SMART's new articulated buses

[RO_Resident]

Walking by the SMART headquarters on Wednesday, I saw they were showing off one of their new hybrid electric articulating buses. The sucker is huge compared to their regular buses.

I didn't think they were taking delivery until next year.

Guess I was wrong. They are going into service at the first of November.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...REE/101019852#

[wolverine]

I always enjoy sitting inside the accordion section

[professorscott]

I know a few people at SMART so I knew they already had them, but I hadn't known when they were going to be put on the road. I'm looking forward to it! Now, the Gratiot route turns around in either Chesterfield Township or New Baltimore, and in both cases it will be interesting to see how they u-turn those vehicles... not much room especially in the case of NB.

[Hermod]

I know a few people at SMART so I knew they already had them, but I hadn't known when they were going to be put on the road. I'm looking forward to it! Now, the Gratiot route turns around in either Chesterfield Township or New Baltimore, and in both cases it will be interesting to see how they u-turn those vehicles... not much room especially in the case of NB.

Go around a block or through a strip mall. Left turn, left turn, left turn, right turn or right turn, right turn, right turn, left turn.

[oldredfordette]

One was parked on Lafayette the other day, real pretty. The driver told me she loved driving it, she said much easier than you'd think.

[gnome]

don't you have to have passengers to fill those up? Isn't the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding? How will a bigger bus solve that problem?

[DetroitPlanner]

don't you have to have passengers to fill those up? Isn't the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding? How will a bigger bus solve that problem?

No. Transit has had increases in ridership over several consecutive years. Two factors have contributed to this.

1. Price of oil has made transit to be a more attractive alternative as opposed to driving a single occupancy vehicle.

2. As people get laid off or wages are stagnent they look for ways to either save on immediate or capital transportation costs.

Augmenting your travel by using a bus saves on wear and tear on your personal vehicle and reduces your gasoline consumption. Unfortunately, buses are supported by the fuel tax paid by drivers so a transit agency needs to look for low-cost ways to improve service.

[dtowncitylover]

Oh my gosh! Something most metro areas have had for decades!

This is really exciting though, saw this in the Daily Trib I think yesterday. And then I had a dream last night that DDOT got some of these buses...sad that I dream about public transit...

[Mikeg]

don't you have to have passengers to fill those up? Isn't the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding? How will a bigger bus solve that problem?

The size of the new busses apparently mattered less than the immediate need for them. I'm sure that the managers at SMART were able to convince the Feds that this bus purchase project was "shovel-ready" and thus qualified for the ARRA "stimulus" funding because they've been reading the threads here at DY for years and could argue with a straight face that:

a) the price of gasoline will finally reach that magic number of $5 per gallon any day now AND
b) the unsustainable lifestyle of the people who live in the suburban regions where SMART gets their millage funding is on the brink of finally collapsing under the weight of their selfish gluttony AND
c) because SMART serves an area that is part of an "international family of communities", their millage base voters would probably not raise a stink when they found out that US government "strimulus" dollars were being spent on the purchase of Canadian busses.

I'm sure the SMART managers told the Feds in their ARRA application that by the time the Canadian busses were put into service, hundreds of thousands of SE Michigan residents would be ready to abandon their costly and inefficient private vehicles and discover the conveniences of "green" mass transportation. Furthermore, the masses of new SMART commuters would be astounded when they realized that they were the tipping point - having noticed that the urban expressways they used to drive on are now being filled in, the air they breathe looks cleaner and feels cooler, the rise of the oceans have been reversed, the planet has healed and there are "green" jobs for everyone!

[Hermod]

While the cost of salaries is higher, I would prefer smaller buses operating at more frequent intervals unless the buses are only for commuting. I am retired and really would like a bus system which moves me around during the day on my errands. The bus system in Detroit used to do this. I had a student bus card and with bus-transfer-doubled transfer could go anywhere in the city for a dime.

[Bearinabox]

Isn't the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding?

Whatever gave you that idea?

[LodgeDodger]

I know a few people at SMART so I knew they already had them, but I hadn't known when they were going to be put on the road. I'm looking forward to it! Now, the Gratiot route turns around in either Chesterfield Township or New Baltimore, and in both cases it will be interesting to see how they u-turn those vehicles... not much room especially in the case of NB.

Saw my first "accordion" bus in Paris. We were sitting in a cafe and realized just how long that thing was! It was as if we were watching that Lucille Ball movie with the motor home! The driver didn't seem to have any problems maneuvering the bus through traffic and through the various streets. Now, I've not watched them make a U-turn, but with the traffic messes they were in, I'm sure a U-turn would have been cake.

[DetroitPlanner]

I'm sure the SMART managers told the Feds in their ARRA application that by the time the Canadian busses were put into service, hundreds of thousands of SE Michigan residents would be ready to abandon their costly and inefficient private vehicles and discover the conveniences of "green" mass transportation. Furthermore, the masses of new SMART commuters would be astounded when they realized that they were the tipping point - having noticed that the urban expressways they used to drive on are now being filled in, the air they breathe looks cleaner and feels cooler, the rise of the oceans have been reversed, the planet has healed and there are "green" jobs for everyone!

There is nothing in SMART's ARRA section 1511 project certification that leads one to believe that they were going to buy severa; articulated buses. They do mention Hybrid buses, but those are pushing a $800k each. An articulated hybrid would probably cost at least one million. [[Page 11)

[Mikeg]

There is nothing in SMART's ARRA section 1511 project certification that leads one to believe that they were going to buy severa; articulated buses. They do mention Hybrid buses, but those are pushing a $800k each. An articulated hybrid would probably cost at least one million. [[Page 11)

My two sources differ slightly from each other and both differ from your source.

From the above linked Crain's Detroit article:

The Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation bus system Tuesday unveiled its first two hybrid electric buses it will add to its fleet of 640 vehicles on Nov. 1.
The 61-foot reduced-emissions vehicles, which seat 100 and cost $1.6 million in federal stimulus funding, were put on display for local reporters.
Because the buses are articulated in the center, they can carry more passengers than the typical 60 people on a standard 40-foot bus.......
The buses were manufactured by Canadian bus maker New Flyer Industries Inc., ......
Funding for the buses came from an August 2009 $20.3 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant for various SMART projects.

From SMART's own press release:

SMART will utilize the ARRA grant funding for several capital projects including the purchase of three 40-foot alternative-fuel buses, one articulated alternative-fuel bus..........

[professorscott]

Anyone who makes a comment akin to "don't they need people to fill those buses" has not been on the busier SMART routes lately. They don't fill buses on every route, not by a mile, but that Gratiot line is standing room only damn near all day and night.

Of course, if you're looking at the bus as it goes into New Baltimore it's practically empty, which makes sense since it's at the end of the line. Check it out in Roseville, say. You don't even have to ride; just look into the windows as you drive by.

[gnome]

You're right prof, I don't ride enough, especially on the east side. If you say they need articulated busses, then that must be true; but by my eye, I'd like them to run smaller busses, but more frequently.

I do have to doff the hat to MikeG, some very witty and informed posts.

[professorscott]

Gnome,

They can't. Here's why: it doesn't cost significantly less to run a small bus than a big one. They don't really even have enough money to run the schedule they run.

Now, it's not obvious that what I just said is true, you might think it would be cheaper to run small buses [[better mileage, for instance). But fuel is only a small part of the overall cost. The labor is the same - a small bus needs one driver, just like a big bus. The fuel is cheaper for smaller vehicles but the maintenance is more expensive; the larger vehicles are in some ways more robust than the smaller ones.

The only way for SMART to run a better schedule is for all of us to agree to give them more money

Cheers,
Prof. Scott

[gnome]

Prof, as an occassional bus rider, but full-time taxpayer the sight of a huge bus with one or two people on it is a disappointment. The future sight of a 100 foot bus with one or two people on it will square that disappointment. Moreover, the view of a DDOT and SMART bus running down the same road, both with only a few passengers, is just a killer.

Sadly that is a common sight. Empty busses. Folk may hollar and moan, but 'ceptin when the school kids are jamming them, I rarely witness full busses. You might have different experience, and as a veteran of many a bus travel I will defer to your testimony, but as a tax payer it is frustrating.

It is a dbl frustation sandwich with a side of alluminim foil to chew upon, when you factor in the rationales behind the continued existence of DDOT.

A bad system, poorly run.

I understand the meme here it that mass transit will bring jobs and opportunity and hope and all things good; that meme is tempered by a reality of arrongant drivers, crazy passengers and filthy busses that are poorly maintained. I wish we had a system that was like Portland's. But we don't and I don't envision a time when we will.

even when we get something beautifl like the new bus station, it quickly becomes a new place to avoid. Last week I'm there and the bathroom is all tagged and filthy. When will it end?

[Hermod]

Gnome,

They can't. Here's why: it doesn't cost significantly less to run a small bus than a big one. They don't really even have enough money to run the schedule they run.

Now, it's not obvious that what I just said is true, you might think it would be cheaper to run small buses [[better mileage, for instance). But fuel is only a small part of the overall cost. The labor is the same - a small bus needs one driver, just like a big bus. The fuel is cheaper for smaller vehicles but the maintenance is more expensive; the larger vehicles are in some ways more robust than the smaller ones.

The only way for SMART to run a better schedule is for all of us to agree to give them more money

Cheers,
Prof. Scott

I agree that labor is the big cost in any transit system [[increased labor costs after WW One was the nail in the coffin for privately owned mass transit) and that large buses are cheaper than small buses run more frequently.

If our intent is to get the largest number of people off the roads and into mass transit, we do have to look at the "convenience" factor.

"I need to take my car to work because I might have to go somewhere during the day".

"What if I have to work late?"

Mass transit must meet these needs in order to become popular.

[erikd]

don't you have to have passengers to fill those up? Isn't the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding? How will a bigger bus solve that problem?

Gnome,

I am not a daily bus rider, but I have never been on a DDOT or SMART bus that wasn't at least half-full, or more commonly 70%-80% full. My last bus trip was a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning SMART bus up Van Dyke, and we almost ran out of seats before we hit 8 mile.

[Mikeg]

Anyone who makes a comment akin to "don't they need people to fill those buses" has not been on the busier SMART routes lately. They don't fill buses on every route, not by a mile, but that Gratiot line is standing room only damn near all day and night.

Of course, if you're looking at the bus as it goes into New Baltimore it's practically empty, which makes sense since it's at the end of the line. Check it out in Roseville, say. You don't even have to ride; just look into the windows as you drive by.

Yes, "professorscott" is right, SMART ridership is at record levels - and if you exclude four of SMART's routes, "gnome" is also right.

From the Crain's Detroit article:

The hybrid diesel and electric battery buses will operate on the following SMART routes, sometimes based on demand:
• 560 Gratiot
• 415 Greenfield
• 465 Auburn Hills Limited
• 495 John R
About 10,000 riders use those routes, SMART said in a statement.

"Sometimes based on demand" and presumably the rest of the time based on their original stated intent, which was "for testing prior to a fleet-wide replacement of fixed route coaches..... beginning in 2014". As "DetroitPlanner" notes, there is no mention of articulated alternative fuel buses in SMART's ARRA certification, only "Purchase 4 alternative fuel fixed route buses" at $606,250 each. Why then did SMART end up purchasing one [[or is it two?) 100 passenger, articulated hybrid buses using ARRA "stimulus" funds, when they could have purchased twice as many 60 passenger, non-articulated hybrid buses with the same amount of ARRA funds and gotten even more alternative fuel testing "bang for the buck"?

You'd think the folks at Crain's would be a little more curious and ask a few more questions instead of just recycling the SMART press release information. Additionally, SMART's acknowledgement that they spent ARRA "stimulus" funds to purchase Canadian transit vehicles is a hanging fastball just waiting to be either knocked out of the park or explained away using bureaucratic technospeak.

To bolster gnome's contention that "the problem with SMART is that there are not enough people riding", let's set aside those four routes mentioned in the Crain's Detroit article [[and by professorscott) and do some "farmers math" analysis of the rest of SMART's operations.

Like gnome, I've noticed that every SMART bus I have ever passed has always been significantly less than half-full. Then again, none of those SMART buses I've noticed were running on one of those four routes mentioned above [[415, 465, 495 and 560).

SMART says that they have a fleet of 640 busses and that their ridership currently averages 44,000 riders on a weekday. Let's assume that 90% of those busses [[576) are "in service" during any given weekday. Let's also assume that 25% of those "in service" buses are assigned to those four busiest routes [[10,000/44,000 riders = 0.227, rounded up to 0.25).

That means that the other 75% of the buses in service [[432 buses) are running the remaining routes that carry the other 34,000 weekday riders. That averages out to about 80 riders per bus. Let's conservatively assume that each of those buses makes only two round trips on their assigned route during that day. That calculates to an average of 40 riders per bus per round trip, or 20 riders per leg of each round trip.

SMART says that they experienced a 6.5% increase in annual ridership last year, so it would take at least 7 more years of sustained growth at that rate to raise my farmer's math average of 20 riders per leg to the point where the standard 60 passenger buses carrying 75% of SMART's weekday ridership become half-full.

[professorscott]

Mikeg does an excellent analysis. The fact is, bigger buses are only needed on a very few lines, and that is where they will be deployed.

I can also explain "sometimes based on demand". To understand this you have to understand one of the essential difference between how SMART operates its bus fleet and how DDOT operates its.

On DDOT, with very few exceptions, if you are driving a bus on the Gratiot line [[say), you and the bus will be going up and down Gratiot all day. Same for Tireman, Schaefer, Dexter, all of them. In fact, the buses are assigned a four-digit ID for the day based on the route, so the 15th bus starting on Woodward [[route 53) for the day will display 5315 in the front of the bus, on the dashboard facing out. This display is primarily so a route supervisor [[if there still are any) knows which bus is going by at any one time.

Now, on SMART, you're the driver and you get on the bus to start your day, you might be driving the Gratiot route for some trips, and some trips on Harper, and maybe a trip on Schoenherr or Groesbeck. One driver and his/her bus might operate trips on several routes in the course of a shift.

So the new buses, just like any buses in SMART's fleet, will operate on the busy routes where they are needed, but if that particular bus is scheduled to do a tripper on one of the less-busy routes, it's going to do it.

Now, I don't work for SMART, so my details might be imprecise, but this is essentially correct, and what I think they mean by "sometimes based on demand". The other times the use of those buses will be based on the intricacy of SMART's route scheduling algorithm.

[Danny]

Let's see what those accordion hybrid busses can do. Hopfully its solve the overcrowding on Rte. 560 Gratiot Ave.

[DetroitPlanner]

AATA [[Ann Arbor) was quick to switch over to Hybrid busses and are now finding that what they saved in operating costs may end up getting eaten away with some pretty serious rebuilds. Blue Water [[Port Huron) has a great system and has slowly moved the entire fleet to CNG buses. They have even used stimulus $$ to improve the speed of filling the buses and are planning to make the entire system of fueling solar based. Talk about using the resouces that God gave us! Michigan has plenty of cheap natural gas [[must be from the White Castles and coneys) and the sun is free [[though we are in the time period where sun is not so frequent).

[Whitehouse]

Here in the Netherlands they are not uncommon. I do like that wheelchair/toddler buggy ramp. Busses in the Netherlands can lower their suspension to ease the access.


The city of Utrecht even has double articulated busses. These are true monsters. The capacity is 46 to 60 seats [[depending on configutation) and 112 to 150 standing.