Data-Driven Investigation of Factors Affecting Surface Transit Speed and Reliability in Toronto by Graham Andrew Devitt A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Applied Science Department of Civil Engineering University of Toronto © Copyright by Graham Devitt, 2019 Data-Driven Investigation of Factors Affecting Bus Speed and Reliability in Toronto Graham Devitt Master of Applied Science Department of Civil Engineering University of Toronto 2019 Abstract Cities are increasingly interested in implementing low-cost, small-scale spot treatments to improve transit performance. This research uses a data-driven approach to understand where and why poor transit performance occurs, which is necessary when selecting locations to treat and their appropriate treatments. Automatic vehicle location, general transit feed specification, and ride check data are used to generate a descriptive analysis measuring performance of eight high- frequency bus routes in Toronto at the route, segment, stop, and intersection levels. Clustering and regression models of transit performance at intersections along these routes are developed to determine which features most affect bus speeds and delays. These analyses show that locations with greater traffic cycle split have significantly higher speeds and lower delays, and thus signal timing adjustments are suggested as an effective transit-priority spot treatment. The analyses also suggest queue jump lanes and turning restrictions to be effective when signal timing cannot be adjusted. ii Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to extend the biggest thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Amer Shalaby, for the constant support, encouragement, and guidance. I’m forever thankful for you accepting me, a not-so-recent graduate of a completely different field with no Transportation or even Civil Engineering experience, into your research group. Thank you for your faith in my work and giving me the opportunity to experience work in the transit field – before working with you I never imagined how this hobby interest of mine could become my lifelong career! Also from UTTRI, I would like to thank Mahmood Nesheli for your extreme patience with me starting out on the STOIS project. You never hesitated to help me along the way and allowed me to learn how projects can run here. Thanks for letting me pop into your office with nonstop questions. A big thank you to Ehab Diab who got me started on the technical parts of this project and for being the reason I actually know a thing or two about ArcGIS. Thanks as well to Tiggy Chen for carrying out the tedious task of looking at over 100 intersections on Google Satellite and compiling their geometric features into an Excel file. A very big thank you to the Parsons team: Rita Hu for your patience, guidance, and kindness at every step of the project despite my inexperience, Yannis Stogios for inviting me to work at your office and for helping get this research off the ground, and Sara Khawaja and Steve Chiu for your immense help with the mountains of data processing. From the City of Toronto, I would like to thank Allan Abrogena and David Kuperman for giving the green light for this project and providing all of the data, as well as for your warmth and wisdom at progress meetings. And of course, my friends, family, and fiancé have been a huge part of my journey at U of T. Thank you to my friends here at UTTRI – I know I have relied on many of you for research advice or frantic questions about upcoming exams. I would not be here without you. Also to my friends around Toronto for helping me take my mind off work when the going got rough. My parents, brother, and sister have always been there for a phone call and to listen to me blab on about my very exciting research. Finally, huge thanks to Colin for always keeping me smiling through the toughest times, and for encouraging me and giving me a reason to strive for a bright future. iii Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Overview .......................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Spot Improvement Programs ............................................................................................ 1 1.3 Surface Transit Operational Improvement Studies – Phase 3 .......................................... 2 1.4 Thesis Objectives ............................................................................................................. 3 1.5 Thesis Organization.......................................................................................................... 4 2 Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Transit Quality.................................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Assessing Speed and Reliability from Data ..................................................................... 6 2.3 Improving Speed and Reliability...................................................................................... 7 2.3.1 Signal Timing and TSP ............................................................................................. 8 2.3.2 QJ Lanes.................................................................................................................... 9 2.3.3 Stop Location .......................................................................................................... 10 2.3.4 Turning Restrictions................................................................................................ 11 3 Background Information ........................................................................................................ 12 3.1 STOIS Phase 3 Project ................................................................................................... 12 3.2 Thesis Overlap with STOIS ........................................................................................... 13 3.3 Routes in the Scope of Study ......................................................................................... 13 4 Descriptive Analysis of Transit Performance ........................................................................ 18 4.1 Data ................................................................................................................................ 18 4.1.1 General Traffic Feed Specification (GTFS) ........................................................... 18 4.1.2 Bus Route Stop List ................................................................................................ 18 4.1.3 Traffic Signals List ................................................................................................. 18 4.1.4 Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) ....................................................................... 18 4.1.5 Contractor Collected ............................................................................................... 19 4.2 Data Processing .............................................................................................................. 20 4.2.1 AVL Processing ...................................................................................................... 20 4.2.2 Contractor Collected Data Processing .................................................................... 24 4.3 Results and Discussion ................................................................................................... 29 4.3.1 Average Operating Speed ....................................................................................... 30 4.3.2 On-Time Performance ............................................................................................ 36 4.3.3 Running Time Variation ......................................................................................... 40 4.3.4 Signal Delay ............................................................................................................ 43 iv 4.3.5 Delay Analysis ........................................................................................................ 48 5 Analysis of Factors Affecting Transit Performance .............................................................. 55 5.1 Data ................................................................................................................................ 55 5.1.1 Geometric Configurations ....................................................................................... 55 5.1.2 Signal Timing Plans (STP) ..................................................................................... 55 5.1.3 Turning Movement Count (TMC) .......................................................................... 56 5.2 Data Frame Construction ............................................................................................... 56 5.3 Modeling Methodology .................................................................................................. 60 5.3.1 Clustering ................................................................................................................ 60 5.3.2 Regression ............................................................................................................... 61 5.4 Results and Discussion ................................................................................................... 63 5.4.1 Clustering