San Francisco Muni Metro: Operating Issues and Strategies
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141 TRB Special Report 195 enforcement process. Early fears that Canadian and U.S. use on the entire transit system. It now appears that legal systems were not amenable to enforcement have been Portland, Oregon, will be the first to implement this dispelled by successful systems in Vancouver, Edmonton, systemwide. The results could have a major impact on the Calgary, and San Diego. Edmonton is particularly re- entire future of transit fare collection in North America, vealing in that it started with a barrier system but within which is still geared to concepts dating from when fares 2 years converted to self-service as an economic measure. were a nickel and labor cost 15 cents an hour. In all 4 SSBF systems, evasion is now at or below 1 percent and is well below anticipated levels. Machine maintenance REFERENCES varies from satisfactory to very good. Vandalism has been shown to be a minor problem. The legalities of ticket 1. T.E. Parkinson. Fare Collection. Chapter 7 in System inspection and enforcement have proved workable under and Vehicle Specifications, San Diego Metropolitan different jurisdictional and legal systems. The protected Transit Development Board, November 1977. benefits of added security and information services offered by enforcement staff have exceeded all expectations. Z. Manuel Padron and Richard Stanger. The MARTA Any city that can adequately control and administer Study of No-Barrier Fare Collection: Review and parking meter enforcement should be able to handle self- Discussion. TRB 56th Annual Meeting, January 1976. service. The self-service, barrier-free, proof-of-payment system has often been labeled as an 'honor system. In Maurice M. Carter and Langley C. PowelL Self- fact, increasing fraud or potential for fraud on conven- Service Barrier-Free Collection: An Early Look at San tional transit fare collection systems makes these more of Diego's Experience. Unpublished paper, March 1982. an 'honor system" than self-service. Not only is SSBF clearly the preferred option for new LRT systems in a wide Gerald F. Fox. Self-Service Fare Collection— Getting range of passenger volumes, but it may also have merit for There From Here. Tn-Met, Portland, Oregon. San Francisco Muni Metro: Operating Issues and Strategies DANIEL ROSEN and LEONARD OLSON, San Francisco Municipal Railway The advent of a light rail vehicle system presented the San the lines (N) uses the Sunset Tunnel, completed in 1928. Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni) with new challenges The fifth line (J) partially uses an exclusive right-of-way associated with operating a high-speed subway system. parallel to Church Street. Before the completion of the The Metro, as the system is known, is a subway and surface subway, all five lines used the same tracks for more than 2 operation on five existing streetcar lines in San Francisco. miles on Market Street. At Duboce and Church Streets, in It carries about 120 000 passengers per day. Muni was able the Upper Market area, two of the lines separate from the to run extensive tests with its new fleet of LRVs before other three: The N Line proceeds west to the Sunset starting revenue service to check operating characteris- district; the J Line serves a portion of the Mission district; tics, especially the ability to couple and run as a multi-car and the K, L, and M lines travel through the Twin Peaks train. Mum's start-up strategy for a gradual phase-in of Tunnel to serve, respectively, the Ingleside, Parkside, and LRV service provided opportunities to learn about a far Ocean View districts. more complex operating environment than traditional This is the surface portion of the existing Muni street- streetcar operation. It became apparent in the early car network that has been transformed into a light rail operational phases that a traditional schedule approach was vehicle system called Muni Metro. The primary objective unworkable. Before full-scale operation began, it was of this modernization was to provide significantly improved decided to abandon the usual schedules and use a dynamic speed, capacity, comfort, reliability, and safety to the schedule. By headwaying the cars and providing a pool of patrons of the existing streetcar system. fallback operators, it was hoped to maximize the use of the One of the major improvements provided by the Muni LRVs and help meet the ever-increasing demand of Metro Metro has been the replacement of 2 miles of surface passengers. This headway and failback system was refined street operations on Market Street with nearly 5.5 miles of to help Metro break the turnaround bottleneck at the subway. This subway includes four stations in downtown Embarcadero Station, which limited the system's capacity. San Francisco—shared by occupying the upper level of the In addition, a central trainmaster at Van Ness Station BART subway—plus three new Muni Metro-only subway improved the consistency of service. The headway and stations along Market Street. In addition, one subway fallback system's shortcomings include partially developed station is to be remodeled in the Twin Peaks Tunnel, and crew dispatching and trainmaster procedures and stacking one new station is at West Portal. of outbound trains caused by system saturation. In addition to the subway improvements, the surface operations of Muni Metro were upgraded: The aging track The five existing Muni streetcar lines are all that remain and power distribution facilities were repaired or replaced; of an extensive network of electric street railways that facilities were provided to aid the separation of rail traffic once served most areas of San Francisco. Most of these and vehicular traffic; and additional passenger-loading lines were discontinued before or immediately after World islands were constructed. War II. The 44 miles of double track in the five existing One hundred new U.S. standard light rail vehicles lines survived principally because of their exclusive rights- (SLRV) were procured for service on the Muni Metro. of-way, which were not, and are not, readily convertible to These vehicles were built by the Boeing-Vertol Company motor bus use. under a contract signed in 1973. The cars are capable of Three of the five streetcar lines (K, L, and M) use the speeds up to 50 mph, are articulated to facilitate curves in Twin Peaks Tunnel, which was completed in 1917. One of streets, and have steps adjustable to high and low. High 142 TRB Special Report 195 steps accommodate the standard design of high platforms Although Muni chose not to use the "scheduled" in the subway stations; low steps meet the pitch of coupling, it devised a method of coupling that was not tied standard traffic islands and street stops. to scheduled arrivals. The procedure of coupling and sequencing cars is discussed later in this paper. METRO TASK FORCE TEST AND ACCEPTANCE PROGRAM Although it was in the works for a number of years, the pieces of the Metro System really began to come together Before any of the new LRVs went into revenue service they with the creation of the Muni Metro Task Force, es- had to prove themselves in the test and acceptance tablished in 1978. The Task Force consisted of a small program. Each vehicle was required to provide well- number of staff members and a director, Farrel Schell, who documented proof that, under simulated revenue con- had the responsibility for recommending and expediting the ditions, it was able to perform up to specifications. timely completion of actions necessary for the successful Each vehicle had to show 30 "good" days of service. A inauguration of Muni Metro service. "good" day meant that, if in revenue service, the vehicle The Task Force worked with other members from all would not have to be removed from revenue service due to Muni departments, Public Utilities Commission Bureaus, mechanical problems. Areas that received extensive and other city agencies that had direct line responsibility testing were braking rates (service and emergency), ac- for various aspects of Metro implementation. This Task celeration rates, and the propulsion system. This program Force concept proved to be an effective management tool used the combined efforts of Louis T. Klauder and Associ- in coordinating and directing the efforts of so many ates, a Muni engineering consultant, and the Muni oper- different departments and agencies working to bring the ations and engineering departments. Metro into operation. In addition to testing the vehicles, Muni used the test and acceptance program to develop a new operator's COUPLING ISSUE training program that provided instruction in operating in a high-speed subway environment, knowledge of the signal Could Muni couple LRVs safely? Because the system system, troubleshooting vehicle problems, and emergency lacked experience in coupling cars, some safety-related procedures. concerns were raised, such as hazards inherent in coupling, The test and acceptance program allowed Muni to test the hazard of coupling on a grade at Duboce Portal, and the LRV's capability to sustain regular programmed in- the risk of fall-on-board types of accidents. These service coupling, which was to be an important feature of potential hazards were quickly dispelled after Muni ac- Muni's operating strategy. All tests showed that in-service quired the LRVs and tested the coupling procedure during coupling could be accomplished safely and without damage the test and acceptance program. Muni learned that it to the LRV's couplers. could couple LRVs without incident. Projected operating schedules called for LRVs to oper- Muni Metro's system components were designed to ate on a 4-minute surface headway. However, tests of the allow coupling. As proposed, coupling would be accom- LRV in surface operation showed that it was significantly plished at the two entrances to the subway.