title
Service Reliability Restoration Plan
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DESCRIPTION: Authorization to improve fixed-route service reliability by optimizing the active bus fleet, reducing fixed-route frequencies, and reducing ferry service hours |
AGENDA NO: |
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ACTION REQUEST: ☒ Approval ☐ Review Comment ☐ Information Only ☐ Other |
RECOMMENDATION:
recommendation
Authorize the Chief Executive Officer to improve fixed-route service reliability by optimizing the active bus fleet, reducing fixed-route frequencies and reduce Canal Street-Algiers Point ferry service hours. This includes reducing total active bus fleet and reduce fixed-route bus frequency to provide more reliable fixed-route service; reduce ferry service based on available revenue in 2024; and authorize the Chief Executive Officer to complete any additional approvals as required by local, state and federal regulations. As the RTA introduces new buses into its fleet, the agency will reassess service levels systemwide.
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ISSUE/BACKGROUND:
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The agency’s current challenges are directly related to a combination of major events going back over fifteen years. After several years of negotiating federal recovery funds for the loss of RTA’s fleet in 2005, the agency received 104 buses for fixed-route service from 2008 to 2010. The standard useful life for buses per the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is twelve (12) years. Without such a system shock event, buses are typically purchased and replaced on an evenly distributed schedule. While the timeline for the replacement of these 104 buses was well known, no complete plan for their funding nor for smoothing out future replacement schedule was put in place by previous management. While an additional 31 buses were ordered in 2011-2013, these vehicles served to expanded fleet and service as population and jobs continued their recovery. However, no new buses were ordered for service from 2013 to 2018.
In the last 5 years, RTA has ordered and received 66 buses and as a result has retired 53 of those 2008-10 buses. Staff has also secured funding for complete replacement of the remaining aging fleet by 2025 with the bulk in 2024. Staff utilized a significant portion of one-time pandemic recovery funds from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act to fund 21 buses now on order. Staff also worked with the State of Louisiana Office of Community Development to identify leftover disaster-CDBG funds which will pay for another 8 buses on the heels of the previous order. The remaining fleet will be replaced through a combination of smaller grants including one to pilot use of smaller 23’ buses in neighborhoods; the battery-electric bus pilot as part of the agency’s first Lo/No Vehicle Emission grant award; and through right sizing of the active fleet, discussed further in the next section.
Also, during the last five years came the COVID-19 global pandemic, which completely disrupted global supply chains and entire labor forces. Bus parts and mechanics were significantly affected by these events and as a result, the entire transit industry has seen major delays in getting replacement parts and the availability of qualified staff to diagnose and repair bus fleets.
During spring of 2023, it became evident that the aging fleet combined with maintenance challenges was not able to keep with the requirements of the scheduled service just recently transformed in September 2022 for the New Links plan implementation. As a result, staff reduced service by 10% for the June 4, 2023 schedule update in attempts to ease the burden. The result was a reduction of peak vehicles required for service during the weekday from 97 to 87 with most of the reduction in the highest frequency and lower ridership routes which had the most number of buses in order to minimize a disparate impact to overall riders and lower frequency routes with only a few buses. While this approach worked well for a short while, a record drought and heat struck the region severely impacting vehicle maintenance and reliability already stretched thin. The result, as illustrated in the graph below, is that RTA has been unable to make the required 87 vehicles for peak pullout on a regular basis, sometimes by as much as 20%. For riders, this translates to unreliable arrivals, much longer waits, vehicles breaking down with no replacement available for relief, and other severe impacts to their travel to work and other destinations.
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DISCUSSION:
While the long-term solution to replacing aging fleet has been addressed, that relief will not start arriving until well into Summer 2024. RTA staff has been evaluating and implementing numerous options to improve the fleet available for service.
Options considered, but not feasible for implementation include leasing vehicles, getting vehicles from other transit agencies, and using paratransit vehicles for fixed routes. The agency also tried to use its contingency fleet, but this has resulted in more labor due to the long-term use of the fleet.
Options evaluated and underway include bringing in outside technicians to help with our shortage, evaluating funding sources to procure new vehicles, establishing training for technicians and continuing to utilize overtime.
As a result of the current condition and including the option listed above, staff is proposing a plan to restore service reliability that involves reducing both the active fleet and scheduled service for fixed-route bus as necessary to delivery consistent service until more resources are available and other efforts start producing results in mid to late 2024.
Optimizing Fleet Size
Despite the efforts listed above, a daily average of 50-60 vehicles are unavailable due to some required maintenance on a total of 126 active vehicles and 14 contingency vehicles. This means understaffed maintenance resources are spread even more thin trying provide basic and required maintenance. Currently there are an average of 5.1 mechanics-to-bus ratio.
Staff will retire 8 buses that are well past their useful life to reduce the total fleet to 132 and “sleep” another 24 as back-up contingency, reducing the active fleet for regular service to 108. The result will mean a lower mechanic-to-bus ration of 3.8. Sleeping buses will still get repaired on a schedule, but at a much lower demand allowing for prioritization of the 108 active buses for higher reliability. The details are provided in the table below:
|
Type |
Current Fleet |
Reduced Fleet |
|
2008 Orion |
3 |
2 |
|
2010 Orion |
49 |
42 |
|
2011 Artic New Flyer |
5 |
5 |
|
2012 Orion |
7 |
7 |
|
2012 Artic New Flyer |
10 |
10 |
|
2019 New Flyer |
8 |
8 |
|
2020 New Flyer |
15 |
15 |
|
2021 New Flyer |
22 |
22 |
|
2022 New Flyer |
21 |
21 |
|
Total Fleet |
140 |
132 |
|
Contingency/Sleeping Fleet |
14 |
24 |
|
Total Active Fixed |
126 |
108 |
Reduce Scheduled Bus Service
Even with a reduced active fleet, analysis by staff has determined shown that daily average vehicles available for service far exceed the buses available to provide required vehicles for on-time pullout at current schedule and account for the typical incidents and accidents that require vehicles to be called out of service and need replacement. Based on this detailed review with the primary goal of ensuring the next schedule update for Winter 2024 is one that RTA can deliver with 98+% reliability, staff recommends a significant reduction of the frequency of scheduled bus service. The maximum proposed reduction, shown in the table below, was developed to reduce the number of vehicles required for pullout from current weekday peak of 87 and weekend peak of 78 down to a 7-day peak of 72 vehicles, which represents an estimated 18% reduction of total vehicles deployed daily. Individual routes will experience smaller or larger impact based on the reductions proposed below.
The routes proposed for reduction were based on a number of factors including:
- Maintain all current coverage; no routes eliminated
- No reductions to routes that would result in 90+ minute frequency
- No reductions to critical connection routes with high transfers (e.g. 68 and 80)
- Minimize and distribute the total impact based on ridership and passengers per revenue hour
|
Route |
Passengers / Revenue Hour |
Total Daily Boardings |
Cycle Time (min) |
Current Peak Vehicles |
Current Peak Frenqucy (minutes) |
Proposed Vehicle Change |
Proposed Peak Frequency (minutes) |
|
67 Michoud Loop |
7.6 |
191 |
60 |
2 |
30 |
-1 |
60 |
|
66 Hayne Loop |
7.8 |
199 |
70 |
2 |
35 |
-1 |
70 |
|
105 Algiers Local |
8.0 |
269 |
80 |
2 |
40 |
-1 |
80 |
|
86 St. Maurice-Chalmette |
8.2 |
135 |
60 |
1 |
60 |
0 |
60 |
|
80 Desire-Louisa |
10.3 |
328 |
70 |
2 |
35 |
0 |
35 |
|
45 Lakeview |
10.5 |
140 |
60 |
1 |
60 |
0 |
60 |
|
32 Leonidas-Treme |
10.8 |
364 |
120 |
2 |
60 |
0 |
60 |
|
31 Leonidas-Gentilly |
11.8 |
424 |
120 |
2 |
60 |
0 |
60 |
|
201 Kenner Loop |
12.1 |
345 |
60 |
2 |
30 |
0 |
30 |
|
103 General Meyer Local |
12.4 |
514 |
90 |
3 |
30 |
-1 |
45 |
|
27 Louisiana |
12.6 |
640 |
105 |
3 |
35 |
-1 |
53 |
|
68 Little Woods Loop |
14.7 |
461 |
48 |
2 |
24 |
0 |
24 |
|
52 Paris-Broadmoor |
15.0 |
972 |
136 |
4 |
34 |
-1 |
45 |
|
11 Magazine |
15.8 |
1007 |
96 |
4 |
24 |
-1 |
32 |
|
57 Franklin-Freret |
16.1 |
1077 |
148 |
4 |
37 |
0 |
37 |
|
202 Airport Express |
17.6 |
292 |
90 |
1 |
90 |
0 |
90 |
|
84 Galvez-L9 |
17.8 |
952 |
90 |
3 |
30 |
-1 |
45 |
|
114A Garden Oaks-Sullen |
18.2 |
1333 |
120 |
4 |
30 |
-1 |
40 |
|
114B Garden Oaks-Woodland |
18.8 |
1182 |
120 |
4 |
30 |
-1 |
40 |
|
61 Lake Forest-Village de L'Est |
19.6 |
1680 |
120 |
5 |
24 |
-1 |
30 |
|
55 Elysian Fields |
19.8 |
1321 |
112 |
4 |
28 |
0 |
28 |
|
9 Broad-Napoleon |
23.4 |
2895 |
160 |
8 |
20 |
-1 |
23 |
|
3 Tulane-Elmwood |
25.0 |
2372 |
120 |
6 |
20 |
-1 |
24 |
|
8 St. Claude - Arabi |
25.0 |
1729 |
72 |
4 |
18 |
-1 |
24 |
|
91 Jackson-Esplanade |
25.1 |
1679 |
120 |
4 |
30 |
0 |
30 |
|
51 St. Bernard-Claiborne |
25.4 |
1225 |
102 |
3 |
34 |
0 |
34 |
|
62 Morrison-Bullard |
27.0 |
1871 |
120 |
5 |
24 |
-1 |
30 |
|
Total Vehicles Required for Peak (AM) Pullout |
87 |
|
72 |
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Staff will continue to monitor vehicle availability while the finalized reductions and detailed schedules are developed during November. Given the scale of the reduction, staff will be completing a Title VI report in accordance with the RTA’s Title VI policy. This process includes requirements for equity analysis and community input. Due to the timing of this effort, the results will be brought to the board in December for approval.
As part of this reduced service plan, no layoffs will be required. Staff will be working to develop schedules such that all work assignments will meet ATU contract obligations. Additional training and other related activities are also being researched as supplemental work opportunities.
After implementation, should additional vehicles become available, they will be added to relieve congestion on the most crowded routes in a common practice (usually for streetcar service) of adding “trippers”. This unscheduled service will provide added capacity for riders on busy routes during the busiest times on routes such as 3, 8, 9, 61, and 114A.
Reduce Ferry Service:
Separate but concurrent to the bus fleet challenges is revenue shortfall for ferry service. Beginning January 1, 2024, the Canal Street - Algiers Point Ferry service hours will be reduced to cover a $3M budget shortfall. Prior to the fiscal year (FY) 2023 state budget cycle, the RTA projected a $19.8M ferry operations budget shortfall for FY 2024. As a cost saving measure, the agency removed the second Chalmette ferry vessel from service to avoid $6M in repair costs which were scheduled for next year. The agency also received $10M from the Louisiana State Legislature in House Bill 1 to partially cover the cost of Canal Street-Algiers Point Ferry and Lower Algiers-Chalmette ferry service, leaving a $3M shortfall. Because the RTA’s local sales tax funding was established by public referendum with the intent purpose to fund streetcar and bus service, these funds cannot be used to support ferry operations.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The reduction of revenue service hours is expected to have modest reduction in expenses related to maintenance and operations due primarily to reduced fuel demand. Since no reduction of staff is required for this plan, no reduction in labor costs is anticipated.
NEXT STEPS:
Upon Board approval, staff will complete final details of schedules and reviews necessary for implementation and begin outreach and communication of upcoming changes to public.
Staff will also finalize all required approvals as required by local, state and federal regulations. This includes a Title VI analysis and report on service reductions for Board adoption in December. While Title VI policy does allow for temporary or emergency changes, staff recommends proceeding with analysis to ensure full compliance.
ATTACHMENTS:
1. Resolution
Prepared By: Dwight Norton, dnorton@rtaforward.org
Title: Chief Planning & Capital Projects Officer
Reviewed By: Ryan Moser, rmoser@rtaforward.org
Title: Chief Asset Management Officer
Reviewed By: Sara Porteous, sporteous@rtaforward.org
Title: Chief External Affairs Officer
Reviewed By: Katherine Felton, kfelton@rtaforward.org
Title: Chief of Staff
11/22/2023
Lona E. Hankins Date
Chief Executive Officer