I guess you took a more technical approach what economists call economies of scope or economies of network. The more destinations or interchanges on a network, the more usage a network will have. Next to more destinations, the thing is traveltime. Having more interchanges allowing more routes and therefor maybe faster trips than networks with less interchanges. And less travel time means more usage in general.
I like the way the loading multiplier tries to explain in more detail what happens and try to make it usable for network design.
A special focus should be on tangential lines. Lines that do not cross the city center but have the main purpose of making extra movements around city centers possible. Their success is mostly dependent on interconnecting with the other main (radial) lines. So a relatively high loading multiplier needed. But also a good frequency, because with too low frequency or transfer time too long, transfer from tangential lines doesn’t function quite well, as total travel time will be too long, compared to a single transfer between the main radial lines (Moscow circle line had that problem, but also The Hague tangential tram 19).
Since you mentioned Toronto in your newsletter, I figured someone HAD to bring up Vancouver in the comments.
I think the Purple Line in Vancouver (I know, I know, just a twinkle in Translink's and the Mayors' Council's eyes ATM) has the chance to be truly transformative in smoothing out the loading of the Expo Line.
Currently, the vast majority of SoF Expo riders are traveling to DT Vancouver, with a small number alighting at Columbia to head to the Tri-Cities or SFU, a slightly larger number getting off at Metrotown to transfer to the R4 or head to work in that Town Centre, and a very large portion transferring to the 99 at Commercial-Broadway. By the time a rush hour King George train reaches Metrotown it is overcrowded and this capacity crunch does not alleviate until at least Broadway if not Granville. And the SLX will only make this worse. On the surface, the Purple Line would do hardly anything to spread the ridership more evenly across the entire Expo Line.
But something frequent riders of the 241, 246, or any other DT Vancouver to the North Shore bus line know that others might not is how many Expo passengers who alight downtown do not reach their final destination there. My daughter's daycare is in North Vancouver and over half of the daycare workers live SoF and commute via Expo + bus to and from work. I presume this phenomena is not limited to that one business, and that workers all across the North Shore from Dundarave to CapU ride often overcrowded, frequently slow, and always off-schedule buses for the last leg of their journey to work. I think it will be very interesting to see boardings/alightments shift from Burrard and Waterfront to Metrotown when the Purple Line is built (2040? 2050?).
9:48 into your London Underground Explained video has a great illustration of what I believe makes the Underground so convenient - many line cross each other twice. This provides several benefits... 1) a dense network within the Central Business Districts (not a single transit mall), 2) riders transfer ahead of the CBD and reduces the amount of "back tracking" and, 3) redundancy.
An example are the Northern Line (east branch) and Victoria Line. The Northern Line services the Northwest and Southwest Suburbs but the Eastern CBD. The Victoria Line, the opposite. The Eastern Suburbs and Western CBD.
Posting this here because I don’t know where to stick it, but I want to get your opinion Reece on this news article/blog post I read suggesting that Vancouver would be better off spending its money on trams rather than a skytrain to the university of it wants to combat rising rents: https://thetyee.ca/News/2008/06/05/UpWithTrams/
Nice work!
I guess you took a more technical approach what economists call economies of scope or economies of network. The more destinations or interchanges on a network, the more usage a network will have. Next to more destinations, the thing is traveltime. Having more interchanges allowing more routes and therefor maybe faster trips than networks with less interchanges. And less travel time means more usage in general.
I like the way the loading multiplier tries to explain in more detail what happens and try to make it usable for network design.
A special focus should be on tangential lines. Lines that do not cross the city center but have the main purpose of making extra movements around city centers possible. Their success is mostly dependent on interconnecting with the other main (radial) lines. So a relatively high loading multiplier needed. But also a good frequency, because with too low frequency or transfer time too long, transfer from tangential lines doesn’t function quite well, as total travel time will be too long, compared to a single transfer between the main radial lines (Moscow circle line had that problem, but also The Hague tangential tram 19).
Since you mentioned Toronto in your newsletter, I figured someone HAD to bring up Vancouver in the comments.
I think the Purple Line in Vancouver (I know, I know, just a twinkle in Translink's and the Mayors' Council's eyes ATM) has the chance to be truly transformative in smoothing out the loading of the Expo Line.
Currently, the vast majority of SoF Expo riders are traveling to DT Vancouver, with a small number alighting at Columbia to head to the Tri-Cities or SFU, a slightly larger number getting off at Metrotown to transfer to the R4 or head to work in that Town Centre, and a very large portion transferring to the 99 at Commercial-Broadway. By the time a rush hour King George train reaches Metrotown it is overcrowded and this capacity crunch does not alleviate until at least Broadway if not Granville. And the SLX will only make this worse. On the surface, the Purple Line would do hardly anything to spread the ridership more evenly across the entire Expo Line.
But something frequent riders of the 241, 246, or any other DT Vancouver to the North Shore bus line know that others might not is how many Expo passengers who alight downtown do not reach their final destination there. My daughter's daycare is in North Vancouver and over half of the daycare workers live SoF and commute via Expo + bus to and from work. I presume this phenomena is not limited to that one business, and that workers all across the North Shore from Dundarave to CapU ride often overcrowded, frequently slow, and always off-schedule buses for the last leg of their journey to work. I think it will be very interesting to see boardings/alightments shift from Burrard and Waterfront to Metrotown when the Purple Line is built (2040? 2050?).
9:48 into your London Underground Explained video has a great illustration of what I believe makes the Underground so convenient - many line cross each other twice. This provides several benefits... 1) a dense network within the Central Business Districts (not a single transit mall), 2) riders transfer ahead of the CBD and reduces the amount of "back tracking" and, 3) redundancy.
An example are the Northern Line (east branch) and Victoria Line. The Northern Line services the Northwest and Southwest Suburbs but the Eastern CBD. The Victoria Line, the opposite. The Eastern Suburbs and Western CBD.
Posting this here because I don’t know where to stick it, but I want to get your opinion Reece on this news article/blog post I read suggesting that Vancouver would be better off spending its money on trams rather than a skytrain to the university of it wants to combat rising rents: https://thetyee.ca/News/2008/06/05/UpWithTrams/