Watch 'Real-Time' Transit Planning Help North America's Busiest Bus Line

[Turbo19]

Vancouver has a problem with its 99 Broadway bus that most cities would envy: it's too popular. The 99 is part of a Broadway bus corridor that's considered the busiest in North America, carrying about 100,000 riders a day. At some stops, despite coming every few minutes during morning rush, the buses hardly put a dent in the lines of passengers awaiting the next one.

 

So that's a good problem, but it's still a problem — especially at the stop outside the Broadway-Commercial SkyTrain station. Here, commuters leaving the train station to catch the 99 fork into three lines to board the front, middle, and rear bus entrances. But these lines can get so long they curl around the block back into the train station.

 

TransLink, the metro area transit authority, wanted better control of the queue to avoid safety hazards and keep riders from blocking the sidewalk. But past efforts to manage long bus lines had not always turned out well. More traditional approaches, often based on impersonal queuing models or data-based passenger counts, led to ineffective interventions that riders simply ignored and cut through.

 

This time the planning firm Nelson\Nygaard took a different approach: they decided to intervene with the 99 Broadway lines in real-time. So they brought a few basic tools to the site — some sidewalk tape, a few stanchions, chalk — and over the course of a few morning rushes tested out which queuing methods got the best rider response. The situation made for a perfect testing ground, because every few minutes brought a new experimental sample of riders.

 

Read more: Source

[Tokkemon]

All the more reason to build a fourth subway line in Vancouver down that corridor.

[Missabassie]

Perhaps it's time to consider bi-articulated buses, though I'm not sure if the streets can support that... however

 

All the more reason to build a fourth subway line in Vancouver down that corridor.

this is probably the best solution.

[theaveragejoe]

Its called Skytrain not Subway in Vancouver

[Tokkemon]

Its called Skytrain not Subway in Vancouver

 

I know that, I lived there for a decade. But they likely won't build an elevated there given the residents of Kitts Beach and elsewhere opposing such a massive edifice in their neighborhood. Besides, the Canada Line is a subway. That's why I said subway line and not Elevated Advanced Rapid Transit Line.

[theaveragejoe]

They are expanding the Skytrain and have plans to expand the lines.