Half empty or half full, how ISO may be slowing down buses.

So your bus is nearly full, will it get behind schedule, or if it's only got three or four passengers, will it run early and miss some passengers?

The answer to both is yes.

The 'Year 2000 Redesign in Utah County, the 2003 redesign in Weber County, and the 2007 redesign in Salt Lake County have brought out some interesting issues that were not taken into account in ISO 9001 documentation that may cause more problems than intended for UTA as well as the ridership.

Here's how it works with the issue of how many people are on any given bus.

I have found that if a bus is over half full, more likely this will happen if the bus is over 2/3 full (doesn't apply to 25-footers that were put into service in 2006 and begin with the number '06' on the vehicle ID), then the bus will almost always run somewhat behind schedule. The end result is missed connections, frustrated riders, and drivers that get stressed out.

Now the flipside is that if a bus is only 1/3 full or less, and there are few people getting on board and getting off, then the bus will invariably get ahead of schedule, the only real issue is that passengers get left behind, or the bus has to stop in lanes of traffic in some cases but not all, thus frustrating drivers who have to change lanes to get around a bus that is stopped for several minutes because they have to wait until they can safely go further without riders missing that particular bus at the time the schedule says it's supposed to be there.

So how can you schedule things properly? The redesigns invariably change rider habits for the worse if the bus runs less frequently than every half hour. Buses that run every 15 minutes are optimal, and that was the good side of the Salt Lake redesign in that more routes are that frequent than ever before.

If a bus runs only hourly, it's likely people will lose interest in using it. Moderately used routes like along 78th South are going to have even less users now that the new route on that road for example, are going to only have half the service they had during the weekdays, and none of the weekend service.

In fact, half of Salt Lake County got left out of the redesign's benefits, and that seems to be deliberate. That's like saying 'We don't care about you the rider, our drivers are more important than the customer'.

How can ISO 9001 help rectify the problems? A lot.

For one, service must be more consistent and promotional materials can be developed to encourage use of those routes. I have maintained this option should have been on the table for years, but no one, and I mean no one at UTA, has ever listened to the idea. The advertising for the new redesign is partly deceptive in that only the areas north of 53rd/54th South are getting anything that runs every 15 minutes, the rest only gets service every 30 minutes if not less frequently. ISO 9001 is there to ensure better quality service for the south half of Salt Lake County, which has grown substantially.

In fact there are only 38 routes that cover an area larger than Las Vegas covers, and Las Vegas is said to have over 40 regular routes plus some express service. Job growth here will bring us 100,000 more people in the next two years, that is the euivalent of a city the size of West Jordan, which on Saturdays may only have ONE regular route running throuhg it!

South Jordan is 40,000 with projected population of 100,000 including fill-in development between Daybreak and even Daybreak does not have weekday service into it, never mind that TRAX will be there eventually but not for several years. They need one route at least hourly to that location now, maybe more frequently, from 5am to 12midnight right now.

That's just some examples. But UTA doesn't seem to see that buses are needed to feed TRAX, so they don't buy enough buses. That violates the spirit of their certification. They are only going by the letter. 'The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life' as the Bible says.

More will follow later.