Bicycle Bumps: Measuring the Past and Predicting the Future BIKES - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Bicycle Bumps: Measuring the Past and Predicting the Future

BIKES ONboard project San Francisco Bicycle Coalition

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A Scenario

You ride your bike to 22nd Street station You have an important meeting at work, so you must be on time The train pulls up, right on schedule But then…

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Video courtesy of Andrew Ness.

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Summary

Bicycle bumps have been measured

Caltrain Bike Count Study User Reports User Reports support and enhance Caltrain Bike Count Study

Bicycle bumps continue to occur

Despite 2009 increase in bike capacity, bumps are increasing

A variety of remedies exist

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Caltrain Current Commute Fleet

Caltrain normally runs 20 train sets, 90 trains per day Bike capacity varies from 40 to 80 bikes per train

Type Number in Service Number

• f Bike

Cars Bike Capacity Gallery 7

• ne

40 Gallery 8 two 80 Bombardier 5 two 48

Photo courtesy of Lucias Kwok

Gallery Bombardier

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Caltrain Bike Count Study

Overview

Conducted April 21 – May 27, 2010 Every train counted from one to six times

Results

55 bicycles bumped 6 trains caused bumps; 9 trains over-capacity Lower bound because limited sampling

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User-reported Bumps

Overview

February 2009 – August 2010 Compiled from Correspondence Packets from Joint Powers Board meetings

Results

2184 bicycles bumped 20 different trains caused bumps in 2010 Lower bound because not all bumps are reported

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User-reported Bumps

Bicycle Bumps in 2009 and 2010

50 100 150 200 250 F e b ' 9 A p r ' 9 J u n ' 9 A u g ' 9 O c t ' 9 D e c ' 9 F e b ' 1 A p r ' 1 J u n ' 1 A u g ' 1 Month Reported Bumps

Caltrain adds bike capacity

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Stations with the Most Bumps in 2010

User-reported Bumps: 226 at 22nd Street 116 at Palo Alto 108 at Redwood City 79 at Menlo Park 39 at San Mateo 37 at Millbrae 36 at Sunnyvale Caltrain Study: Too few samples to compare

San Francisco County Santa Clara County San Mateo County

Image courtesy of caltrain.com

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Trains Bumping Bikes in 2010

267 324 220 314 275 329 230 373 383 285 277 225 138 332 379 217 369 323 226 322 233*

Train numbers that bumped bikes according to user reports. Those in blue italics bumped bikes in Caltrain Bike Count Study, too. * No user reports of bikes bumped by train 233.

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Bumps by Train Type in Caltrain Bike Count Study

Train Type Bike Capacity Number of Bumps Gallery 80 Bombardier 48 18 Gallery 40 37

Photo courtesy of Rob Robinson

Bikes bumped at Palo Alto

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Train 191 8:04pm, August 5, 2010 Menlo Park

Photos courtesy of Andrew Ness

Bike cars are full, but the rest of the train has many empty seats.

The Problem

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Possible Remedies

Description Comment

Run two gallery bike cars on high-demand trains 7 of the 21 trains that bumped bikes are already scheduled for two gallery bike cars; frequent service disruptions cause equipment changes, resulting in bumps. Make a modest capacity increase User reports show 21 instances of at least 10 bikes bumped by a single train. A modest capacity increase will lessen, but not eliminate bumps. Provide consistent 72 to 80 bike spaces on all trains Three bike cars on Bombardier trains (72 bike spaces) and two bike cars on gallery trains (80 bike spaces); consistent bike capacity will eliminate bumps and simplify operations.

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Summary

Bicycle bumps have been measured

Caltrain Bike Count Study User Reports User Reports support and enhance Caltrain Bike Count Study

Bicycle bumps continue to occur

Despite 2009 increase in bike capacity, bumps are increasing

A variety of remedies exist

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Appendix

The following slides provide more information and methodology details.

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A bicycle bump occurs when a person who has paid for riding on Caltrain and has a bicycle is denied boarding the train. If such a paying customer is denied boarding on two trains, then two bicycle bumps have

• ccurred.

The author is unaware of any reports to the Caltrain Joint Powers Board during the past two years of bumping passengers without bicycles except perhaps denial to non-paying or disorderly persons.

Bikes bumped at San Mateo

Photo courtesy of John Markos O’Neill

Background

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2010 Caltrain Bike Count

The author used the 2010-08-25 draft report "2010 Caltrain On-Board Bike Count and Dwell Time Summary Report" prepared by Corey, Canapary & Galanis Research. During the time period 2010-04-21/2010-05-27, each train was surveyed at least

• nce with some trains surveyed three to six times (p. 2). Bike boardings were

recorded at each station (p. 2), probably a system-wide sample of bike ridership. Data gathering instructions are described in Appendix A, "Data Gathering, Part 2". The instructions do not indicate how a data collector was supposed to be physically present when counting denied bicycles, but they do indicate that the data collector was supposed to be aboard when the train left the station. Furthermore, counts for trains twenty or more minutes late upon arrival were discarded (p. 4). Thus, bicycle bump counts represent lower bounds on the actual number of bicycle bumps.

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2010 Caltrain Bike Count (cont.)

Caltrain operates three types of train consists (p. 2): 5 Bombardier train consists each having two bike cars and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 48. 7 Gallery train consists each having one bike car and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 40. 8 Gallery train consists each having two bike cars and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 80. Given the inconsistent consist capacity, Caltrain strives to maintain a schedule of trains having 80 on-board bicycle spaces. "80 bike capacity is not guaranteed because of equipment maintenance and other operational needs." A summary of bicycle bumps is on p. 9. The report shows that equipment changes described as "Planned capacity was 80 bikes; actual capacity was 40“ resulted in 7, 5, and 4 bumps. The number of bumps because of inadequate capacity were 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1.

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2010 Caltrain Bike Count (cont.)

Some trains bumped bikes at more than one stop.

• 233 on 2010-05-12: San Antonio (5 bumps) and California Ave (6 bumps)
• 267 on 2010-05-17: Menlo Park (4) and Redwood City (5)
• 275 on 2010-05-12: Palo Alto (2) and Menlo Park (1)
• 324 on 2010-05-17: 22nd St (5), Hillsdale (2), Millbrae (1)

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User-reported Bumps

Some Caltrain cyclists report bumps to the Joint Powers Board, the board governing Caltrain. These reports enter the public record at the JPB monthly meetings. The data has been collated and duplicate reports have been removed to avoid

• ver-reporting. This data will be made available upon request.

Because the data is voluntarily reported, the reported number of bumps is a clear lower bound on actual number of bumps that occur. The actual number of bumps could be significantly larger. Because the data is a lower bound, it should be used to indicate problems such as individual trains bumping at multiple stations, which stations have the most bumps, and which trains cause the most bumps. It should not be considered an upper bound on the number of bumps. Determining an upper bound will require methodology like that used in the Caltrain study but recorded over a long enough period of time to cover the major sources of bumps, e.g., inconsistent train capacity because of service disruptions and daily, weekly, and seasonal variation in on-board bicycle demand.

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User-reported Bumps (cont.)

The tables show bumps reported in 2010 for a given train number. The total number of bumps reported for January through August 2010 is 754.

Train Number Bumps 267 180 324 107 220 51 314 44 275 40 329 39 230 29 373 25 285 23 383 23 Train Number Bumps 277 19 225 12 138 12 332 11 379 8 217 7 226 5 323 5 369 5 322 4 unknown 105

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Instances of ≥10 bikes bumped by a single train

Per-train bumps counts reflect voluntarily reported bumps, as reported to the Joint Powers Board, in 2010. Bump reports not including a station were omitted. Bumps included:

• 35 bumps @ Palo Alto, 2010-06-14
• 30 bumps @ 22nd St, 2010-07-29
• 18 bumps @ 22nd St, 2010-06-22
• 15 bumps @ Sunnyvale, 2010-08-24
• 15 bumps @ Redwood City, 2010-03-18
• 15 bumps @ Palo Alto, 2010-06-22
• 15 bumps @ 22nd St, 2010-07-29 (This train different then 30-bump train on the same date.)
• 13 bumps @ Sunnyvale, 2010-06-07
• 13 bumps @ Palo Alto, 2010-04-19
• 13 bumps @ Palo Alto, 2010-02-25
• 12 bumps @ Redwood City, 2010-03-15
• 12 bumps @ Menlo Park, 2010-05-13
• 12 bumps @ Menlo Park, 2010-08-17
• 12 bumps @ California Ave, 2010-08-09
• 11 bumps @ Palo Alto, 2010-06-14
• 11 bumps @ Menlo Park, 2010-07-20
• 11 bumps @ 22nd St, 2010-08-09
• 10 bumps @ SF, 2010-06-22
• 10 bumps @ Redwood City, 2010-07-08
• 10 bumps @ Mountain View, 2010-04-19
• 10 bumps @ Menlo Park, 2010-06-24

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Capacity Increase to 72 to 80 Bikes per Train

The proposed capacity will ensure all train consists have 72 or 80 on-board bicycle spaces. The five Bombardier consists will each have one trailer car converted to carry 24 bicycles. Seven Gallery consists will each have one trailer car converted to carry 40 bicycles. Page 21 of the Caltrain Bike Count report lists the high capacity trains. These counts are lower than actual demand, because existing customers modify their schedules to minimize bumps and some customers choose not to ride Caltrain because the possibility of a bump is too high. A separate analysis, which has been presented at a Joint Powers Board meeting, analyzes unmet on-board bicycle demand.