Implementing a New Express Route in Victor Valley, CA
Victor Valley Transit Authority’s 45 route has “always had on-time issues,” says planner Craig Barnes. Because of traffic and heavy passenger loads, the 45 struggles to keep to its schedule and get to Victor Valley College, a major transfer point, on time. To get riders there faster, Craig proposed an express line running directly between the Victorville Transit Hub and the college.
A year ago, VVTA tested the express route with manual runs, but the results were inconclusive. Since then, Craig has used Remix to route and plan the line express route itself. “It’s more effective than manual runs because you can just move the line around testing different alignments and see the direct impact immediately,” he says.
In about eight months, the 45X was on the road; it’s averaged 1,800 riders a month for the past two months on three one-way trips each in the morning and afternoon. “People have learned, hey, I can take this and make my connections! Even though college is out, the ridership is still up there, so it’s not just college students that are taking it,” says Craig. While the regular 45 takes about 30 minutes and is often late, the 45X leaves three minutes later and makes it from the college to Victorville, and vice-versa, in 18–20 minutes.
Without Remix, Craig says he “probably would have just gone out and did several more manual test runs and did it manually. That’s how I’ve always done all the scheduling — manually. I don’t have any runcutting software. Before, I would use Google Maps to get the timing, and that’s in a car. So what we’d do is go out in a bus and simulate a real run, making stops, loading a wheelchair, to build a schedule. I’ve done that and checked it against Remix, and Remix is quite accurate.”
Beyond designing and implementing the 45X, Craig has used Remix to quickly reroute a line in San Bernardino when a stop closed and a new transit center opened. VVTA is also beginning a comprehensive operations analysis, and Craig was able to sketch possible routes for his boss to take to the agency’s board. Those sketches estimated figures for revenue miles, deadhead miles, and how much deadhead time for various scenarios between Needles, Barstow, San Bernardino, and Victorville. Testing just one scenario manually would have required over three hours on a single test drive.
“It’s easy because in Remix, instead of doing the whole route, you can just say, OK, what does it look like if we just go from here to Barstow?” says Craig. “That’s what I really like about it. I don’t have to actually drive it, or time it. I don’t want to drive all the way, three hours roundtrip, from Needles!”
Photo via Flickr
