Getting #Ready4Rail - The OC Transpo experience

This past summer, I had the honour to work with OC Transpo, Ottawa's public transit provider, as a summer student in the Service Planning branch. With the arrival of a new light rail transit line, the city is ever-so hyped. It becomes an extremely exciting time, as the city prepares to transform its primarily bus-based network to a multi-modal transit system, one where everyone will have to adapt to a new, high-order, high-capacity method of transportation.

What's Happening in Ottawa?

Ottawa's public transit system was first transformed with the introduction of the Transitway in 1983, a series of bus-only roadways and lanes that connected the city from the far ends of the city in to the downtown core. With buses running at high speeds, they whipped across the city on the Transitway and was able to be the core artery of the OC Transpo network.

The next step to upgrade the Transitway network is to make it a light rail line, and that's exactly what happened. This new light rail line will run from Tunney's Pasture Station in the west, along what was the Central Transitway, through a 2.5 kilometre underground tunnel in the downtown core, and along a portion of what was East Transitway through to Blair Station in the east.

With that comes a new challenge: adjusting the current bus network into one that complements the existence of a new high-order mode of transit. My fellow colleagues in the Service Planning branch have worked tirelessly to reshape Ottawa's public transit system in various ways, including renumbering routes and extending or shortening service to a new Line 1 station.

The OC Transpo bus and rail network that is established now will set the way for further enhancing the network in the future, as part of Stage 2 and potentially Stage 3 expansions of the light rail network.

Getting familiar with Ottawa's transit network

My role this term was to support the Network Service Design team in ensuring that the OC Transpo network would seamlessly and effectively transition from the old network to the new network. In order to do that, I had to get myself familiarized with the OC Transpo network currently, and what it will become post-LRT.

New Service Types

The new bus network introduces four different service types, each indicated by their own colour and symbol: Rapid, Frequent, Connexion and Local services.

These service types and indicators help form levels of service, and the frequency of which service is provided. They also aim to help riders plan their trips more effectively.

Rapid routes are identified by a blue circle, and run primarily on the Transitway between Line 1 stations and communities in Kanata, Bells Corners, Barrhaven, Orléans and Greenboro. They complement O-Train service to and from the rapid transit network in the city, and provide frequent service all-day, with some routes providing overnight service to downtown.

Frequent routes are identified by an orange hexagon, and provides the arterial network outside of the Transitway. These routes provide frequent service from 6 am to 6 pm and provides a connection with Line 1.

Connexion routes are identified by a purple oval, and replaces the former premium express routes in the city. They provide direct service from various communities in the suburbs towards Line 1 stations (i.e. Blair, Tunney's Pasture and Hurdman) in the morning, and homebound in the afternoon.

Local routes are identified by grey rectangles, and provide service to various local communities with customized schedules. These routes provide supplemental service to the network established by the Rapid and Frequent route network. Local routes numbered less than 100 will provide connections to Line 1, while routes numbered greater than 100 serve as local community routes in the suburbs, often connecting to Transitway stations.

In turn, these new types of service are now clearly identified on a new-style of system maps, which show the hierarchy of service (click to open a full-sized PDF):

New Route Numbers

Bus routes in the city are being renumbered to better reflect the service coverage of the route. Historically, OC Transpo routes were numbered somewhat geographically, with the 90s-series primarily reserved for crosstown Transitway services.

With the new network, routes will be numbered according to their true geographic service area; for example, routes providing service into Kanata are numbered in the 60s-series, and routes providing service into Orléans are numbered in the 30s-series. All routes numbered less than 100, and all 200-series Connexion routes, will guarantee a connection with Line 1.

What I've Learned

This experience has taught me a lot about transit planning, but more importantly it taught me these lessons:

Lessen sudden impact and changes to customers

A transit network cannot change itself overnight. The changes that OC Transpo is making to its network are quite expansive and affects all the neighbourhoods in the city. A key element to mitigate sudden shock is to spread out the changes required, and help customers get familiarized with elements of the new network.

These changes to the network started in 2015, where elements of the final new bus network were incorporated in service changes that occurred every season (generally every April, June, September, and December.) These can include attaching a new route service type, renumbering the route, implementing route changes that are part of the post-LRT network, and/or cancelling service that will not be carried to the post-LRT network.

A milestone service change was the one in December 2016, when premium-fare express routes were renumbered, reclassified, and had the premium fares removed. These 30 or so routes used to charge an additional fare for passengers heading from suburban communities directly into downtown with limited stops. As of that service change, OC Transpo's fare structure was brought to single-fare for all routes, and a new level of service, Connexion, was introduced.

Since then, service changes in 2017 and 2018 featured a significant number of route renumbering, routing adjustments and new routes to the network, all of which help shape the post-LRT network and allows customers to gradually familiarize themselves with elements of this new network.

While many of the changes for the post-LRT network were gradually implemented beforehand, the most important service change will be the one occurring shortly after the opening of Line 1. That service change will realize the full network (as shown in the map earlier) in its entirety, bring OC Transpo's network to a multi-modal service.

Plan for every scenario

Though this is a no-brainer and common sense for urban planning in general, our team recognized that anything can happen and things may be delayed (spoiler alert: it did.) While the team remained hopeful that the LRT opening would occur on time (and putting all our effort towards that goal), we separately prepared additional schedules and plans should the train opening be delayed.

The preparation work involved with that included developing a 'reduced services' timetable that is applied during the Christmas holidays for the Fall (September) service period, which would become extended until the train opens. These reduced services schedule would usually be included in the scheduling of the Winter/December timetables.

Final Thoughts

Overall, my experience working at OC Transpo has been an enriching one. It truly is an exciting time for Ottawa (even though delays are occurring), and the city is truly excited to welcome such a new and innovative form of urban transit in the city. I'm proud to have made a mark in OC Transpo's legacy to come, and I can't wait to see Line 1 in full operation soon.