MTA statement on late and crowded Baltimore buses, in particular the 13 line
(For readability I have boldfaced a couple of MTA’s key points. –Fern Shen)
Brew: Why are these buses so crowded and late and the # of them assigned to the 13 route apparently quite inadequate?
Shepard: Every metro transit system experiences occasional overcrowding and/or late service on its travel routes. In general, it is good to see buses filled with passengers because it shows we are meeting the demands of our customer base for that particular route. However, when overcrowding becomes chronic, it is problematic for our passengers and for the MTA.
MTA’s Local Bus system carries an average of 223,183 riders every week day, which is the majority of MTA’s 367,166 total average weekday riders. The fleet of 750 local MTA buses is more than 50% Clean Diesel/Electric Hybrid and provides service to residents of Baltimore City, Baltimore County and parts of Anne Arundel and Howard counties.
Our buses are not immune to the same traffic congestion that every driver struggles with every day. MTA’s buses operate in regular traffic, having to deal with the stop-and-go of traffic lights, traffic jams, accidents, deliveries, and other delays. We do our best to anticipate and mitigate these challenges, but it is not always possible.
The MTA like all transit agencies must address customer needs with the resources it has. However, we are confident that when shortfalls in service are brought to our attention, we have the manpower needs to redeploy assets and help improve our service.
Overcrowding on buses can be brought on by a number of factors such as a sudden spike of passengers at a particular stop to road construction.
In the case of the Local Bus 13, which travels along highly-congested North Avenue, the MTA has launched a Route Study to determine the source of overcrowding in this line. The Route Study is just part of the protocol put in place when customers tell us our service is falling short of MTA standards.
The MTA procedure includes:
1) The MTA Office of Field Supervision conducts a Route Study to determine whether the overcrowding is in fact occurring and studies traffic flow along the route with the use of street supervisory personnel identify bottlenecks and unexpected customer surges at bus stops.
2) The MTA Office of Local Bus service may employ additional articulated buses on the route. These extra-long buses with two connected passenger compartments increase passenger capacity.
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Brew: What are the on-time rates of the 13 and city buses in general? The 27 has also been singled out for criticism.
Shepard: First you need to know the definition of on-time. For MTA calculations, on-time means a bus arriving at a given check point between one minute early and five minutes late. The range in time allows for street congestion, road construction, loading of bicycles by passengers and other situations that could delay a driver to be accounted for.
Under the current system, the on-time performance is not tracked by route. New technology the MTA will be employing in the near future will allow for such breakdown of on-time data.
Overall for MTA bus lines, the data for 2014 breaks down as shown below:
Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug
78.4% 79.2% 82.7% 83.5% 77.2% 85.7% 89.6% 85.7%
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Brew: What is the MTA doing to address these problems – late and crowded buses, crime at bus stops and on the buses?
Shepard: The protocol to address late and crowded buses in the near term was described above. In the longer term, the MTA has developed the Bus Network Improvement Project (BNIP) to improve local bus service now and well into the future.
The improvements, which started in August, are the first phase of a comprehensive plan to build a better bus system that will conveniently connect customers to where they want to go
To improve reliability, we will be completing bus schedule overhauls, which will help get the bus schedules more up-to-date with today’s traffic and ridership patterns. We are also improving our on-street monitoring processes, adding staff and improving use of technology to streamline real-time management of the bus system. These initiatives will take time to be seen and felt by our riders, but we are committed to making this bus system one they can count on.
This top-to-bottom review is crucial to our efforts to help us meet the O’Malley-Brown Administration’s goal of doubling transit ridership by 2020 and to ensure that current and future bus service aligns with housing, job growth and development plans in Baltimore City and the surrounding region.
As far as crime goes, this subject has been a key focus of Maryland Transportation Secretary James T. Smith Jr. Despite any perceptions about crime on MTA travel modes, crime is actually at historical lows on MTA services such as Local Bus, Metro Subway and Light Rail.
One serious crime is committed for almost every 400,000 MTA riders.
However, if MTA notices an increase in criminal activity on any particular mode, MTA police will deploy a number of strategies to ensure our patrons safety that may include directed patrol in uniform, additional plain clothes officer placements, increase use of CCTV cameras, and employ local police mutual-aid agreements.
We are proud of the service delivered to the vast majority of our customers. However, when we fall short of that benchmark of quality service we have set for our agency, we want to know so we can fix it.