly 12:27 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
Since Transit is unreliable, I always cross-reference with the STM bus schedule website via my phone. I learned the hard way that my 8:47 bus is sometimes removed from the schedule on Thursday and/or Friday. So a scheduled bus can vary throughout the week.
@brett, I always try to send a complaint to STM after a schedules bus is MIA, or if the driver drives by a queue of passengers at the bus stop if their bus was full (or not even that full). They actually responded (eventually) to a few of my many complaints. Once, they replied apologetically to say that a bus didn’t arrive because it had broken down.
I even wrote to them about why buses are designed to always end at a metro station which creates fragmented bus routes instead of continuous ones. A few weeks later, one of the STM bus planners phoned me to provide an explanation! It was completely unexpected. But we had a good conversation.
The STM system is definitely flawed, but it seems that they are trying to make an effort. The planner explained that in the new year the STM will be organizing public consultations, and the planner encouraged me to attend if I have concerns.
jeather 13:35 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
I’ve never found the website to be particularly accurate, when I take the 24 the numbers on the “next bus in x minutes” seem to be random and uncorrelated with the actual wait time. (No idea about the 165, which leaves so often it doesn’t matter.)
CE 14:43 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
The 80 is the bus I take the most and it’s been bad. Just yesterday, a bus don’t show up and when the next scheduled one arrived, it was a regular sized bus full of two articulated busloads of passengers. It was cramped to say the least.
That being said, I’d rather they cut buses from a line like the 80 that comes often than from one where the bus only comes once every 20 minutes or half an hour. If one of those buses doesn’t arrive, it can really mess up a lot of people’s days!
Meezly 15:49 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
I mostly complain about the 35 or 168. And the 35 I take at the start of the route, so it’s easy to tell if the bus should arrive on time or not.
I also take the 80 regularly, but don’t tend to complain since it tends to run regularly enough. I have noticed that there have been more regular sized buses in lieu of the articulated ones, and I’m wondering if it’s because the articulated busses are getting long in the tooth and are requiring more repairs, breaking down more, etc.
Joey 19:15 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
A related problem with ghost buses is the fact that the next bus has to take on twice as many people, and since we don’t yet have rear boarding at every stop, it takes considerably longer at every stop, meaning the ghost bus is followed by a slow bus. The subsequent buses wind up moving too quickly, as they wind up catching up with the slow bus. By the time the slow bus is halfway down the route, there can be one or two half-empty buses right behind. Miss one of those (Murphy’s Law says the bus you need will go through a yellow while you’re waiting to cross from the other side of the street) and you’ll be out in the cold for a disproportionately long time. So one bus every X minutes can really mean three buses every 3X minutes, but they’re all clustered together so the wait is considerably longer.
Maybe routes like the 80 should have express buses that don’t stop at every block? My guess is this idea works better in theory than in practice, especially since the “local” and “express” buses would have to share the same reserved lane.
denpanosekai 20:15 on 2019-12-13 Permalink
Yeah fuck the buses. I just walk to the metro now.
Meezly 10:56 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
@denpanosekai, would love to, but I don’t live nor work near a metro stop.
@Joey, I had also brought up the timing thing when the STM planner called me, and he said that drivers are supposed to drive by bus stops if their bus is getting full and they know that there is an emptier bus close behind them, in order to space out the buses and catch up on their schedule if they’re running behind.
But obviously, not every driver does this. Certainly something worth complaining about to the STM.
EmilyG 11:22 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
The 470 is supposed to be an accordion bus, but yesterday it was a standard-length one.
TC 22:40 on 2019-12-14 Permalink
What’s up with Valerie Plante’s plan to increase the number of buses and improve bus service overall? If I remember correctly, the city approved the purchase of around 1000 new buses, split about 50/50 between replacing some of the current fleet and adding to it. When she proposed it during her campaign, I was impressed with the plan, hope it’s happening.