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NYU Students make use of MTA data to highlight NYC Bus performance


JubaionBx12+SBS

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If you read Brooklyn Bus' posts concerning Operations Planning, the answer to why the buses are totally messed up is there. The pencil pushers, penny savers, the screen lookers and the lawyers are all part of the problem and that is why when I read about another attempt to try to make service better (this time by a group of outsiders who do not understand how a bureaucracy works), I scream Oh No! not another group that will mess up the system even more that it is now. What this group is doing makes the bureaucracy scream with glee as it lends to support to their nonsensical ideas that a screen is a far superior method than being on the street every day.

The bus routes ran the best when the dispatchers were on the street monitoring service and not sitting in some office looking at a screen as the same route can have five different running times over five different days. The man on the street is the key to running time and since they have been virtually eliminated by the screen lookers and the penny savers who have no concept of how a bus route operates except from a screen, we can virtually forget about the routes running properly when there is any sort of a delay on route. As long as there is a bias against having dispatchers on the street on a regular basis to serve all lines, nothing will change.

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If you read Brooklyn Bus' posts concerning Operations Planning, the answer to why the buses are totally messed up is there. The pencil pushers, penny savers, the screen lookers and the lawyers are all part of the problem and that is why when I read about another attempt to try to make service better (this time by a group of outsiders who do not understand how a bureaucracy works), I scream Oh No! not another group that will mess up the system even more that it is now. What this group is doing makes the bureaucracy scream with glee as it lends to support to their nonsensical ideas that a screen is a far superior method than being on the street every day.

The bus routes ran the best when the dispatchers were on the street monitoring service and not sitting in some office looking at a screen as the same route can have five different running times over five different days. The man on the street is the key to running time and since they have been virtually eliminated by the screen lookers and the penny savers who have no concept of how a bus route operates except from a screen, we can virtually forget about the routes running properly when there is any sort of a delay on route. As long as there is a bias against having dispatchers on the street on a regular basis to serve all lines, nothing will change.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with that.  Sometimes I would get the X1, X2, X9 or other lines along Hylan Blvd.  There was a dispatcher at Hylan and Clove Road who was supposed to be ensuring that all express bus lines along the corridor were running efficiently, especially the X1.  Well what did he do? He would hold buses there and sit back and BS and chit-chat with the B/Os.  Buses that should've continued on to deal with crowding further on down the line didn't, and by the time they reached Hylan and Narrows Road South, you still have uneven loads, with some buses near empty and others practically crush loaded. I hate to say it but some of these dispatchers need someone watching them as well.  What I hate about having dispatchers out is ALL of the buses come late instead of on-time, and they do so because they know dispatch will be there so they show up late to ensure they won't be written up sitting a bus stops in the process instead of keeping it moving.  That in no way helps make service better and it's such a stupid practice that it should go away.  We should be focusing on buses adhering to the schedules, and for a multitude of reasons, that seems nearly impossible these days.

 

There needs to be an attitude change towards the whole process. There is too much effort on making sure buses don't run hot, and not enough emphasis on making sure buses run on-time, and the (MTA) should come up with another metric. I don't like the whole idea of doing away with schedules which is what the (MTA) has been trying to go with.  Reward drivers who are punctual, perhaps with some sort of monetary incentive.  

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I don't know if I necessarily agree with that.  Sometimes I would get the X1, X2, X9 or other lines along Hylan Blvd.  There was a dispatcher at Hylan and Clove Road who was supposed to be ensuring that all express bus lines along the corridor were running efficiently, especially the X1.  Well what did he do? He would hold buses there and sit back and BS and chit-chat with the B/Os.  Buses that should've continued on to deal with crowding further on down the line didn't, and by the time they reached Hylan and Narrows Road South, you still have uneven loads, with some buses near empty and others practically crush loaded. I hate to say it but some of these dispatchers need someone watching them as well.  What I hate about having dispatchers out is ALL of the buses come late instead of on-time, and they do so because they know dispatch will be there so they show up late to ensure they won't be written up sitting a bus stops in the process instead of keeping it moving.  That in no way helps make service better and it's such a stupid practice that it should go away.  We should be focusing on buses adhering to the schedules, and for a multitude of reasons, that seems nearly impossible these days.

 

There needs to be an attitude change towards the whole process. There is too much effort on making sure buses don't run hot, and not enough emphasis on making sure buses run on-time, and the (MTA) should come up with another metric. I don't like the whole idea of doing away with schedules which is what the (MTA) has been trying to go with.  Reward drivers who are punctual, perhaps with some sort of monetary incentive.  

 

Yup, most of the dispatchers I've seen just stood around chatting all day. There still are a good number on the street, but even with their tablets and technology I don't see them do much of anything. 

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If you read Brooklyn Bus' posts concerning Operations Planning, the answer to why the buses are totally messed up is there. The pencil pushers, penny savers, the screen lookers and the lawyers are all part of the problem and that is why when I read about another attempt to try to make service better (this time by a group of outsiders who do not understand how a bureaucracy works), I scream Oh No! not another group that will mess up the system even more that it is now. What this group is doing makes the bureaucracy scream with glee as it lends to support to their nonsensical ideas that a screen is a far superior method than being on the street every day.

The bus routes ran the best when the dispatchers were on the street monitoring service and not sitting in some office looking at a screen as the same route can have five different running times over five different days. The man on the street is the key to running time and since they have been virtually eliminated by the screen lookers and the penny savers who have no concept of how a bus route operates except from a screen, we can virtually forget about the routes running properly when there is any sort of a delay on route. As long as there is a bias against having dispatchers on the street on a regular basis to serve all lines, nothing will change.

 

I mean, a screen can work if it's being used properly. You can see which buses are bunched up, and with the help of Automated Passenger Counters, you can see how crowded they are, and make your decisions accordingly. "Bus #XXXX. Please put up a short-turn sign and have the passengers going the rest of the line get off and wait for your follower who is 2 minutes behind you, and Bus #XXXY, please accept those passengers who need to go the full route"

 

I mean, all the screenshots we post about BusTime issues, it doesn't take a genius to realize when something should be done.

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I see that Clove and Hylan still has the same problems that I remember and I start my 8th year off the island next week. I should have made my comments much clearer in the fact that Brooklyn is where the dispatchers are scarce and my reference is to the B/44 where there used to be a dispatcher at Avenue U and Nostrand Avenue and that has impacted upon the B/3,36 and 44 and now there is one just at the junction.All three routes ran better with his presence as compared with now as it is nothing to see two SBS coming at the same time when there is a 10 minute interval between buses..

If my memory serves me correctly, the dispatchers pick their locations based on seniority and that is something that is controlled by union contracts.

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I see that Clove and Hylan still has the same problems that I remember and I start my 8th year off the island next week. I should have made my comments much clearer in the fact that Brooklyn is where the dispatchers are scarce and my reference is to the B/44 where there used to be a dispatcher at Avenue U and Nostrand Avenue and that has impacted upon the B/3,36 and 44 and now there is one just at the junction.All three routes ran better with his presence as compared with now as it is nothing to see two SBS coming at the same time when there is a 10 minute interval between buses..

If my memory serves me correctly, the dispatchers pick their locations based on seniority and that is something that is controlled by union contracts.

In general the lines that get a litany of complaints usually get the most attention.  They also try to space dispatchers where they can monitor the most lines at once.  For example, the BxM2 gets a lot of attention, especially the late buses.  When they go missing which happens from time-to-time, all hell breaks loose so then they'll put out a dispatcher to ensure that the bus comes as scheduled, but usually they'll have a dispatcher at Broadway and 230th, or Madison and 99th and sometimes one will be hiding by Central Park West and 81st. lol I remember a few years ago, my buddy was doing one of the last trips on Sunday night.  We come up near Central Park West and 81st and he's like is that a dispatcher over there? Sure enough he was hiding sort of out of sight.  Then we get to 99th and Madison, and there's another one.  Then he started asking me what happened, and I explained to him that there was an incident the prior week with a bus running hot.  It was rather funny to say the least, but that isn't the norm.

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Alright, there aint that much god damn data to load.... Someone care to summarize just what data that this website's supposed to be illustrating or whatever.... Good grief....

The three main metrics they mine for are excess wait time which is the average wait minus scheduled, route lateness factor (the percentage difference between travel times on late trips and the scheduled ones) and the average speed of the bus. 

 

My complaints would be the graphics used to present the data, they rely too much on purple (although I can see why they like that color) in addition to being poor visual aids of the metrics in general, and the route lateness factor algorithm is just off. There's no way routes like the Bx12+ should be showing lateness factors over 100% which in some samples of the data it does. I do commend them aiming for those three metrics though since the MTA doesn't make those publicly available if they're taking that data at all. 

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So when the B/44 SBS schedule says during a specific hour time frame has posted  that there is a bus every 20 minutes but does not specify the time , it means 20 minutes apart not at specific times?

We'll then I finally received an answer to the exact same question that I sent to the MTA  about five years ago about a posting like this at Kings Highway and their response was it was the City Department of Transportation that posted the schedule forgetting that it is the MTA that provides the scheduling information for the signs.

Yesterday, I was waiting for a B/44 SBS and their big poster board listed a B/44 local coming but when it arrived, it was the B/44 SBS. If there was not a fine wonderful person waiting for the bus who took that run on regular basis who knew that this particular run was an SBS not a local, I would have never known about it.

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So when the B/44 SBS schedule says during a specific hour time frame has posted  that there is a bus every 20 minutes but does not specify the time , it means 20 minutes apart not at specific times?

We'll then I finally received an answer to the exact same question that I sent to the MTA  about five years ago about a posting like this at Kings Highway and their response was it was the City Department of Transportation that posted the schedule forgetting that it is the MTA that provides the scheduling information for the signs.

Yesterday, I was waiting for a B/44 SBS and their big poster board listed a B/44 local coming but when it arrived, it was the B/44 SBS. If there was not a fine wonderful person waiting for the bus who took that run on regular basis who knew that this particular run was an SBS not a local, I would have never known about it.

It means they want to give drivers the freedom to go rogue but you should expect over the course of an hour 3 buses to show up so it averages out to 'every 20 mins'. 

 

On a related note, I was standing at Pelham Pkwy/Eastchester and an elderly couple was waiting for the Bx12 Select one afternoon. This couple along with other riders were waiting close to 20 minutes for a bus to show up and the lady of that couple was curious as to when the buses are scheduled to show. I pointed them to the schedule and when they saw "Every 5 to 6 min" written on there for the specific hour in question their reply was, "No bus arrives that often". When you have riders questioning whether low headway bus routes exist in NYC, especially while waiting for one that merits those headways, shows there's a problem with the way such routes are performing. Just letting the riders know what the headways are is misleading at the least.

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You're not interpreting that right. It's saying late Q58 trips (how ever many those are) take 81% longer end to end than scheduled trips. That is even more ridiculous.

That's now what that 81%. That means that the typical trip takes 81% longer than it's scheduled (so if a trip is scheduled to take an hour, it normally takes about 1 hour and 48 minutes).

Okay, so it's 81% late (and not the other way around). Got it.

 

Still though, that's pretty big. Imagine if the route was fully local.

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If you read Brooklyn Bus' posts concerning Operations Planning, the answer to why the buses are totally messed up is there. The pencil pushers, penny savers, the screen lookers and the lawyers are all part of the problem and that is why when I read about another attempt to try to make service better (this time by a group of outsiders who do not understand how a bureaucracy works), I scream Oh No! not another group that will mess up the system even more that it is now. What this group is doing makes the bureaucracy scream with glee as it lends to support to their nonsensical ideas that a screen is a far superior method than being on the street every day.

 

The bus routes ran the best when the dispatchers were on the street monitoring service and not sitting in some office looking at a screen as the same route can have five different running times over five different days. The man on the street is the key to running time and since they have been virtually eliminated by the screen lookers and the penny savers who have no concept of how a bus route operates except from a screen, we can virtually forget about the routes running properly when there is any sort of a delay on route. As long as there is a bias against having dispatchers on the street on a regular basis to serve all lines, nothing will change.

I believe they do need more dispatchers on the street. But those dispatchers also need to be properly trained and watched. I have seen dispatchers make decisions that made the situation worse. I also once documented a dispatcher holding a bus for 30 minutes before he ran off to the depot rather than allowing him to are a needed short trip in that time. He held the bus just to give the operator overtime, not to help passengers.

 

That said, I don't believe that computer screens are useless. We have the technology to use those screens and passenger counting technology to make intelligent decisions from a central point. But how often if at all is that done? A dispatcher once posted on BusChat that instead of watching the buses, the screen watchers were playing video games instead.

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Okay, so it's 81% late (and not the other way around). Got it.

 

Still though, that's pretty big. Imagine if the route was fully local.

 

I would take that number with a grain of salt, considering the numbers shown for the Bx12 & S79. I mean, you live near the Q58. Do trips typically take 81% longer than the scheduled time?

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Okay, so it's 81% late (and not the other way around). Got it.

 

Still though, that's pretty big. Imagine if the route was fully local.

Funny....The on time trips are on time....

.....but when the Q58 is late, they're that late?

 

I'd like to know what route they have as being the most late then....

 

Numbers can be useful, but they should be used the right way.... To put it out there that late trips on that route are 81% late is indicative of this website or whatever trying to push a narrative... We get the general point, there is a problem w/ lateness w/ buses system-wide....

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There needs to be an attitude change towards the whole process. There is too much effort on making sure buses don't run hot, and not enough emphasis on making sure buses run on-time, and the (MTA) should come up with another metric. I don't like the whole idea of doing away with schedules which is what the (MTA) has been trying to go with.  Reward drivers who are punctual, perhaps with some sort of monetary incentive.  

 

That wouldn't be fair to drivers who drive congested routes. Say you pick a long route like the M101 (or even a congested crosstown route), leave the depot on-time, leave the terminal on-time, get delayed en-route, and now you're leaving the terminal late for the rest of the day. You also don't want drivers driving unsafely for the sake of getting those incentives.

 

And yes, there are drivers who know what they're doing, leave the terminal late, and make up for it en-route. I'd much rather that happen than having them sit at stops when they're early, or worse, drive like a snail and miss green lights (which not only pisses off riders, but also any drivers who may be behind that bus, and also contributes to the notion that buses are slow).

 

What they need to do is create better schedules, and work to find ways to make sure buses can adhere to those schedules (e.g. More bus lanes so there's not that variability due to traffic)

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That wouldn't be fair to drivers who drive congested routes. Say you pick a long route like the M101 (or even a congested crosstown route), leave the depot on-time, leave the terminal on-time, get delayed en-route, and now you're leaving the terminal late for the rest of the day. You also don't want drivers driving unsafely for the sake of getting those incentives.

 

And yes, there are drivers who know what they're doing, leave the terminal late, and make up for it en-route. I'd much rather that happen than having them sit at stops when they're early, or worse, drive like a snail and miss green lights (which not only pisses off riders, but also any drivers who may be behind that bus, and also contributes to the notion that buses are slow).

 

What they need to do is create better schedules, and work to find ways to make sure buses can adhere to those schedules (e.g. More bus lanes so there's not that variability due to traffic)

A lot of the schedules have already been updated so that's a moot point overall.  There are also a lot of drivers who leave the terminal late, and NEVER make up for it en-route, and this scenario plays out more than it should and needs to stop.  Leaving the terminal say 5 minutes late is ok, but 10 - 20 minutes is not ok. This has even happened late at night when there is no need to be leaving the terminal that late, and it elongates an already long commute.

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A lot of the schedules have already been updated so that's a moot point overall.  There are also a lot of drivers who leave the terminal late, and NEVER make up for it en-route, and this scenario plays out more than it should and needs to stop.  Leaving the terminal say 5 minutes late is ok, but 10 - 20 minutes is not ok. This has even happened late at night when there is no need to be leaving the terminal that late, and it elongates an already long commute.

 

OK, that I can agree on. Leaving 10+ minutes late is overkill and they'll most likely never get back on schedule.

 

FWIW, I remember talking to an MTA representative, and asking how they make sure the runtimes aren't too long (in other words, if a bus shows up on-time at Timepoint A & Timepoint B, how can they be sure that the driver isn't dragging the line between those points to avoid running early?) If a driver shows up on-time to A and early to B, or late to A and on-time to B, then it's obvious the B/O was able to make it in less time than the schedule allowed, but if the B/O shows up on-time to both points but was crawling like the S53 I had earlier, then there's no way of telling just from BusTime data alone.

 

Funny....The on time trips are on time....

.....but when the Q58 is late, they're that late?

 

I'd like to know what route they have as being the most late then....

 

Numbers can be useful, but they should be used the right way.... To put it out there that late trips on that route are 81% late is indicative of this website or whatever trying to push a narrative... We get the general point, there is a problem w/ lateness w/ buses system-wide....

 

It's saying that the typical trip on the Q58 is 81% late. So some are 79% late, some are 83% late, etc.

 

I think it's just an error. I checked some SI routes, and I was getting numbers in the 10-20% range. I think I checked the Q77 & Q77 and got like 9% or something. So for some reason, certain routes (Bx12, S79, Q58) seem to have bad data points or something.

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