Improving bus services in DC: Time truly is money.

Friendship
Originally uploaded by navonod

(30s buses at Pennsylvania Avenue & 13th Street NW. Flickr photo by navonod.)

James Hamre, WMATA's planning manager for bus corridor improvement programs, spoke about the recent effort to improve service on the 30s bus line (which starts at Wisconsin and Western Avenues in Northwest DC and ends in Southeast at Pennsylvania and Southern Avenues.

He said there are eight areas to focus on in terms of improving bus service:

1. The quality of the experience while getting on the bus. (Note that Sally Thomas mentioned her experience riding buses in Norway, where the buses have areas to place strollers and baby carriages.)

2. Information about the service.

3. The quality of the ride, stops, and facilities.

4. Training, performance, and supervision of operators.

5. Coordination of service on the line when it's operating.

6. Traffic operations (road condition and quality, signals, curbside conditions--how the bus meets the curb at bus stops).

7. Fares and the collection process.

8. Safety, security, and incident response.

For example with #7, he said that it costs 4 cents/second to operate a bus, so every seconds' worth of delay in fumbling for change to pay the fare is costly in time and money.

And with incident response, some of the changes in the bus service will allow for service on the 30s line, even when the Capitol Area may be closed, and service otherwise would be interrupted.

The changes to improve service on the line will cost about $600,000. And the cost to add supervisors (when DC went into financial receivership in the 1990s, payments to WMATA for additional bus supervisors in DC were dropped, and for the most part haven't been restored) is about $400,000.

An interesting point to think about is "asset utilization." According to Mr. Hamre, to run the bus line, if it ran on time, would require 22 buses, to provide the current level of service. Instead, they have 42 buses in service on the line daily, to provide the service required.

Imagine not needing to buy 10-15 buses, and the cost of personnel, and servicing and maintaining the buses, if it were possible to run this particular line more optimally.

And imagine being able to extend this kind of saving across the bus fleet. It would be cheaper to run bus service, and fewer bus drivers--who are hard to find and keep--would be required.