Frequent transit service maps: an invitation to draw your own
Frequent transit service maps: an invitation to draw your own
View Frequent Bus Service in a larger map
Some time ago, Tessa e-mailed me and asked whether TransLink had any maps showing frequent service routes in the system, as suggested over at Human Transit.
The answer was sadly no, because no one is actually assigned to make this specific map right now—other projects are taking priority at the moment.
However, everybody I spoke to thought it was a good idea! It’s obviously good to know frequent routes so people can try spontaneous trips. And so, with Tessa’s blessing, I wanted to throw this out to all of you, inviting anyone interested to make a homegrown frequent transit service map for sharing.
For example, Tessa took a shot at a map above: her definition of frequent service is 15 minutes or better until 10 p.m., including streets served by two buses that together add up to better 15 minute service or better.
Feel free to comment on Tessa’s map or try making your own. And feel free to explore your own criteria for “frequent service”: coming up with the definition is a key part of the exercise, and not one that is pinned down by any means.
TransLink’s planning department has told me they are looking forward to seeing what people come up with—as am I :)
Great job, Tessa!
Hopefully, after TransLink gets around to developing its own map, it can follow Portland’s lead and mark bus stops on frequent-service routes as being part of the frequent-service network.
great start! Now Translink could actually make this usable for customers with two improvements: (i) put bus stops together for different bus numbers, instead of having to cross a street between them, if and when you see the other bus arrive first, (ii) equip buses with localization, and put real-time info on when the next bus arrives on each bus stop and on a website with an open API, so we can get it on our smartphones.
I notice Trnaslink offer a GTFS feed for developers. Never used it before, but I wonder if that could work to develop some kind of frequent services map.
OpenStreetMap could also provide good data. The transport version only covers Europe, but I think the bus route data is available through wiki.openstreetmap.org for Vancouver. http://openbusmap.org/?zoom=14&lat=51.49212&lon=-0.11018&layers=BT
You could perhaps colour the routes based on their frequency (e.g. <15mins in red, 15-30mins in orange…)
Jhenifer:
If your colleagues mean that from a marketing perspective, there’s no publicly distributed map of frequent service, that’s true—and unfortunate, because there has in fact been a clearly defined “Frequent Transit Network” (FTN) since 2007, but it has never been publicly advertised as such.
In TransLink’s various 3-year and 10-year plans, there has been a development of the concept of a “Frequent Transit Network.” It was first advanced in the 2007 Transportation Plan, where the “FTN” is defined as “corridors that have service at least every 15 minutes from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week; often enough that most customers have a sufficient expectation of service that they need not reference a timetable before making a trip”—in other words, transit corridors with 15-minute service, 15 hours per day, 7 days per week. Changes have been made since then to augment the network, and this is the reason that a number of routes (the 25 and 49, for example) have had their evening frequencies upped in recent years.
A map of the 2006-2007 FTN is shown on page 6-5 of the 2007 Transportation Plan, and a map of the 2009 FTN is shown on page 29 of the 2010 10-Year Transportation and Financial Plan (ignore the mention of cuts in the latter, since they no longer apply due to the stabilization funding). Both documents are available from this page, although they are very large PDF documents.
To summarize in text form for anyone who wants to put a map together, the FTN right now includes the following routes or corridors. (Parentheses indicate route segments that fall outside of the 15/15/7 criteria.)
* Expo, Millennium, and Canada Lines
* (SeaBus, West Coast Express, and TrainBus:
these fall outside of the FTN criteria, but merit inclusion for other reasons)
* 97 and 99 B-Line
* 3 Marine Drive Station/20 Victoria
* 4/7 combined (Alma to/from Nanaimo)
* 5 Robson/6 Davie
* 8 Fraser/Downtown
* 9 Boundary/Alma(/UBC)
* 10 Granville/Downtown(/Hastings)
* 15 Cambie/Downtown
* 17 Oak/UBC
* 19 Metrotown Station/Stanley Park
* 22 Knight/Macdonald
* 25 Brentwood Station/UBC
* 41 Joyce Station/UBC
* 49 Metrotown Station/Dunbar Loop(/UBC)
* 100 22nd Street Station/Marpole Loop
* 106 New Westminster Stn/Metrotown Stn
* 123 New Westminster Stn/Brentwood Stn
* 130 Metrotown Stn/Kootenay Loop
(/Phibbs Exchange/Capilano University)
* 135 Burrard Station/SFU
* 145 Production Station/SFU
* 169 Coquitlam Station/Braid Station
* 240 15th Street/Vancouver
* 250/251/252 combined (17th St/Vancouver)
* 319 Newton Exchange/Scott Road Stn
* 320 Surrey Central Stn/Fleetwood
(/Langley Centre)
* 321 Surrey Central Stn/White Rock Centre
(/White Rock South)
* 351 Bridgeport Station/White Rock Centre
(/Crescent Beach)
403 Three Road/Bridgeport Station
410 Railway/22nd Street Station
(map doesn’t show Railway as FTN, but it is)
502 Surrey Central Stn/Langley Centre
(/Aldergrove/Brookswood)
701 Coquitlam Station/Haney Place
(/Maple Ridge East)
sewing: Yes indeed, that’s right: there is an FTN from a planning perspective, but we haven’t generated a publicly distributed map from a marketing perspective.
When we were talking about this map, part of the discussion I had with the planning department was around what the definition of an FTN was. The issues raised were that while we do have that 6am-9pm definition, that’s just one set of criteria and doesn’t necessarily have to be the only criteria determining a frequent service map that’s useful to the public (although don’t get me wrong, it is a solid base to start such a map!).
So part of the thought process involved in producing a map that’s useful for the public would be to explore such definitions of frequent service, and see what in fact is most useful: it’s one of the many reasons we are looking forward to seeing what people come up with.
Anyway: thanks for pointing that out and for compiling the list of routes—super handy!
The powerpoint presentation Jeff linked to (slide 13) was the one I was trying to replicate. I was using the 15/15/7 criteria Sewing refers to, and for the most part, his list matches mine. Here are some differences I’ve noticed, based on scanning paper timetables:
* 9 Broadway satisfies the criteria between Alma and Commercial only.
* 10: only the Granville leg would form part of the FTN (no evening service on Hastings).
* 19: Hate to say it, but it doesn’t qualify (20 min service after 19:00).
* 41: Crown to Joyce only for FTN (service to UBC is 30 minutes evenings, weekends, and holidays).
I agree that this would be a good base for an FTN map. However, selecting a higher frequency (say 10-12 minutes) whittles the list down significantly (possibly within Vancouver proper). So I think there’s going to be a balancing act in terms of the appropriate criteria (among the 15 min/15 hours/7 days) that would be used to develop an FTN map.
Well, for starters, not just frequency but also strategic importance is a useful criterion for evaluating which services should be included in such a map.
For example, the 160, 210, 257, 601, and 620 all fall outside of the 15/15/7 definition, but all are the key routes serving their respective corridors or destinations (Barnet, eastern North Van, Horseshoe Bay, South Delta, Tsawwassen).
And then there are the NightBuses, which only run 3 trips per night at half-hour frequencies, but follow the key transit corridors.
And then there are non-TransLink services that provide low-frequency but vital links. For example, the Bowen Island ferry (linking the C25/C26 with the 250/257) and ValleyMAX’s Aldergrove Connector and Valley Connector buses, linking Aldergrove, Abbotsford, and Mission together.
Eric:
Good catch re the 10, 19, and 41 (d’oh!).
For the 10, that’s why I put “Hastings” in parentheses.
But to expand on your idea, another of way of looking at it may be to consider the most “important” routes by their service levels relative to other routes in the same area.
For example, the 25 and 49 may be more frequent than most other routes in the system, but are not as key routes within Vancouver and UBC in the same way that, say, the 3 or 99 are.
Another angle to consider are the corridors connecting major transfer points, from which local routes fan out.
For example, there’s the 210/211/214 corridor connecting Phibbs Exchange with Downtown Vancouver via Powell Street.
As another example, consider the corridor connecting Downtown Vancouver with Surrey Centre. Before SkyTrain, this was served by a combination of the 120 (now 123), 320, and 321. Now it’s served entirely by the Expo Line, but the 320 and 321 in turn provide corridor service beyond Surrey Centre to Guildford, Newton, and White Rock.
Many intersections can be considered frequent service as well. Think about many intersections in New Westminster where buses often go to the same destination despite them not being on the same street. 6th at 6th for instance.
Brunette from Braid to Lougheed also has frequent service, although in the eastbound direction buses go to different locations.
Hey, thanks Jhennifer, I’m really glad to see this discussion.
I like the 15/15/7 definition. I only looked at weekdays on my map admittedly, and I chose 10 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.because I felt people coming out of a movie or show or some sort of evening get-together are often leaving to go home between 9 and 10 p.m., but it’s an arbitrary thing, admittedly. Also, there are a lot of routes that end frequent service at 9 p.m. instead of 10 p.m., so the choice I made significantly lowered the number of routes that were on the map.
I’d like to see some more marketing style maps made. I’m not that good a map maker on these programs myself, so if we got the data, hopefully someone can put something together that’s a little more polished than mine.
That said, if I have some time I might put together a 15/15/7 map on google earth.
@Sewing: I think it’s really important, though, that we don’t ever water down the definition simply because a route is geographically important. If we do then someone looking at the map could easily be confused as to whether buses really run as much as they need it to run in order to go catch a bus without checking a schedule first. That’s the idea behind this.
Those buses are still definately included in the overall bus map. If those are included in any frequent service map, it dilutes the effectiveness, and they should at the very least be easily distinguishable from those buses that are very frequent.
@Cliff: Frequent service intersections are an interesting idea I haven’t heard of. I’m not sure how that could be illustrated on a map, thoug. Any ideas?
@Eric I really like the idea of marking bus stops differently when they’re served by frequent service, especially if it says what times you can expect it. I think that would hugely help people who aren’t sure about riding the bus be more comfortable that the bus will be there soon.
Maybe Jhennifer can tell us if this has been discussed at translink.
Tessa: I’m inquiring after your question: stay tuned!
From a bus drivers perspective, I’ve not only had passengers who didn’t know anything about the FTN, I’ve had fellow drivers who have never heard of it either!
I think there should be a (yearly) map or brochure made for public consumption on the FTN, as well as the late night “N” services as well…
Also, when updating public timetables, some sort of notation or “FTN” could be added to all routes that qualify…
Information can be a great thing, give the public m-o-r-e- information!
Sean (& Sewing) – there already is a map of the Nightbus network. As Jhenifer commented earlier, the point of this post is to see if TransLink’s definition of 15/15/7 for an FTN is suitable, or can the criteria be tweaked?
Tessa – As long as the public is given a definition of what “frequent service” is, there wouldn’t necessarily be a need to have bus times listed at the stop pole (although you could still look it up via Nextbus). My original point re: Portland is that it’s a regular bus stop with a “Frequent Service” sticker attached.
I also like the idea of a FTN map and the a specially identified FTN bus stop.
The idea to consider a corridor FTN because the combination of bus route allow to say there is one average a bus every 15mn or less is confusing. 1/ People look at one bus route 2/. interlining could not make that so true
But I believe the idea should deserve consideration by providing “code share” route number (like in airline industry), and as I have explained in the #699 example ( http://voony.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/route-699-in-codeshare/ )
@Tessa
Intersections like that could be marked with a small red dot or a deep blue dot. But care must be taken not to be too inclusive. I would say where any two routes meet at an intersection that meet the 15 minute service in any one direction per route. (Don’t combine North and South for instance)
I should clarify before you get confused, I read it and wasn’t sure if you’d get what I meant.
Take King Edward at Cambie for instance. You have three routes there. You wouldn’t combine the 6 routes to get the ridiculously good time of 3 minutes or so. You’d combine one direction from every route.
Of course, you could just do a full blown combined one where you add up all the routes in all direction and if they add up to 15 minute service, then that intersection gets a small red dot. To keep it simple, just have red dots at any points two routes cross, split, or merge, and where there are stops for all routes involved. (Broadway and Oak would receive a red dot for the routes 9 and 17 only but not the 99 which doesn’t stop there and contributes nothing.)
In hindsight, I’m probably a little more in favour of the second option because it adds more depth to the map instead of simply the same data made more obvious.
@Cliff
Having thought of it I’m not so sure how useful it would be. If I’m standing at, say, Oak and King Ed, none of the buses there go every 15 minutes but I’m sure the intersection has service every 15 minutes from both of them.
The problem is, they’re different bus stops, so where do I wait. The second problem is, it doesn’t tell me where I’m going. I may not want to go down King Ed, I may be going downtown. With the lines, a map can easily tell you which way you can go, and makes it a lot simpler and more useful, really.
And while in some cases the buses go to the same place, it wouldn’t take the same route, and thus would be hard to really illustrate.
That’s true, but what about near the end of say the 4/7 concurrency? Effectively, that frequent service is only in one direction. How do you show that on a map?
Or how about North Road in the northbound direction? The 97, 151, 152, 156, C24 all go to different places. How can that be represented on a map?
Tessa:
That’s a very good point, re watering down the definition.
Cliff:
For the 4/7, it works. Going eastbound, the first common stop is right there on the farside of 4th at Alma; and once you get to Nanaimo, you don’t really care whether the bus is turning left or right, since you’re getting off the bus, not trying to figure out which stop to catch it at. Likewise westbound: the first common stop is on Dundas just west of Nanaimo.
As for the 97/151/152/156/C24, they don’t really count at all. The 97 on its own definitely meets any “frequent service” definition. The 152 turns off North Road right away at Austin, and its only stop on North Road is shared with the 151, 156, and C24, but not the 97. The 151 only goes a few stops further to Cottonwood, and I’m not sure if its schedule is coordinated with the 156 to provide a 15-minute service. Then there’s the C24, but it would probably be useful to leave Community Shuttles out of this, and stick to conventional buses and rapid transit.
In other words, if there are a bunch of routes provided high-frequency service but over a very short distance, it might be simpler and more helpful to exclude those.
…providing, not provided….
Another angle to consider, which I touched on yesterday:
Within the City of Vancouver and UBC, there are in a sense too many routes that have 15-minute service until 9 p.m. It might be useful to thin out the list by only including routes that have 15-minute-or-better service right through to midnight: the 3, 4+7, 5, 6, 8, 9 (to Commercial), 15, 20, 22, 41 (to Crown), and 99, but not the 10, 17, 25, or 49.
On the other hand, 75% of Metro Vancouver’s population lives in the suburbs, where there are too few routes with 15-minute service until 9 p.m. So for the North Shore, Burnaby, New West, Tri Cities, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, Richmond, Delta, Surrey, White Rock, and Langley, it might be more useful to include routes that have 15 minute service until 6 p.m., but allow 30 minute evening service. This will still keep the list short, but capture routes like the 100, 112, 229+230, and 239.
…and the SeaBus!
So a starting point might be to look at all conventional bus routes that run from at least 6 a.m. to midnight (in other words, full service and full passenger capaciy) with a 15-minute midday frequency, then evaluate them based on what kind of service levels are provided in the evening hours.
(This is an idle exercise I did a few years ago, but I’d have to go back and do it again now.)
Yes, the definition of FTN could be tweeked, and should be… Some routes, like on weekends, don’t need to run every 15 minutes at 6am… Maybe every 20 minutes until 8am, then increase to every 15 after 8am, or even 9am on Sundays… some of those early weekend #351’s have like 2 people on the bus??? Or some of those early Sunday #410’s don’t carry many people out to 22 St because the trains ain’t running yet!
@ All
Sorry, for the long winded post, but I think that it is worth reading, because the issues are complex, and my suggestions need the clarification. Also, I’m really passionate about these issues. I tried to raise them many years ago, but nobody listened.
@ Tessa
Thanks!
@ Sewing
Thanks, even more. :^) I like the text list, because it works on almost any device, and is simpler for casual use by advanced users. I hope that that made sense. The idea is that it is simple to make and use.
@ Sewing & Cliff
I like the frequent corridor and intersections idea. I think that it would be best if those are left to different maps, though. What do you think about that?
To show service that runs parallel, such as the #4 & #7, we could use a different map, where we use stars, solid lines, dotted lines, and shaded areas.
All common stops will have a star to represent the stops.
All overlapping parts of the routes will have a solid line, with accurate representation of where the routes go.
All non overlapping parts of the routes will be represented with a dotted line that goes straight as the bird flies. This dotted line could go straight through buildings and homes, because the intent is to show what is connected, and not where you could get off, or where you travel. Also, to enhance the dotted lined areas, we could shade the areas with a pleasant colour to indicate exactly which streets and neighbourhoods are served by the non-overlapping parts of the routes.
It would be nice, if we could find a way of indicating on the bus stop poles that the bus stop poles is part of a parallel route, where there is overlap. I guess we have this already, but many of the bus stop poles don’t list the routes, even though more than 1 bus comes by.
I propose that bus stop poles, which only have 1 route passing by, be the only bus stop poles that are allowed to be labelled with no routing information. 2 or more buses would require labelling, indicating that there is more than 1 bus. This way, people would walk to the next bus stop pole in unfamiliar areas, to avoid waiting for a bus that won’t come. This is especially important where express buses run. For temporary bus stops, there is no need to indicate which buses stop there.
Also, it would be nice to have a way of indicating, in large print, that this bus is part of parallel routes.
What do you think about that?
@ All
I’d like to suggest some definitions that would help us to market our system’s advantages.
I suggest that the best service should be grouped together: rapid transit plus anything as frequent, 15 hours per day, 7 days per week. This represents the most frequent routes, and the routes with the highest capacity. Let’s call this the Short Wait Transit Network.
Perhaps our current 15/15/7 network should be called the Good Transit Network.
Together, these 2 networks form the Frequent Transit Network Group.
Anything else that is less frequent and/or runs less than 15 hours per day, and/or less than 7 days per week, should be called the Infrequent Transit Network Group. The frequency won’t be much to brag about, but it is certainly important to point out service that markets to different customers. These buses typically have more empty seats. It’s good for people who are concerned about comfort, or have luggage. They are going to wait for a transfer, anyways, so they might as well get there in style.
I suggest the following transit networks, within the Infrequent Transit Network Group.
The Satisfactory Transit Network is for 20/12/7 to 30/12/7.
The Reasonable Transit Network is for 60/12/7.
The Usable Transit Network is for 120/12/7.
The Misc. Transit Network is for everything else.
The idea is that these infrequent networks represent niche markets, and if the information could help people, then why not?
It has been already suggested that our current FTN have bus stops indicate that they are part of the FTN. I totally support that idea. To use that idea with my suggestions, each bus stop would have to indicate each network that it is part of. For example, above the listing of bus routes, it would have to something like this.
Part Of Short Wait Transit Network
Part Of Good Transit Network
@ Jehnifer
Would Translink be willing to upload the map images to OpenClipart.org? I believe that if you share your images, then people will be willing to customize the images and share them with the rest of the community. I especially request the background images, and any templates.
A while ago, I suggested that Translink work with volunteers. This would be a great way to do it. It would allow us to create maps with familiar colours and shapes, and styles, which would enhance your branding, and hopefully reduce your work load [I know, I know: famous last words :^D].
What do you think about starting a discussion about Night Bus service? I ask because the service before midnight can be so infrequent and confusing that it might be easier for us to consider it part of night service, after the end of the frequent service.
I really like the translink ‘transit connections’ map —
http://www.translink.ca/~/media/images/content/schedules_and_maps/transit%20maps/transit%20connections/transit_connections_clicktoenlarge.ashx — I think there’s room for high frequency and night routes on this map.
How about a one way colour to show that frequent service exists in one direction to a common destination or direction?
Lougheed Highway from Schoolhouse onto Brunette to Braid Station.
Marine Drive from Granville to Cambie.
Parts of Kingsway and Edmonds with the 106 and 112
Pinetree to Coquitlam Centre.
Those are the only three I can come up with off the top of my head but I know there are dozens more.
Tessa: Great work, that’s an excellent model that you developed.
Cliff: That’s a great idea.:) How about colour modes for a change?
Orange 8-10 mins, Yellow 20 mins Green 30 mins Blue 1 hr
In Surrey for example, the routes 319/320(Fleetwood)/321(Newton Exchange) provide frequent service of 8-10 Service Mode: (Orange)
332/335/320(Langley Ctr)/321(White Rock)/501/C71/C73
provide service of 20 mins, Service Mode: Yellow
316/595/388/323/324/502 provide service of 30 mins, Service Mode: Green
329 provides a 1 hr service level, Service Mode: Blue
Another solution could be a live interactive transit map, showing frequent service routes in different colour codes as I mentioned, and also indicating if the are bus delays. In Google Transit, there are is feature that allows you to click on the bus stops on the map showing the different times it departs. However the times it departs are very conflicting. Both Google and TransLink say that it departs every 8-10 mins from Surrey Central/Fleetwood/and many stops in between, however that is not the case during the afternoon rush where it arrives 12-15 mins late and the 501 catches up much faster, but more crowded.
So in that case, probably with the help of GPS technology, TransLink should have it’s own live interactive FQ service map with the special bus stop feature showing times when the bus is actually going to come.
Tessa: here’s the response from our wayfinding team about putting an FTN marker on bus stops.
Unbelievable!! How did you do that??!! Did you use some magic wand or something? :)
Oh, I have my ways :D
Also, WordPress lets me edit comments in the backend.
If I remember correctly, Bellingham uses a similar plan by grouping common routes where they stick together into colours.
Like near Cordata Station I remember an “Orange Line” which I’m pretty sure was made up of several routes mashed together.
[…] Jarrett emphasized that the frequency distinction is the brand that most agencies will highlight. A frequent bus is one you can take without looking at a timetable — you just go to the street that the bus is running on and you know one will come along eventually. The discussion then turned to maps, and highlighting frequent bus services or corridors with frequent bus service on them. (It’s a discussion Jarrett has raised on Human Transit before, and one that we have explored on the blog here.) […]