So, Where Did The $500 Million Go?
Not before another dime is spent on TransLink, some fiscal sanity must come to TransLink.
TransLink has operating expenses which are about one-third greater than the transit industry norm in Canada.Ai?? For the present annual $1.5 billion operating budget of TransLinkAi?? this works out to $500 million annually in unexplained operating expenses.Ai?? How can the taxpayer be expected to pay higher taxes and user fees to fund TransLink when spending far in excess of what the rest of the transit industry in Canada spends?
There is something radically wrong. when TransLink screams poverty, yet spend more money per passenger on a transit system that has not generated a modal shift, from car to transit, in almost 20 years.
How can Metro Mayors condone more taxes and user fees, especially the oft proposed congestion charge or road pricing, when TransLink is seemingly squandering vast amounts of money on a transit system that does not attract much new ridership?
So TransLink, where did the $500 million go?
You are misunderstanding this graph completely. I pointed out why it is misunderstood on my blog article at
http://darylvsworld.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/was-translink-audited-correctly/
TransLink is exceptionally efficient with spending their money on its transit services, and the numbers in the above chart merely indicate that TransLink’s job of serving this whole region is quite a challenge. We have to remember that TransLink’s service region is so unique among other Canadian transit providers. Its responsibilities are also unique: TransLink manages the major road network, important regional assets (i.e. cycling & pedestrian facilities), goods movement and other unique things. Of course it’s going to be more expensive, because it does more that in other cities would be done by the individual municipal governments or province.
Zweisystem replies: In a nutshell, sorry Daryl. no. The problems with Translink are not unique, what we see is very poor management.
If sky train is truly less expensive than other transit in Canada, then someone is embezzling money. It can’t cost more per passenger to move people in Metro Vancouver if sky train costs less to operate than LRT or trams as City of Vancouver staff and TransLink staff contend.
@DDC
You are utterly confused. The figure from CUTA represents intrinsic values on a per rider basis (revenue) and CUTA does not publish wrong information. That is, CUTA takes the total cost of service (C) and divides it by the total number of revenue users (X) to arrive at about $4 per revenue rider by TransLink; whereas, the average cost is about $3 per revenue rider for the industry.
So, the delta cost for TransLink relative to the industry is ($4 – $3) / $3 = 33%. TransLink incurs $1.5 billion in operating costs for all riders and 33% of this is excess or delta over the industry average, $500 million (33% * $1.5 billon = $500 million). Right?
I can’t access your site and it is blocked by our corporate spam-ware. Can you go through your math which disagrees with CUTA, the Canadian Urban Transit Association which supplied the figure? Better yet, contact Ian Jarvis, CEO of TransLink, for an explanation for me.
http://www.cutaactu.ca/en/
Finally, providing transit here is very cheap compared with places like Edmonton, Calgary… Toronto incurring much greater operating costs in the winter. This makes TransLink look even worse.
@DCC
Excuse me, for the $1.5 billion annual operating costs by TransLink, the annual operating costs by TransLink are technically about $400 million over the industry norm: ($1.5 billion – $1.1 billion) / $1.1 billon = $400 million / $1.1 billion or about 33% over the industry norm as the figure by CUTA shows.
For Eric:
I don’t disagree, CUTA does not publish the wrong information at all. My point is that you are not interpreting this information on cost effectiveness it in the correct way. So, TransLink’s cost is above the industry average. We must also understand that TransLink’s service area and service challenges ARE unique. TransLink is like the combination of TTC, Mi-Way, YRT, GO Transit and others into one authority – and all of those agencies have separately paid administration teams, whereas this region is working more efficiently under just one.
That it is less cost-effective to serve our region is not a TransLink fault, it is our region’s fault for being so large and so separated by agricultural expanses that other metro areas in Canada just don’t have. I’d say TransLink is doing well dealing with the reality of how our region is like, given how good we’re doing in terms of actual cost efficiency (hint hint: in spite of what you say, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that TransLink is exceptionally well managed. Get over it.).
Anyways, to wrap this up, I do think I have an answer for you in terms of where the $500 million you are asking for went: it went from Aldergrove to Lions’ Bay, a distance of about 92km – a distance not travellable by any combination of TTC, Mi-Way, YRT or other transit services from surrounding agencies.
Zweisystem replies: TransLink operate three regularly scheduled bus services in south Delta that carry between them, less than 20 passengers a day. Multiply this bit of incompetent management across Metro Vancouver and it is easy to see why it costs TransLink more to operate the transit system. Daryl, you seem to forget that a public transit service is to move people where they want to go, not where bureaucrats or politicians want them to go. TransLink is unique in investing $9 billion on three RT lines that have done little, if anything to reduce congestion and gridlock in the region.
Daryl Delay Cruz, I was told by my friend Scott who actually works for Translink that yes Zwei’s numbers from CUTA are correct. Now before everyone goes all “rangy” as my wife says, please listen as to why the costs are so high. Remember this is conventional transit costs only, no rapid transit B routes or Skytrain are included. Translink through union agreements has to provide a certain amount of positions that are managerial in nature but are still frontline workers. They go by different names in different transit operations, but the term Driver Route Supervisor or Inspector is often used. Well you guys are loaded with them, he did not give exact numbers but it is about one third more than the national average (ironic isn’t it). They are very expensive because they are all senior positions in the bus driver pay scale. Most are not even visible to the public because they work in your bus garages and depots (whatever you call them there).
Due to the way transit is provided in Vancouver through shell companies and divisions each company, division whatever you want to call it, seems to handle a different transit mode. Unfortunately that means that, each group has its own management and separate physical requirements and therefore very little effort to combine budgets to reduce duplication of certain services. They still have to pay their employees as well but, here you do have commonality with other divisions because of expensive union agreements. I am not against Unions they give workers a fighting chance but it does come at the cost of the public dime. Keep in mind it is actually quite difficult. to drive a bus when you are dealing with the public and bus mechanics are worth their weight gold. Very expensive to train and therefore very expensive to have on hand to fix your buses. Each division or company has to have its own instead of one pool of maintenance people which is what many other transit operations do. Scott (not his real name in case you didn’t figure it out yet) also tells me that the dispatching of buses requires a high number of miles traveled “deadheading” and this is the fall out from one group handling bus management. In these types of operations when someone contracts a single company to run all the buses mostly to save money, there is a desire to centralize the control and dispatching of said bus fleet, again to save money. What has often happened is that it actually is cheaper, to have multiple areas each with its own dispatching control because of the control issues and the inefficiency of providing centralized dispatching over a large geographic area. It seems counter intuitive but its often true and again Vancouver with heavily centralized dispatching system fails miserably here.
Lastly, when you have so many divisions handling individual operations, one company is just the buses and another just the Skytrain and so on, you get very poor internal communication. Unless you hardwired a system together that forces certain groups to talk to each other as a matter of operational need, the natural tendency is to stop communicating with each other, especially if problems occur. Think about it, you have a division that just operates the Skytrain network and the Canada Line but, the Canada Line is actually paid and administered through a private consortium. Regardless who physically. runs and staffs the Canada Line resources have to go to the consortium to set up some to administer their side of the agreement for the line. Now you have 2 groups doing administration duties and they are most likely not in the same building so emails, phone calls and text become there main form of communication with each other. Face it, this website shows just how difficult it is to communicate ideas even when there are only small disagreements between people let alone a massive complex agreement to administer.
Zweisystem replies: You hit the nail squarely on the head my friend.
Daryl, the transit agencies around Toronto already operate over distances that dwarf Translink’s service area. Translink’s problems are mainly internal operational issues around very poor internal communication, massive systemic duplication and a multitude of mostly private public or P3 operational financial agreements that are hindering its continued existence. The agency already does a good job of separating its infrastructure costs already. Yes that does complicate certain transit issues but for the most part as an operational issue, the fact that they have to deal with certain transport related infrastructure cost is a proverbial “red herring ” issue, when you consider that the main form rail service the Bombardier Skytrain technology was labeled as too expensive for the partly privately funded Canada Line and now is forced to operate 2 different forms rail technology and at great cost. How is it more efficient to run diesel articulated buses along trolley bus routes to UBC. When I asked that one in Vancouver boy did I get looks that kill. The answer I got was they couldn’t afford more articulated trolley buses. Well if trolley buses are so expensive (and they really are) why do you continue to operate them I asked. The answer was truly fantastic and exactly what I expected, “Trolley buses are cheaper to operate as a system but have a high individual unit cost to purchase. We don’t have the capital resources to purchase new Trolley buses on a regular basis therefore we have to purchase the next best thing diesel articulated buses to augment are service to UBC”. So Vancouver a city with a large trolley bus operation already cannot get the capital resources needed to run a desperately needed larger system of trolley buses because, the existing financial structure of its transit agency says its cheaper to purchase another product but taken as a system is more expensive to operate.
Zweisystem replies: Trolleybus specialist from Europe, long ago told Zwei that transit lines operating trolleybuses become cheaper to operate the more the electric buses are used. In Vancouver, it is customary to operate diesel buses on trolley routes on weekend, thus negating much savings made during weekday operation. Also, trolley route bus stops should be a minimum of 400 metres apart, for optimum economy.
Consider the sad fact that if those three regularly scheduled bus services were cut for the sake of improving efficiency and reducing your so called “mismanagement”, there would be no bus services going to South Delta. Consider the land-use: it’s simply not efficient to service South Delta, and so having less than 20 passengers a day is to be expected. Is that TransLink’s fault? Nope, not at all. And you really have to stop blaming them.
@Haveacow I don’t know how or why this “driver route supervisor” stuff matters. The amount of driver route supervisors on the system has NOTHING to do with the cost-effectiveness of providing transit here. And, judging by the cost-EFFICIENCY, I would say the amount is well under control.
Do you even know why the Canada Line is not using ART? it’s precisely because of the P3 nature, and it had nothing to do with the cost of ‘SkyTrain technology’ as a technology. I have looked extensively into the bidding process. It fell into place as-is because of Lavalin’s additional private funding commitment and ability to solve engineering-related issues.
Also, considering that more than half of the fleet’s diesel artics are dedicated to the 99 alone, I can see why there isn’t a positive attitude towards moving it to artic trolleys. It makes no financial sense to spend so much money to electrify the 99-B for little actual capacity improvement, with money that could instead be used to fund a REAL capacity and service improvement such as a SkyTrain extension (or, for that matter, even an LRT line down Broadway – no matter how senseless that would be)
Zweisystem replies: Daryl, you don’t get it. Those three bus services are ill planned, if there is little or no ridership. What those three bus services mean is that TransLink, in their wisdom, offers three bus services with no business case, in fact, there is no commercial case for these services. This Monty Python style of bus services is indicative that TransLink’s management has lost their way.
Daryl, as for your contention that not building with SkyTrain; “had nothing to do with the cost of ‘SkyTrain technology’ as a technology”, is pure bull-shit. SkyTrain and LRT are both railways, LRT does the same job as SkyTrain, only cheaper. This is the real reason that no one bus with SkyTrain. From almost every transit specialist I have talked to since the mid 1980’s (I assume you were born in 1995) has told me that SkyTrain is far too expensive; poorly designed; and not good value for money. With only 7 systems built, under four different names, tells the real story.
Zwei, yelling incompetence is easy. For a challenge how about you take a constructive stab at reorganizing transit service in South Delta and do a post on it (maybe similar to what Voony did for Richmond). Start with a service having the same revenue hours and see what you can do. If you can get away with vehicles with cheaper operating costs (community transit shuttles instead of full sized buses) feel free to use the savings to increase revenue hours. Feel free to add capital improvements as needed (within reason obviously), for the purposes of this exercise lets just assume any reasonable capital investment does not require new funding as long as it reduces operating costs. Could be fun and interesting.
Zweisystem replies: In the real world, a transit agency supplies transit when there is a demand, not supply transit and hope to hell someone uses it. No demand = no transit.
So your optimized system reorg for South Delta is no transit?
Just remember its public transit so the eternal debate continues, access vs. ridership. This has been a core debate in transit doctrine for a very long time, is a route useful if it doesn’t have much ridership? Or is the main purpose to provide access for people who may not have a transport alternative? When you dig for information about a poor performing route the answer that is often found is that, this route is providing basic transport access for a group or in fact many people who may not have any other options.
The main issue or problem with a completely demand based model of providing transit is that the filter you use to determine what is enough and what isn’t enough may not lead to effective transit. I have seen multiple studies that showed an area had a potential transit demand level of X but no matter what schedule was put into service, the demand level never materialized. I have seen others instances, in the worst possible low density high income areas for transit demand ridership that defies description its so high. The reason wasn’t geographical, political, income related or any other normal measure that is used. Even some tangential measures couldn’t explain it other than they seemed to like it. I’m certain that in both circumstances if you looked hard enough an answer would be found however, this shows the limitations of providing a completely demand based system.
Another core issue or problem of demand based modeling is that its too easy to point to specific underused routes or route segments without the same measure giving any insight on network effect. Often providing a under used line fills a unknown or underappreciated transit network void and all of a sudden boom, ridership levels take off in the whole area. Even when all the data says that this route will not be a high performer. The reverse is true as well. Removing a under performing transit line may destroy a useful local network of routes and ridership in the whole area takes a dive. Here in Ottawa a certain suburban east-west bus route was cut back a few years ago and still let me see, three years later, the area’s transit usage has been in decline and no matter what O.C. Transpo does to all the other routes around it levels have continued to drop. Every year they come to the public and say they want ideas for improving transit so I send in professional documentation to prove my point and every year I get a very impressive hand written personal letter from a planner at O.C. Transpo thanking me for my insight and very much agreeing with me. They have yet to actually implement this change, maybe someday.
Oh Daryl, here’s a little information for you to think about. SNC Lavlin. used to own all the vehicle technology and engineering patents for the Skytrain. They bought it from the real creators of it The Urban Transit Development Corporation of Ontario or UTDC (these guys were the ones who also created the bilevel commuter coaches that Bombardier sold to the West Coast Express and many others). SNC LAVLIN then sold the vehicle but not the engineering patents to Bombardier 5 years later because they couldn’t get anyone to buy it. So even if Bombardier’s consortium had won the Canada Line contract and used Skytrain technology, they would have been involved, so either way they were going to make a lot of money.
You are correct the P3 agreement is really about government not wanting to pay the whole deal and spreading the risk, so to speak. It is becoming quite common to do this in North America because it spreads the cost when someone tries to sue you and they win. The lie that this giving better value to taxpayers is something the financial conservatives have been screaming since the 1980’s and really is pure bunk! It does not give better value or help taxpayers and often does quite the opposite.
If Skytrain technology was so good and saved so much money, Translink should have included it specifically in the call for proposals process regarding the Canada Line contract. Montreal did that for their new Metro Trains, they had to use the rubber tire technology already in use no other options please. The fact that this was not the case shows that someone along the line when the call for proposals went out really doesn’t have full confidence in the technology. Toronto had to issue the call for proposals twice regarding the new legacy streetcar replacement program when only 2 companies answered the original call (The head of Siemens Transportation Division in North America got fired over it back in 2008 because he did not want to alter a design specification for a mere 204 vehicle contract, while Siemens worldwide was just beginning to recover from their massive restructuring to prevent bankruptcy). So why was the technology not enshrined in the contract proposals by Translink, no was one pointing a gun at their collective heads? They really had many options so what’s the Deal?
Regarding the manpower issue over route inspectors and their high numbers compared to other options transit operations. This is a huge issue because when it comes to buses and operations manpower requirements are the majority of operating budget. There is a remarkablely consistent fact across the whole of the first word’s transit operations, between 70-80% of the cost of surface transit is the driver. One of the biggest reasons, Ottawa is changing to LRT from BRT is because the manpower costs for moving 10500 people per hour per direction by bus is slowly crushing OC Transpo’s operational budget (between 185-200 buses per hour per during peak periods). Ironically, the Skytrain’s driverless technology should reduce this cost but it doesn’t. The advantages are negated by high maintenance costs and for paying a small army attendants incase the system breaksdown. Not to mention one of the most manpower heavy rail transit operations control room I have ever seen, anywhere.
Daryl its cheaper in the long run to buy more trolley buses for the UBC routes than buying more diesel buses. Trolley buses have a higher purchase cost but a lower system operating and maintenance cost because you already have a huge trolley bus network. The old saying of being, penny wise but pound foolish applies here.