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LRT Safety

K do they mean 75 percent lower or 75 percent of 2019 ridership? I’ve got a strong feeling it’s the latter. I’ve already seen people on Reddit blow that number out of proportion.

Because 75 percent lower flies in the face of every ridership anecdote and statistic out there, including the APTA statistics we have.

I actually refuse to believe the 75 percent lower statement lol
 
K do they mean 75 percent lower or 75 percent of 2019 ridership? I’ve got a strong feeling it’s the latter. I’ve already seen people on Reddit blow that number out of proportion.

Because 75 percent lower flies in the face of every ridership anecdote and statistic out there, including the APTA statistics we have.

I actually refuse to believe the 75 percent lower statement lol
I thought the same thing. Either 75% or pre pandemic, or maybe 75% decrease in late night ridership?

A 75% drop would be astronomical. I can’t think that’s true when so much ridership is due to the UofA
 
Because 75 percent lower flies in the face of every ridership anecdote and statistic out there, including the APTA statistics we have.

I actually refuse to believe the 75 percent lower statement lol
According to the APTA statistics, Edmonton's LRT ridership recovery was 62.7% for October 2023 vs October 2019. I choose that date as it wouldn't have any skewed data since the Valley Line should have ridership included in the light rail stats from November 2023 and on presumably.
The November and December 2023 LRT ridership actually dropped. December I get, November not as much although it was a small drop. November ridership in 2019 increased slightly over October 2019

Calgary by contrast reached 92.7% LRT ridership recovery which matches what was being reported in the media.

Oddly, despite ETS claiming bus ridership has recovered, the numbers don't seem to show that.
October 2019 is 9,619,100 trips
October 2023 is 6,240,400 trips

I'm pretty sure I have seen other figures that do support the bus ridership recovery, so, I am curious about this apparent discrepancy.
 
I thought the same thing. Either 75% or pre pandemic, or maybe 75% decrease in late night ridership?

A 75% drop would be astronomical. I can’t think that’s true when so much ridership is due to the UofA
Yup! 75% of 2019 ridership, that’s something that’s completely believable. 75% decrease in late night ridership? Also believable.

75% drop overall is so out there that unless you’re an anti-transit person who hasn’t taken the LRT in the last year, then you shouldn’t believe it lol
 
According to the APTA statistics, Edmonton's LRT ridership recovery was 62.7% for October 2023 vs October 2019. I choose that date as it wouldn't have any skewed data since the Valley Line should have ridership included in the light rail stats from November 2023 and on presumably.
The November and December 2023 LRT ridership actually dropped. December I get, November not as much although it was a small drop. November ridership in 2019 increased slightly over October 2019

Calgary by contrast reached 92.7% LRT ridership recovery which matches what was being reported in the media.

Oddly, despite ETS claiming bus ridership has recovered, the numbers don't seem to show that.
October 2019 is 9,619,100 trips
October 2023 is 6,240,400 trips

I'm pretty sure I have seen other figures that do support the bus ridership recovery, so, I am curious about this apparent discrepancy.
Yeah the APTA numbers can be extremely weird and I haven’t really seen if it’s just something different in how ETS properly records and what they send to APTA.

I really just want a proper ETS statistics tableau for ridership, and I’m not sure if we’re ever gonna get that.
 
Yeah the APTA numbers can be extremely weird and I haven’t really seen if it’s just something different in how ETS properly records and what they send to APTA.

I really just want a proper ETS statistics tableau for ridership, and I’m not sure if we’re ever gonna get that.
I just went a dug a little bit as I already had the page open looking for other data..

The Transit Ridership data is more or less useless as it doesn't separate bus from LRT data, since they are using linked trips, so, a trip could be all bus, all LRT, or a mixture of bus and LRT.

However, this might explain the discrepancies:

"Total number of bus and LRT origin-to-destination trips, regardless of number of transfers/boardings required to complete the trip. Also known as "linked-trips"

Please note: The data and the method used to estimate ridership changed significantly in 2019. Prior to 2019, ridership was estimated based on an analysis of monthly sales of various fare media (for example, monthly passes, ticket books, electronic fare boxes and cash). In 2019, a new ridership methodology was established which uses data from Automated Passenger Counters on transit vehicles to estimate ridership. Therefore, it is important to note that ridership data prior to 2019 may not be comparable to post-2019 ridership data."
 
I just went a dug a little bit as I already had the page open looking for other data..

The Transit Ridership data is more or less useless as it doesn't separate bus from LRT data, since they are using linked trips, so, a trip could be all bus, all LRT, or a mixture of bus and LRT.

However, this might explain the discrepancies:

"Total number of bus and LRT origin-to-destination trips, regardless of number of transfers/boardings required to complete the trip. Also known as "linked-trips"

Please note: The data and the method used to estimate ridership changed significantly in 2019. Prior to 2019, ridership was estimated based on an analysis of monthly sales of various fare media (for example, monthly passes, ticket books, electronic fare boxes and cash). In 2019, a new ridership methodology was established which uses data from Automated Passenger Counters on transit vehicles to estimate ridership. Therefore, it is important to note that ridership data prior to 2019 may not be comparable to post-2019 ridership data."
Ooooh okay that could explain a significant chunk of this.
I will literally be the happiest forum member alive when this happens
 
This’ll put $$$ in city & provincial coffers…

ETS Branch Highlights Report - May 2024 said:
Mill Woods LRT Stop/Transit Centre: Reason for Increase in Tickets for Illegal Crossings

In March, Transit Peace Officers (TPOs) in partnership with the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) supported an EPS initiative to educate the public on crossing tracks safely at transit stops followed by another week of education and enforcement in these spaces. This was in response to concerns brought forward through TransEd regarding identified safety concerns with people improperly crossing tracks at the Mill Woods stop. The first phase of the initiative focused on education and the second phase focused on enforcement.
 
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2023 Transit Peace Officer Performance Summary

The following is a summary of the findings from the 2023 Transit Peace Officer evaluation
process:

● ETS survey metrics around perceived safety declined in the early part of 2023 but began to trend upwards in the latter half of the year.

● As previously reported, EPS data indicates actual safety is improving in transit spaces, with fewer police incidents overall and fewer violent incidents than in 2022.

● TPOs were dispatched to more than 56,000 events in 2023 (over 150 calls per 24-hour period), an increase from 2022 when the TPOs were dispatched to approximately 48,000 events.

● Four event types account for approximately 50 per cent of the dispatched calls: check on welfare (19 per cent), lock/unlock procedure (15 per cent), trouble with person (10 per cent), and drugs (8 per cent).

● Notable increases were observed in public complaint volumes for trouble with persons, checks on welfare, drug complaints and assaults.

● The median response time for TPOs to arrive at dispatched events was nine minutes and 43 seconds.

● Current staffing levels primarily support a reactive response to calls for service, which form the majority of the TPO workload (73 per cent). Despite the implementation of the Transit Community Action Teams (foot patrol in LRT) in early 2022, designed to support proactive enforcement presence, the TPO program has not been able to achieve pre-pandemic proactive enforcement levels which were greater than 50 per cent of their time. In 2023, proactive enforcement work accounted for only 27 per cent of the TPO workload. Proactive enforcement is an evidence-based approach to interrupt patterns of problematic behaviours and prevent issues rather than simply respond to those issues.

● TPO random fare inspections ranged from approximately 1,000 to 11,000 per month. The variability can be attributed to an increase in calls for service across the network, which pulls TPOs away from proactive work, including fare inspections. Fare inspections by TPOs were highlighted as a critical component of the fare system in the 2019 Edmonton Transit Service Revenue Management Audit.

● Of the calls to which TPOs were dispatched using the tiered policing/security model, they had to request police attendance at only 1.9 per cent of them, showing that the dispatch triaging process is working to send the right resources to the right calls. The proportion of events that required police attendance on scene decreased slightly in 2023 from 2022. Administration monitors this number to ensure there is as little duplication as possible between tiers of the overall safety and security response in the transit network.

● TPOs most frequently provide education or warnings, resorting to tickets only 17 per cent of the time when infractions were detected and addressed. This ratio has decreased significantly from 2017, when 43.2 per cent of enforcement actions resulted in a ticket.

● TPOs documented 481 administrations of naloxone, a 77 per cent increase from the prior year.
● 2022 - 272
● 2021 - 231

● There is no notable change in the number of formal complaints regarding TPOs.

● Reportable use of force events have remained consistent despite increases in both ridership and the events with weapons. This data indicates that TPOs are increasingly able to resolve incidents without any use of force.

● TPOs were assaulted 133 times in 2023. The number of assaults against officers has increased by 40 per cent since 2019.

● Frontline overtime hours are consistent with the previous two years; however, average overtime hours per FTE decreased as a result of an increased complement of frontline staff and staffing model changes in response to peak demand times.
 
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'● TPOs were assaulted 133 times in 2023. The number of assaults against officers has
increased by 40 per cent since 2019.'

Jesus:(
Better them than the young/old women that these same people would have assaulted or harassed. I really think there's an underestimation from many transit advocates on just how bad many of these people are to vulnerable riders.

By these people, I mean troubled drug users, often with mental health issues. Their struggles should never be the problem of people trying to peacefully use a paid service. I hope the police clamp down harder than ever, and protect the City's property, and ridership's collective dignity.
 

This is a pretty interesting video that addresses LA Metro's safety issue, with a lot of points made that we in the forum have already brought up. Personally think it's worth a watch, despite the LRT here being milesss ahead in terms of safety compared to LA Metro. I'm extremely curious that a version of our COTT teams haven't been more popular of an idea, considering the effectiveness of them in our system so far.
 

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