David Crawford looks at Vancouver and the legacy of a Olympic transport success
The Feburary 2011 launch by Vancouver metro regional transportation authorityThe site, distinct from the similarly named Olympic-period travelsmart2010, is being promoted as a 'lifestyle' service able to customise travel information and guidance. It aims to encourage individuals and businesses to explore alternatives to their usual travel behaviour, ranging from altering their commuting patterns to avoid 'peak of the peak' periods to car-sharing, ride-sharing and teleworking. The ultimate goal is to reduce the region's percentage of driver-only trips to less than 50 per cent by 2040, making the region one of the most livable in the world.
"We want to give people in Metro Vancouver the tools and information they need to make decisions on how to get around," says TransLink director of marketing John Beaudoin. "We know there's no one-size-fits-all solution to transportation issues and travelsmart.ca provides information that will help people to plan whether they walk, ride-share, cycle, take transit or use all of the above."
Ranking tool
The site offers tips, maps and tools including home- or workplace-based walk or transit scores for specific neighbourhoods. Once registered, locals can start tracking the way in which they currently travel and see what alternative sustainable options are available.The site references a 2009 US report for CEOs for Cities, indicating that one point of walk score can be worth an additional US$3,000 of property value. It also stresses the health benfits of walking. It urges companies to use existing ride-sharing schemes, or consider setting up their own, and offer TransLink's Employer Pass Program (EPP) which gives 15 per cent fare reduction to employees if at least 25 make a commitment for a mimimum of a year.
"We are overwhelmed by the support that local businesses are giving TravelSmart already," commented Beaudoin at the launch. "They are just as passionate as we are about what it can do for the community."
Social media
TravelSmart incorporates a Twitter service that was set up for the Olympics, but has proved so popular that it is now permanent - with its own budget allocation. TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie comments that, with 7,000 followers, it is changing the way in which the agency interacts with passengers."The number of phone calls coming in from people looking for information has dropped off substantially. There has been a huge shift from having one customer information rep and one caller, to one customer information rep with thousands of followers."
"While people still Tweet complaints, many also take the time to send positive feedback. What we notice is that the people on Twitter are just as likely to compliment the service when it works well, or talk about the individual bus driver or SkyTrain attendant who's really done a nice job for them." He pledges that the service will continue for as long as Twitter remains an effective way to share information and keep in touch with passengers.
Olympic changes
During the 2010 Winter Olympics, Metro Vancouver succeeded in reducing traffic by 36 per cent, with 40 per cent of single-occupancy drivers choosing to change their regular commuting patterns and nearly two-thirds of these taking public transit. Notably, 61 per cent of these commuters have maintained at least some of their behaviour changes.TransLink carried 1.6 million people per day on buses, the Skytrain automated urban rapid transit network, the West Coast Express commuter rail service and the SeaBus ferry shuttle connecting Vancouver and North Vancouver. Bus usage rose 34 per cent; SeaBus increased 200 per cent; the West Coast Express went up by 78 per cent; and the SkyTrain Expo and Millennium routes were up 54 per cent. The SkyTrain Canada Line, opened in 2009 in advance of the Olympics to give a direct link with the city's airport, more then doubled its ridership during the Games.
Prefiguring the planning for the 2012 London Olympics, there was heavy emphasis on public transport, with parking very limited in and around venues (although there were well-staffed park-and-rides available throughout the region). There were increased service levels and systematic broadcasting of traffic congestion news, coordinated by a temporary Traffic Management Centre (TMC), with the aim of keeping vehicular traffic to a minimum.
The temporary TMC brought into sharp focus a 15-year project to fill the need for one. It was dismantled after the Games, but a permanent regional-level replacement is currently being designed for a construction start in 2012. This will have a direct connection with the T-Comm communications centre of TransLink subsidiary the Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC).
Ticketing and information
Spring 2011 sees the start of at-station work for the introduction of multi-modal electronic fare payment which is designed to fully operational by 2013. The Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) system, developed byCTS currently provides the existing AFC infrastructure for CMBC and SkyTrain (Expo and Millennium Lines), and installed and commissioned the fare collection equipment for the Canada Line.
Anticipated benefits include less fare evasion, especially on SkyTrain which was originally designed as a gate-free operation. But TransLink will also use the data from passengers tapping on to adjust schedules, routes - and even, possibly, the sizes or lengths of the buses or trains.
TransLink
TransLink is responsible for the Vancouver public transportation network, cycling and commuting options, and shares responsibility for the major road network. It is one of the only two North American transportation agencies (New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority being the other) to have become full signatories to the UITP (International Association of Public Transport)'s Sustainable Development Charter, and the only one that has produced a report marking relevant corporate and regional indicators.
In February 2011 it published a sustainability policy comitting itself to a future in which most trips will be made by public transport, cycling or walking; the majority of housing and jobs in the region will be located along a frequent transit network.
The CMBC has some 220 fixed bus routes supporting 19,000 scheduled trips per weekday with over 232 million annual boardings and 90 million annual kilometres of service over an area of 1,800km2.The system will deliver passenger-specific data on origin-destination patterns and make it possible to adapt transit services better to match passengers' actual travel needs, as well as to change the way in which fares are calculated. It will work in conjunction with an existing automated passenger counter system, data from which formed the basis of the interchange plan for the Canada Line and supports assessments of the need for further modal interchanges.
Supplied by German company
"To this day, it provides extremely valuable data for our planning and operations. It is a standard component in our specifications for new buses, and the private sector sends us many requests each year for specific data.
"For example, developers of malls and retail properties request it as a basis for calculating their lease rates. At a recent users' conference hosted by Dilax, our staff were told that we use their system more aggressively than any other transportation agency." TransLink will keep the current fare structure in place for a number of months after the switch to electronic fare cards. It will gather the trip data needed to determine if changes to the existing fares according to the length of the trip being taken are the correct next step.
The shift will come at the end of the useful life of most of TransLink's current ticket vending machines and fare boxes. Readers will be installed on buses for customers using fare cards or contactless credit cards.
TransLink is also developing an SMS-based programme using GPS-based location to deliver real-time bus arrival information, with implementation scheduled for late 2011. It will replace a current fixed schedule-based service, based on an idea originally put forward by two university students and subsequently developed in-house, with an external aggregator interfacing with mobile phone providers.
This was popular and well used before and during the Olympics. It still generates over 1.2 million requests per month for the next six scheduled bus times.
Summing up, Kitasaka told ITS International: "Within our region, ITS has now turned the corner, and is well on its way to becoming mainstream and an integral part of our transportation network. This is perhaps the greatest legacy of the Games.
"Over the coming years ITS here will be about data management. How we generate, acquire, process, store and distribute data for conversion to information will be a key part of our activities."
