1
Report to Rapport au:
Transit Commission Commission du transport en commun 21 April 2021 / 21 avril 2021
Submitted on April 12, 2021 Soumis le 12 avril 2021
Submitted by Soumis par: John Manconi, General Manager / Directeur général, Transportation Services Department / Direction générale des transports
Contact Person Personne ressource: Pat Scrimgeour, Director / Directeur, Transit Customer Systems and Planning / Systèmes-clients et Planification du transport en commun 613-580-2424 ext./poste 52205, Pat.Scrimgeour@ottawa.ca
Ward: CITY WIDE / À L'ÉCHELLE DE LA File Number: ACS2021-TSD-TS-0007 VILLE SUBJECT: OC Transpo Performance Report for the Period Ending December 2020
OBJET: Rapport de Rendement d’OC Transpo pour la Période se Terminant en Décembre 2020
REPORT RECOMMENDATIONS
That the Transit Commission:
1. Receive this report for information;
2. Approve the inclusion of the two additional measures regarding customer safety as set out in this report, for presentation in future reports.
2
RECOMMANDATIONS DU RAPPORT
Que la Commission du transport en commun :
1. Prenne connaissance de ce rapport;
2. Approuve l’inclusion des deux mesures supplémentaires liées à la sécurité des usagers comme il est établi dans le présent rapport, qui seront présentées dans les prochains rapports.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Assumption and Analysis
Following the Transit Commission’s approval of OC Transpo’s performance reporting metrics on February 17, 2021 (ACS2021-TSD-TS-0002) this is the first twice-annual report illustrating operational performance. This report presents four categories of performance measures including customer safety, ridership, customer service, and service reliability. This report presents results from the 2020 calendar year.
Customer Safety
The customer injury rate is the number of injuries resulting from transit operations or activities resulting in transport to hospital per one million trips. The 2020 customer injury rate is 1.036, a 22 percent increase from 2019, however, there is a decrease in actual injuries, which dropped to 42 from 83 in 2019.
Following direction from Transit Commission, staff are proposing two added safety metrics for future reporting. To measure customer personal safety, staff propose including the crime rate on the transit system, including criminal code violations against persons or property and measured as reported crimes per hundred thousand customer trips. To give information on general injuries less severe than those already captured staff propose an additional measure accounting for any injury sustained on the transit system requiring treatment by paramedics but not requiring transport to hospital.
Ridership
Ridership is reported as the total number of linked trips on bus and O-Train service across the network. Ridership has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, ridership increased four percent over the previous year in January and February 2020, before dropping to 40 percent below 2019 levels in March, further to 86 percent below 2019 in April, before a slow increase over the rest of the 3 year. The result of the pandemic is that system ridership in the full 2020 calendar year was 58 percent lower than in 2019.
Ridership per capita allows for comparison amongst cities of various sizes. Ottawa’s per capita ridership, at 107 trips per person in 2019, was one of the highest in Canada with only the major urban centres of Toronto and Montreal reporting higher rates. However, it should be noted that these two cities have a large portion of their ridership from across their respective regions whereas most OC Transpo customers are from within Ottawa.
Para Transpo ridership, the total number of completed trips, increased by five percent in January and February 2020 compared to the same months in 2019 and then, like conventional transit, saw a rapid drop off in ridership with the onset of the pandemic. This led to an average of 27,000 customer trips per month from September to December, a decrease of 64 percent compared to 2019. Para Transpo booking requests show the number of requests versus cancellations and declined bookings. In 2020 only five trips were declined out of 518,000 requests. Cancellations peaked in April 2020 at 40 percent as the effects of the pandemic set in.
Customer Service
Customers contact OC Transpo in a variety of ways for various reasons, however the majority of calls received by the customer service team are to make or cancel Para Transpo trips, followed by customers seeking information. Calls to the customer service centre were the most used method of communication with OC Transpo in 2020 and the number of calls was affected by the pandemic. As the pandemic hit, like ridership, the volume of customers contacting customer service declined until June when there was a slight increase that then remained constant for the rest of the year, albeit at a level 67 percent lower than the same period in 2019.
The average time customers wait on the telephone to reach a customer service representative is captured by the average time to answer metric. In 2019 this average time was over 47 minutes in March, April, and May, however in 2020 no month exceeded a 10-minute average. In fact, the average wait time was only 16 seconds in May and 17 seconds in April.
Customers can also use a variety of automated customer service systems to access information and services. These include open data for mobile applications, octranspo.com, SMS messaging systems, and the Automated Schedule Announcement System. Customer use of each of these mirrors other measures and saw a substantial reduction throughout the pandemic. 4
Service Reliability
The service availability metric reflects the percent of scheduled service hours delivered and was over 97 percent for O-Train Line 1 from August onwards. This is due in part to completion of maintenance and operational work undertaken in the previous months. Service availability for bus service on weekdays was slightly lower than on weekends at 98 percent for the year compared to 99.4 percent on the weekends. Service availability for bus, O-Train Line 2 and overall service all increased in 2020 compared to 2019.
Excess wait times represent the additional time customers may wait at a Transitway Station, O-Train Station, or bus stop due to uneven spacing of buses or trains and is a way to measure regularity for all modes operating at a frequency of every 15 minutes or less. The excess wait time peaked at 15.4 percent for rapid and frequent bus service in May and reached a low of 0.5 percent on O-Train Line 1 in April. The average for 2020 saw customers waiting longer by 9.2 percent or 0.6 minutes for frequent and rapid buses and 4.2 percent or 0.1 minutes for O-Train Line 1.
Buses are more susceptible to variations in excess wait time due to external impacts such as peak hour traffic and congestion. Frequent routes which spend less time on the Transitway see more variation in this metric than rapid routes primarily on the Transitway.
On-time performance examines schedule adherence for buses operating every 16 minutes or less frequently and has remained stable throughout 2020 operating between 72 and 79 percent on time. Off peak service is better able to adhere to schedules than peak hour service delivery. Para Transpo on time performance, mini-buses and taxis that arrive within their 30-minute scheduled pick up window, increased from 83.9 percent in 2019 to 93.6 percent in 2020. Weekend on time performance for Para Transpo is also higher than weekday performance.
Finally, elevator availability measures the amount of time a station stays accessible with at least one functional elevator for use by customers. Overall, for 2020 elevator availability was 98.7 percent.
BACKGROUND
As approved by the Transit Commission on February 17, 2021, OC Transpo has established performance measures that will be reported to the Commission twice annually. This is the first performance report under this structure. Staff will also publish 5
monthly scorecards of several performance measures on octranspo.com beginning later in the year.
DISCUSSION
The performance measures in this report are presented in four categories: customer safety, ridership, customer service and service reliability. The data presented are for the 12-month period from January to December 2020, and are compared to the preceding 12-month period where data are available.
Customer Safety
Customer Injury Rate
This measure defines customer injuries as those where transport to hospital was required, and which occurred as a result of transit operations or activities. In order to empirically measure the prevalence of injury, this measure accounts for the number of people using the system and is reported as injuries per million trips. The injury rate in 2019 was 0.852 injuries per million trips; this increased 22 percent to 1.036 in 2020.
While the injury rate increased between 2019 and 2020, the number of injuries did not. There were fewer injuries in 2020 than 2019: 42 in 2020, compared to 83 in 2019. While the 2020 total is almost half that of the previous year, the overall rate was higher in 2020 due to the greatly diminished ridership during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Figure 1 shows the 12-month rolling injury rate in 2020. As comparable 2018 data are unavailable, a similar rolling average for 2019 cannot be prepared. This indicates an increasing rate of injury in the transit system over the course of 2020. Absolute numbers of injuries increased slightly in some months compared to 2019, though they remained small. Meanwhile, ridership decreased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a higher rate of injury per total trips. 6
Figure 1: Injury rate, 12-month rolling average
Injury rate, 12-month rolling average 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Injuries pertrips millionInjuries 2020
Recommended Additional Measures Related to Customer Safety
At its meeting of February 17, 2021, the Commission gave direction to staff to develop and present for approval additional measures related to safety. Staff recommend the following two additional measures:
1. To provide information on customers’ personal safety while using the transit system, staff recommend that the crime rate on the transit system be adopted as an additional measure. The crime rate includes crimes against both persons and property, other criminal code offences, criminal code traffic offences, and drug related offences. This measure will be reported as the total criminal code of Canada offenses per hundred thousand customer-trips. These data are not yet tabulated for 2020 and will be included in the next report to the Commission in Fall 2021.
2. To provide information on injuries that are less severe than those shown above in the customer injury rate, staff recommend adding an additional measure. Following the principles set out in OC Transpo’s Safety Management System, all customer injuries are rated on a scale from Level 1, the least severe, to Level 5, the most severe. The current customer injury rate above in Figure 1 is for injuries that are rated Level 3 or more, with the distinguishing characteristic being that the injured person was transported to hospital. Staff recommend that a second measure be added for injuries that are rated Level 2, with the distinguishing characteristic being that the injury was treated by paramedics. These data have not yet been tabulated for 2020. Staff will begin reporting this measure in the next regular report. 7
Ridership
Bus and O-Train Ridership
Ridership is reported as total linked trips on bus and O-Train across the OC Transpo network. Figure 2 shows monthly ridership for each month of 2020 as compared to 2019.
A linked trip is a complete trip from a customer’s origin (for instance, home) to their destination (for instance, work), regardless of the number of transfers between buses or trains.
When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Ottawa in March 2020, transit ridership declined quickly, and now, in early 2021, it remains a fraction of pre-pandemic levels due to the ongoing impacts of the pandemic and the associated public health restrictions. This impact has been felt across Canada and in almost every major urban centre worldwide. As in other major Canadian cities, ridership levels in Ottawa dropped over 80 percent in the beginning of the pandemic.
While system-wide ridership in the months of January and February 2020 increased four percent compared to the same period in 2019, March ridership was 40 percent below 2019 levels. In April, ridership decreased further, by 86 percent compared to the previous year. While there were some increases starting in the second half of the year, ridership remained significantly lower than in 2019. O-Train Line 1 ridership was particularly impacted by the pandemic. Trip volumes on Line 1 declined 47 percent in March compared to the previous month, and 78 percent in April. Systemwide, ridership in the full calendar year 2020 was 58 percent lower than in 2019. 8
Figure 2: Bus and O-Train Ridership
Bus and O-Train Ridership 10,000,000
8,000,000
6,000,000
4,000,000 Ridership
2,000,000
0 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2019 2020
Bus and O-Train Ridership per Capita
This measure is calculated annually. The figures below are for 2018 and 2019, and the 2020 calculation will be provided in the next performance report, when it can be presented in the context of the same measure for other major Canadian cities.
Figure 3 provides a comparison of ridership per capita between Ottawa and other Canadian cities. Ottawa had 107 trips per capita in 2019, down slightly from 108 in 2018. This indicates a consistent rate of ridership from residents. The population of the city’s Urban Transit Area was estimated to be 924,740 in 2019. Ottawa‘s ridership per capita rate is among the highest nationally, with only the major metropolitan areas of Toronto and Montréal having higher per capita ridership, and in those cities a higher proportion of the ridership is made by customers who live outside the municipality than is the case in Ottawa. 9
Figure 3: Ridership per Capita by Year
Ridership per Capita by Year
250 225 227
200 176 173
150 100 101 108 107 91 100 89 83 83
50
- Vancouver Edmonton Calgary Toronto Ottawa Montreal
2018 2019
Para Transpo Ridership
This measure represents the number of customer-trips completed on Para Transpo. Figure 4 shows monthly ridership for 2020 compared to 2019.
Para Transpo ridership increased five percent over 2019 levels for the months of January and February 2020. As with conventional transit, however, Para Transpo ridership declined significantly in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Ridership decreased 43 percent in March compared to the previous year, and April saw the biggest year-over-year decrease, at 86 percent. Between September and December, the ridership level stabilized and remained consistent, with an average of 27,000 customer-trips per month. This represents a decrease of 64 percent compared to the same period in 2019. 10
Figure 4: Para Transpo Ridership
Para Transpo Ridership 90,000 80,000 70,000 60,000 50,000 40,000
Ridership 30,000 20,000 10,000 0
2019 2020
Para Transpo booking requests represent the total number of trips that were requested by customers. In the figure below, those requests are broken down into three categories. Customer-trips, presented earlier, represent booking requests that were fulfilled and completed. Cancellations after booking occur when booking requests are cancelled by customers after the request was accepted. Declined bookings are requests that could not be accommodated by OC Transpo at the time of booking and are a measure of whether the system has insufficient capacity for the level of demand. Figure 5 shows the proportion of bookings that resulted in customer-trips versus cancellations in 2020. Declined bookings are not visible on the table because there were only five booking requests (out of a total of 518,000 requests) that could not be accommodated in the calendar year 2020.
The rate of trip cancellations was at its maximum in April 2020, when 40 percent of bookings were cancelled by customers, likely related to last-minute changes in customers’ travel needs early in the pandemic.
11
Figure 5: Para Transpo Booking Requests
Para Transpo Booking Requests 120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020 Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Customer-trips completed Cancellations after booking Declined Bookings
Customer Service
Customer Service Contacts – Customer Service Representatives
This measure represents the number of contacts customers have had with OC Transpo customer service representatives. Contacts are conducted through a variety of platforms, including calls, voicemails, written and non-written comments, visits to the customer service centres, video chat at ticket machines, and Para Transpo bookings.
Figure 6 shows the total number of calls by type; transit information, information phones in stations, and Para Transpo bookings or cancellations. 12
Figure 6: Customer Service Calls by Type
2020 Customer Service Calls by Type 0.2% Para Transpo Bookings
20.7% Para Transpo Cancellations
Transit Information 54.9% 24.2%
Information Telephone
Figure 7 represents the distribution of customer contacts by category in 2020. In addition to the calls shown in Figure 6, this graph also shows the following:
• Voicemail messages left by customers (these are commonly the form of contact for requests for taxi coupons or park and ride permits); • Written compliments and complaints, received by letter, fax, email, webform, and social media; • Non-written compliments and complaints received by other means, such as concerns relayed by Councillors’ offices, customer calls which require additional analysis, and comments forwarded by other city sources; • Customer service centre transactions are the number of monetary transactions completed at OC Transpo’s customer service locations; • Video chat at ticket machines at O-Train stations; and, • Online bookings and cancellations made by Para Transpo customers, available since February 2020.
Calls represent the majority of customer contacts in 2020, being 68 percent of all contacts, up from 48 percent in 2019. This gain is caused by a comparable decrease in customer service centre transactions, which make up 25 percent of customer contact volumes in 2020, down from 47 percent in 2019. Transaction volumes at customer service centres were affected both by the opening of O-Train Line 1 in 2019, when more 13 ticket machines were made available, and by the pandemic, with all the customer service centres having been closed in April and May, and only the Rideau Centre location having reopened in June.. Customer compliments and complaints made up five percent of all contacts in 2020, close to 2019‘s four percent. Para Transpo online bookings represent just under two percent of total contacts. Finally, voicemail remains consistent across 2019 and 2020, making up one percent of total contacts in both years.
Figure 7: 2020 Customer Service Contact by Customer Service Representatives Percentage by Category
Customer Service Contact by Category 2% 3% 1% 2% Calls 2% Customer Service Centre Transactions Non-written Compliments & Complaints 24% Written Compliments & Complaints Para Transpo Online Booking 66% Video Chat
Voicemail
Figure 8 shows the total customer service contacts by month. January and February 2020, unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw a 15 percent decrease in contact volume compared to the same period in 2019, possibly because of the increased availability of self-serve functions at ticket machines at O-Train stations. March 2020 marked the start of a steep decline in customer contacts in all categories, but particularly for customer service centre transactions, which dropped 57 percent from February volumes. The total customer contacts in May were 86 percent lower in 2020 than in 2019, representing the largest year-over-year decline, though followed closely by the 85 percent year-over-year decline in April. Volumes started to increase in June and remained at a consistent level for the rest of 2020, though remaining 67 percent lower than the same period in 2019. 14
Figure 8: Total Customer Service Contacts by Customer Service Representatives
Customer Service Contacts by Customer Service Representatives 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0
2019 2020
Average Time to Answer Inquiries
Average time to answer inquiries is the average time customers waited on the telephone before reaching a customer service representative.
Average time to answer is presented in Figure 9 by month and year. In 2019, the average surpassed 47 minutes in the months of March, April and May. In contrast, no month in 2020 surpassed the 10-minute mark in average wait time before being connected with a customer service representative. This decrease can be attributed to a reduction in call volume and the departmental priority focus on improving customer experience by reducing wait and turnaround time. The shortest average time to answer in 2020 was 16 seconds in May, with April only slightly higher at 17 seconds. This reflects the fact that call volumes were at their lowest in May, totaling 11,000, compared to 38,000 in 2019. From July to December, call volumes remained stable with an average of 20,000 per month. Average time to answer gradually increased during this time. 15
Figure 9: Average Time to Answer in Minutes
Average Time to Answer 60:00
40:00
20:00 Call Wait Time (mm:ss) 0:00
2019 2020
Customer Service Contacts – Automated Systems
In addition to inquiry resolution provided by customer service representatives, OC Transpo provides a variety of automated customer service systems that provide up-to- date information on demand. Engagement is tracked for each of the various tools: Open Data API calls (queries to the OC Transpo system from the OC Transpo iPhone app and other independent apps and websites), octranspo.com page views, call volume to the automated schedule announcement system (613-560-1000), and the numbers of next-bus requests by SMS text messaging to 560560 (Data for 560560 are currently available only from March 2020).
Table 1 contains monthly volumes of customer service contacts for each of the available automated tools. The trend is comparable to that seen in contacts with service representatives: volumes for all tools noticeably drop in the month of March and remain significantly lower for the rest of the year.
Table 1: 2020 Customer Service Contacts by System
613-560-1000 Open Data octranspo.com 560560 Month automated schedule API Calls Pageviews SMS announcement system January 121,632,000 971,000 575,000 N/A February 113,883,000 791,000 540,000 N/A March 85,567,000 496,000 404,000 540,000 16
613-560-1000 Open Data octranspo.com 560560 Month automated schedule API Calls Pageviews SMS announcement system April 50,690,000 185,000 182,000 94,000 May 53,144,000 203,000 198,000 100,000 June 69,115,000 337,000 226,000 136,000 July 78,902,000 281,000 261,000 187,000 August 61,290,000 323,000 281,000 182,000 September 59,480,000 320,000 290,000 205,000 October 64,866,000 244,000 279,000 199,000 November 65,681,000 252,000 276,000 207,000 December 60,736,000 252,000 261,000 187,000 *Data for 560560 are currently available only from March 2020.
Service Reliability
Service Availability
Service availability is the percentage of scheduled hours of service that were delivered. Table 2 shows the 2020 service availability by month for bus, O-Train Line 1, O-Train Line 2, and for train and bus combined. The figures for bus service and Line 2 show that service availability was consistently above 97 percent, apart from bus service availability in March, which dropped to 95.7 percent. While Line 1 figures show inconsistent service availability from January to July, service availability was consistently above 97 percent between August and December, reflecting maintenance and operational work undertaken in the previous months.
Table 2: 2020 Service Availability by Month – Train and Bus
Month Bus O-Train Line 1 O-Train Line 2* Train and Bus January 98.4 88.4 99.9 98.0 February 98.0 89.6 99.7 97.6 March 95.7 94.2 99.9 95.7 April 99.8 98.4 99.9 99.7 May 99.5 97.6 N/A 99.4 June 99.5 97.7 N/A 99.4 July 97.7 89.9 N/A 97.5 17
Month Bus O-Train Line 1 O-Train Line 2* Train and Bus August 97.4 97.2 N/A 97.4 September 99.0 98.3 N/A 99.0 October 98.9 98.2 N/A 98.9 November 98.6 97.7 N/A 98.6 December 99.0 97.5 N/A 99.0 2020 Overall 98.4 95.6 99.9 98.2 *Line 2 closed on May 2 as part of the Stage 2 expansion project.
Figure 10 shows 2020 weekday and weekend service availability for train and bus. Weekday service availability was generally slightly lower in 2020 than overall and weekend service availability. Weekday service availability for train and bus was 98.0 percent for the year while weekend service availability for train and bus was 99.4 percent.
Figure 10: 2020 Weekday and Weekend Service Availability by Month – Train and Bus
Service Availability - Train and Bus - Weekdays and Weekends - 2020 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
Service Service Availability (%) 0%
Weekdays Weekends
Figure 11 shows service availability for train and bus for each month of 2019 and 2020, showing higher service availability in 2020 than in 2019. 18
Figure 11: Train and Bus Service Availability by Month - 2019 and 2020
Service Availability - Train and Bus - 2019 and 2020 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
Service Service Availability (%) 0%
2019 2020
Figure 12 compares overall service availability for 2019 and 2020 for train and bus. Note that 2019 values for Line 1 reflect the time between the start of revenue service on September 14, 2019, and the end of the year, and that values for 2020 for Line 2 reflect the time between the start of the year and May 2, 2020, when Line 2 was closed as part of the Stage 2 expansion project.
Figure 12: Service Availability - 2019 and 2020
Service Availability by Mode - 2019 and 2020 100% 99.5% 99.9% 97.0% 98.4% 97.4% 95.2% 97.0% 98.3% 80%
60%
40%
20% Service Service Availability (%)
0% Bus O-Train Line 1 * O-Train Line 2 * Train and Bus
2019 2020
*Line 1 opened for revenue service on September 14, 2019. Line 2 closed on May 2, 2020 as part of the Stage 2 expansion project. 19
Excess Wait Time for Frequent Service
Excess wait time is the difference between scheduled and actual wait time by customers on frequent bus and train services and provides an indicator of the regularity of service. Excess wait time would be zero if all trips operate perfectly on schedule. This measure is calculated for all train service and for bus service that operates every 15 minutes or more frequently. Table 3 shows the excess wait time both in minutes and as a percentage of scheduled wait time.
Excess wait time is a new performance measure for OC Transpo, and only results for 2020 are available.
Table 3: Excess Wait Time by Mode, by Month
Month Rapid and Frequent Bus Service O-Train Line 1 Excess Wait Average Wait Excess Wait Average Wait Time Time to Time Time to Scheduled Wait Scheduled Wait Time Ratio Time Ratio January 0.8 11.3% 0.3 10.8% February 0.8 11.2% 0.3 10.6% March 1.0 13.0% 0.1 4.9% April 1.0 13.5% 0.0 0.5% May 1.1 15.4% 0.1 2.5% June 0.2 3.1% 0.1 2.3% July 0.7 9.7% 0.3 9.4% August 0.7 9.8% 0.1 3.0% September 0.7 9.7% 0.0 1.8% October 0.7 10.1% 0.0 0.7% November 0.7 9.7% 0.1 2.3% December 0.6 9.4% 0.1 2.0% 2020 Total 0.6 9.2% 0.1 4.2%
As can be seen in Figure 13, Excess Wait Time for bus service is lower during the off- peak periods than during morning and afternoon peak periods, when buses are more susceptible to being impacted by higher traffic levels.
20
Figure 13: Excess Wait Time by Time Period
Lastly, Figure 14 shows the excess wait time by month and by type of bus service: Frequent and Rapid. Rapid routes, which operate for significant portions of their routes on dedicated right of ways such as the Transitway have lower excess wait times than do Frequent routes, which often operated on arterials and main streets in mixed traffic.
Figure 14: Bus Excess Wait Time by month, by service type
Note: June data for Rapid routes is currently unavailable
21
On-time Performance for Less-Frequent Service
Calculated for bus routes that operate every 16 minutes or less frequently, on-time performance is a measure of the percentage of trips leaving major stops no more than one minute before and no more than five minutes after the scheduled time.
Early arrivals at the final stops and on Connexion routes at stops where customers normally only disembark are considered on-time, as these early arrivals are a positive outcome for customers.
This updated measure of on-time performance is new this year and so only results for 2020 are currently available.
As can be seen in Figure 15, the network wide on-time performance has remained relatively stable throughout 2020. During the Winter months, on-time performance was between 72 and 74 percent, while during Spring, Summer and Fall months, it was between 75 and 79 percent. Of note is that lower traffic levels and decreased ridership related to the pandemic led to increases in the proportion of buses running ahead of schedule. Running time adjustments have been made to address this and less early operation is expected in 2021.
Figure 15: 2020 On-Time performance by month
2020 On-Time Performance by Month 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% time departures time departures from - 20% 10% major stops major stops (%) 0% Percentage of on
Early On-Time Late
Table 4 shows the weekday on-time performance by time period (morning peak, afternoon peak, off-peak and all day). It shows that on-time performance is often better during the off-peak periods than during peak periods.
22
Table 4: 2020 On-Time Performance by Month and by Time Period
Morning Peak Afternoon Peak Month Off Peak All Day (6:00 to 9:00) (15:00 to 18:00) January 76.5% 67.2% 75.6% 74.1% February 71.7% 65.0% 72.8% 70.9% March 71.6% 65.2% 73.6% 71.3% April 80.4% 77.6% 78.6% 78.6% May 80.1% 77.1% 78.6% 78.5% June 74.5% 72.5% 75.6% 74.9% July 75.2% 71.6% 76.9% 75.6% August 75.4% 71.9% 76.9% 75.7% September 76.8% 71.7% 77.7% 76.3% October 76.3% 70.5% 76.8% 75.4% November 74.6% 70.6% 75.9% 74.6% December 71.8% 68.5% 76.6% 72.8% 2020 Total 74.7% 70.0% 77.9% 74.5%
Lastly, lower traffic levels during weekends generally leads to better on-time performance, as can be seen throughout the year in Figure 15.
Figure 16: On-time Performance, Weekdays vs. Weekends
2020 On-Time Performance by Month, Weekdays vs Weekends
100.0%
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0% stops (%) time departures from major - 0.0% Percentage of on Weekdays Weekends
23
Overall Service Provision
Table 5 and Table 6 below provide a summary of the train and bus service that was not delivered as planned, as well as their respective measures of schedule adherence: Excess Wait Time for Line 1 (Table 5) as well as Rapid and Frequent bus service (Table 6) and On-Time Performance for routes operating every 16 minutes or more (Table 6).
Table 5: O-Train Line 1 Overall Service Provision
Service Not Delivered Excess Wait Time Month (%) (minutes) January 11.6 0.3 February 10.4 0.3 March 5.8 0.1 April 1.6 0.0 May 2.4 0.1 June 2.3 0.1 July 10.1 0.3 August 2.8 0.1 September 1.7 0.0 October 1.8 0.0 November 2.3 0.1 December 2.5 0.1
Table 6: Bus Overall Service Provision
Frequent Service Less-Frequent Service Service Not Month Delivered Excess Wait Time Early On time Late (%) (minutes)
January 1.6 0.8 9.9% 74.3% 15.9% February 2.0 0.8 11.1% 72.4% 16.5% March 4.3 1.0 16.4% 72.6% 11.0% April 0.2 1.0 14.6% 78.6% 6.7% May 0.5 1.1 13.9% 78.3% 7.8% June 0.5 0.2 14.9% 75.4% 9.8% July 2.3 0.7 15.1% 76.1% 8.8% 24
Frequent Service Less-Frequent Service Service Not Month Delivered Excess Wait Time Early On time Late (%) (minutes)
August 2.6 0.7 14.2% 76.3% 9.5% September 1.0 0.7 14.2% 76.7% 9.2% October 1.1 0.7 15.5% 76.2% 8.4% November 1.4 0.7 15.4% 75.4% 9.2% December 1.0 0.6 18.4% 73.8% 7.8%
Para Transpo On-time Performance
When booking Para Transpo trips, customers are given a 30-minute window within which their minibus or taxi is scheduled to arrive. Para Transpo on-time performance is defined as the percentage of trips meeting this criterion.
Para Transpo on-time performance increased from 89.3 percent in 2019 to 93.6 percent in 2020.
Figure 17 shows that year-over-year increases in on-time performance were observed in every month of the year, but were particularly noticeable after March 2020, following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related reductions in demand for service and general traffic levels. 25
Figure 17: Para Transpo On-Time Performance
Para Transpo On-Time Performance 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%
minute window minute 20% 10% 0% Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Percentagearriving of trips within30 2019 2020
Para Transpo on-time performance is generally higher on weekends than on weekdays, with weekend on-time performance at 95.8 percent compared to 93.2 percent on weekdays in 2020. As can be seen in Figure 18, this difference was more noticeable in the first three months of 2020. Prior to the pandemic, differences between demand and traffic levels were more pronounced for weekdays and weekends.
Figure 18: Para Transpo On-Time Performance - Weekdays vs. Weekends
Para Transpo On-Time Performance - Weekdays vs. Weekends 100%
80%
60%
40%
20% minute window minute 0% Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Weekdays - 2020 Weekends - 2020 Percentagearriving of trips within30
26
Elevator Availability
Elevator availability is measured as the percentage of time that an elevator is available for service. Because many stations have a second elevator which serves as a backup, if one elevator is out of service for a time while redundant elevators remain in service and maintain access to all platforms, the station is considered accessible and availability is considered 100 percent. In stations with only one elevator, any time an elevator is out of service will detract from total elevator availability.
There are 35 elevators at Transitway Stations and 59 elevators at O-Train Line 1 Stations.
Overall elevator availability, for both Transitway and O-Train stations, was 98.7 percent in 2020. At Transitway stations, elevator availability was 97.7 percent in 2020, compared to 97.8 percent in 2019. At O-Train Line 1 stations, elevator availability was effectively 100 percent in 2020, the first full year of operations on the line.
Figure 19 shows the overall elevator availability by month for 2020. It shows the overall high availability and low downtime of elevators at Transitway and O-Train stations.
Figure 19: Network Wide Elevator Availability
Network Wide Elevator Availability - 2020 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Figure 20, below, shows the year-over-year changes in elevator availability by month at Transitway stations. It demonstrates the overall high availability and low downtime of elevators at Transitway stations. 27
Figure 20: Elevator Availability - Transitway Stations
Elevator Availability - Transitway Stations 100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
2019 2020
RURAL IMPLICATIONS
This report presents information on all OC Transpo services, whether in the urban or rural areas. Figures for service in rural areas are not broken out.
CONSULTATION
A steering committee consisting of three members of the Transit Commission was formed to work with staff and provide regular feedback on the project. After the draft recommendations were approved by Transit Commission in February 2021, OC Transpo staff met with Commissioners on request to receive and incorporate their feedback on additional measures for future reports. The feedback was vital in informing the draft recommendations for the new OC Transpo performance measurement and reporting system. No consultation with the public was conducted.
COMMENTS BY THE WARD COUNCILLOR(S)
This is a City-wide report.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE(S) COMMENTS
N/A
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS
There are no legal impediments to approving the recommendations as outlined this report. 28
RISK MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
There are no risk implications.
ASSET MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS
There are no asset management implications.
FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS
There are no financial implications associated with the recommendations of this report.
ACCESSIBILITY IMPACTS
Performance measurement and reporting will aid in tracking the continuous improvement of OC Transpo’s accessibility-related services and facilities. These measures include Para Transpo Ridership, Customer Service, Para Transpo On-Time Performance and Elevator Availability.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS
There are no environmental implications.
TECHNOLOGY IMPLICATIONS
There are no technology implications.
TERM OF COUNCIL PRIORITIES
The 2019-2022 Term of Council Priorities direct staff to develop system performance metrics that reflect OC Transpo’s new multimodal system, as well as a reporting method that includes reporting to the Transit Commission twice each year. This report responds to this Council direction.
DISPOSITION
Staff will continue to monitor and report on the performance of the OC Transpo system.