Bicycle Bumps: Measuring the Past and Predicting the Future BIKES ONboard project San Francisco Bicycle Coalition 1
A Scenario � You ride your bike to 22 nd Street station � You have an important meeting at work, so you must be on time � The train pulls up, right on schedule � But then… BIKES ONboard, SFBC 2 September 28, 2010
3 Video courtesy of Andrew Ness. BIKES ONboard, SFBC September 28, 2010
Summary � Bicycle bumps have been measured � Caltrain Bike Count Study � User Reports � User Reports support and enhance Caltrain Bike Count Study � Bicycle bumps continue to occur � Despite 2009 increase in bike capacity, bumps are increasing � A variety of remedies exist BIKES ONboard, SFBC 4 September 28, 2010
Caltrain Current Commute Fleet � Caltrain normally runs 20 train sets, 90 trains per day � Bike capacity varies from 40 to 80 bikes per train Number Number Bike Type of Bike Gallery Bombardier in Service Capacity Cars Gallery 7 one 40 Gallery 8 two 80 Bombardier 5 two 48 Photo courtesy of Lucias Kwok BIKES ONboard, SFBC 5 September 28, 2010
Caltrain Bike Count Study � Overview � Conducted April 21 – May 27, 2010 � Every train counted from one to six times � Results � 55 bicycles bumped � 6 trains caused bumps; 9 trains over-capacity � Lower bound because limited sampling BIKES ONboard, SFBC 6 September 28, 2010
User-reported Bumps � Overview � February 2009 – August 2010 � Compiled from Correspondence Packets from Joint Powers Board meetings � Results � 2184 bicycles bumped � 20 different trains caused bumps in 2010 � Lower bound because not all bumps are reported BIKES ONboard, SFBC 7 September 28, 2010
User-reported Bumps Bicycle Bumps in 2009 and 2010 250 Reported Bumps 200 150 100 50 Caltrain adds bike capacity 0 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' n c n b r g b r g t p p u c u u e u e e O A A D J A J A F F Month BIKES ONboard, SFBC 8 September 28, 2010
Stations with the Most Bumps in 2010 User-reported Bumps: 226 at 22 nd Street San Francisco County Santa Clara County 116 at Palo Alto San Mateo County 108 at Redwood City 79 at Menlo Park 39 at San Mateo 37 at Millbrae 36 at Sunnyvale Caltrain Study: Too few samples to compare BIKES ONboard, SFBC Image courtesy of caltrain.com 9 September 28, 2010
Trains Bumping Bikes in 2010 Train numbers that bumped bikes according to user reports. Those in blue italics bumped bikes in Caltrain Bike Count Study, too. 220 314 275 267 324 329 230 373 383 285 277 225 138 332 379 217 369 323 226 322 233* * No user reports of bikes bumped by train 233. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 10 September 28, 2010
Bumps by Train Type in Caltrain Bike Count Study Bike Number of Train Type Bikes bumped at Palo Alto Capacity Bumps Gallery 80 0 Bombardier 48 18 Gallery 40 37 Photo courtesy of Rob Robinson BIKES ONboard, SFBC 11 September 28, 2010
The Problem Bike cars are full, but the rest of the train has many empty seats. Train 191 8:04pm, August 5, 2010 Menlo Park Photos courtesy of Andrew Ness BIKES ONboard, SFBC 12 September 28, 2010
Possible Remedies Description Comment 7 of the 21 trains that bumped bikes are already Run two gallery bike scheduled for two gallery bike cars; frequent cars on high-demand service disruptions cause equipment changes, trains resulting in bumps. User reports show 21 instances of at least 10 Make a modest bikes bumped by a single train. A modest capacity increase capacity increase will lessen, but not eliminate bumps. Three bike cars on Bombardier trains (72 bike Provide consistent 72 spaces) and two bike cars on gallery trains (80 to 80 bike spaces on bike spaces); consistent bike capacity will all trains eliminate bumps and simplify operations. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 13 September 28, 2010
Summary � Bicycle bumps have been measured � Caltrain Bike Count Study � User Reports � User Reports support and enhance Caltrain Bike Count Study � Bicycle bumps continue to occur � Despite 2009 increase in bike capacity, bumps are increasing � A variety of remedies exist BIKES ONboard, SFBC 14 September 28, 2010
Appendix The following slides provide more information and methodology details. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 15 September 28, 2010
Background Bikes bumped at San Mateo A bicycle bump occurs when a person who has paid for riding on Caltrain and has a bicycle is denied boarding the train. If such a paying customer is denied boarding on two trains, then two bicycle bumps have occurred. The author is unaware of any reports to the Caltrain Joint Powers Board during the past two years of bumping passengers without bicycles except perhaps denial to non-paying or disorderly persons. Photo courtesy of John Markos O’Neill BIKES ONboard, SFBC 16 September 28, 2010
2010 Caltrain Bike Count The author used the 2010-08-25 draft report "2010 Caltrain On-Board Bike Count and Dwell Time Summary Report" prepared by Corey, Canapary & Galanis Research. During the time period 2010-04-21/2010-05-27, each train was surveyed at least once with some trains surveyed three to six times (p. 2). Bike boardings were recorded at each station (p. 2), probably a system-wide sample of bike ridership. Data gathering instructions are described in Appendix A, "Data Gathering, Part 2". The instructions do not indicate how a data collector was supposed to be physically present when counting denied bicycles, but they do indicate that the data collector was supposed to be aboard when the train left the station. Furthermore, counts for trains twenty or more minutes late upon arrival were discarded (p. 4). Thus, bicycle bump counts represent lower bounds on the actual number of bicycle bumps. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 17 September 28, 2010
2010 Caltrain Bike Count (cont.) Caltrain operates three types of train consists (p. 2): 5 Bombardier train consists each having two bike cars and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 48. 7 Gallery train consists each having one bike car and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 40. 8 Gallery train consists each having two bike cars and a total on-board bicycle capacity of 80. Given the inconsistent consist capacity, Caltrain strives to maintain a schedule of trains having 80 on-board bicycle spaces. "80 bike capacity is not guaranteed because of equipment maintenance and other operational needs." A summary of bicycle bumps is on p. 9. The report shows that equipment changes described as "Planned capacity was 80 bikes; actual capacity was 40“ resulted in 7, 5, and 4 bumps. The number of bumps because of inadequate capacity were 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 18 September 28, 2010
2010 Caltrain Bike Count (cont.) Some trains bumped bikes at more than one stop. • 233 on 2010-05-12: San Antonio (5 bumps) and California Ave (6 bumps) • 267 on 2010-05-17: Menlo Park (4) and Redwood City (5) • 275 on 2010-05-12: Palo Alto (2) and Menlo Park (1) • 324 on 2010-05-17: 22nd St (5), Hillsdale (2), Millbrae (1) BIKES ONboard, SFBC 19 September 28, 2010
User-reported Bumps Some Caltrain cyclists report bumps to the Joint Powers Board, the board governing Caltrain. These reports enter the public record at the JPB monthly meetings. The data has been collated and duplicate reports have been removed to avoid over-reporting. This data will be made available upon request. Because the data is voluntarily reported, the reported number of bumps is a clear lower bound on actual number of bumps that occur. The actual number of bumps could be significantly larger. Because the data is a lower bound, it should be used to indicate problems such as individual trains bumping at multiple stations, which stations have the most bumps, and which trains cause the most bumps. It should not be considered an upper bound on the number of bumps. Determining an upper bound will require methodology like that used in the Caltrain study but recorded over a long enough period of time to cover the major sources of bumps, e.g., inconsistent train capacity because of service disruptions and daily, weekly, and seasonal variation in on-board bicycle demand. BIKES ONboard, SFBC 20 September 28, 2010
User-reported Bumps (cont.) The tables show bumps reported in 2010 for a given train number. The total number of bumps reported for January through August 2010 is 754. Train Train Number Bumps Number Bumps 277 19 267 180 225 12 324 107 138 12 220 51 332 11 314 44 379 8 275 40 217 7 329 39 226 5 230 29 323 5 373 25 369 5 285 23 322 4 383 23 unknown 105 BIKES ONboard, SFBC 21 September 28, 2010
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