[PRCo] BusWay

[Jim Holland]

Thank You for the Forwards, Bill.     Some of Ed Tennyson's comments 
have been disgusted here before, esp. in relationship to  """Dynamic 
brakes not keeping tracks clean like old cars"""   and then right after 
that he mentions an Head-On wreck between old cars Because The tracks 
Were Laden With Sand!~!~!      But this latest embellishment of this 
particular wreck has Much More Info than I have seen Ed report 
before.     Ed is known to many of us on the list, well known to a few.
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Ed also indicates that Santa Barbara siding on Drake was added in 1948, 
although that is somewhat unclear from this posting.     He had also 
stated quite emphatically some time back on LRPPro that there were 
originally 3 sidings on Overbrook  (there were 3 Single Track Sections, 
and I pointed this out)  but PRCo drawings I have  (N~O~T    railfan 
drawings)  indicate there were originally 2-sidings on Overbrook until 
1953  (Bon Air (also known as No1 Siding) the first heading South and 
Smith the second)  and that the other two sidings as well as Santa 
Barbara were added in 1953.
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Here is more from Leroy on the busway which was mentioned OnList the 
other day:::::::
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Lyndon et al.,

As mentioned previously, I've decided to include "busway" traffic 
density data into the "traffic density project" in cases where I can 
obtain data - or conjure up key figures.

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According to PAT's website, the East Busway currently carries about 7.5 
million passengers per year, about 30,000 per weekday.

The facility is 9.1 miles long. My estimate for average travel distance 
is 5 miles. Thus, 37.5 million passenger-miles per year, and roughly 4 
million "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per year.

The weekday ridership figure implies about 16,000 "tennysons" per 
weekday.  That's three times the "Pushkarev, Zupan and Cumella" 
threshold, which in turn implies that this facility costs considerably 
more to operate in the busway configuration than it would as a rail line.

I'll leave it to others to determine how this might be demonstrated. 
I'll note only that PAT describes the service level as 943 trips per 
weekday. That implies an annual service supply of very roughly 1.5 
million revenue vehicle-miles per year.


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The South Busway is 4.3 miles long. Reported ridership is 11,000 per 
weekday, down a bit from 13,000 / weekday. The latter figure was 
described as "almost four million" per year.  Thus, I've used 3.5 
million as the annual ridership.

My estimate for average travel distance is 3.5 miles. That implies about 
12 million passenger-miles per year, and roughly 2.8 million "tennysons" 
(pass-mi per mi of route) per year.

The weekday ridership figure implies about 9,000 "tennysons" per 
weekday, almost double the "Pushkarev, Zupan and Cumella" threshold.

The reported 522 weekday trips implies very roughly 600,000 revenue 
vehicle-miles per year.


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The West Busway is 5.0 miles long. Reported ridership is 9,500 per 
weekday. This corresponds very roughly to 2.5 million per year.

My estimate for average travel distance is 3 miles. That implies about 
7.5 million passenger-miles per year, and roughly 1.5 million 
"tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per year.

The weekday ridership figure implies about 6,000 "tennysons" per 
weekday, just barely above the "PZ&C" threshold.

The reported 413 weekday trips implies about 600,000 revenue 
vehicle-miles per year.


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The 2007 ridership estimate for the L.A. Orange Line is about 6.7 
million. The average travel distance estimate used by MTA is 6.2 miles. 
The facility is 14.2 miles long.

That implies about 2.9 million "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per 
year.

A key operating-cost parameter that does not get "captured" by ridership 
statistics is commercial (passenger) speed. The Orange Line provides a 
significantly lower passenger speed than rail lines. Moreover, there is 
little doubt that the Orange Line would cost significantly more to 
operate if it provided passenger speeds on a par with rail lines.



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Regrettably, I do not have annual ridership data for L.A. El Monte and 
Harbor transitways.


Leroy W. Demery, Jr.