Frequent Networks

google maps wants you to see all your transit options

Google Maps is slowly unveiling a major update (sign up here), including an upgrade to the transit function of the map. There's been plenty to criticize in the existing trip planner Google has offered for years, which Nate Wessel's guest post here in April summed up well. In short, trip planners tell you how to get from an origin to a destination, but they don't do much to reveal the broad scope of your transit mobility in a city. 

I haven't yet had the chance to test the update myself, but it looks as though Google is at least moving in the right direction. Ask the new Google Maps for transit directions, and rather then routing a hypothetical "shortest trip" which often relies on impractical connections between low-frequency services, you'll get several alternatives based on the best frequency over the longest span of service. It also (finally) accounts for lines whose paths duplicate service over a section of a trip. Not only are the alternatives put on the map, but there are some clever trip visualizations, too.

Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 2.26.02 PM

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/helloworld/desktop/preview/

What's more, Google is also starting to understand the utility of giving users access to the universe of possible trips from a single origin. The screenshot below shows two lines available from a station in London, but its worth noting that plenty of other lines are also visible. 

Screen shot 2013-05-17 at 2.17.55 PM

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/helloworld/desktop/preview/

 Bruce over at Seattle Transit Blog has a smart take on this:

Guidebook routing more closely reflects the way the vast majority of people actually use transit, prioritizing frequency and span of service on generally-useful routes over infrequent one-seat rides that just happen to provide doorstep service. Its works best, of course, in transit systems full of truly high-frequency, reliable all-day routes, but to the extent that we have such service here, the same ideas apply.

Google Maps is one of the most important methods people use to learn how to make trips using transit. To date, it has offered a bare-bones trip planner which might be somewhat useful in making an individual trip, but with very little information about the system beyond what its algorithms (sometimes seemingly arbitrarily) determine is the best way to get somewhere. While this isn't quite the automatically generated frequent network map I called for here, Google is finally incorporating frequency as a critical part of travel directions. 

frequent network maps: san francisco east bay

Another great frequent network map from the prolific Steve Boland, this time of the East Bay region of California including Oakland and Berkeley . I previously covered his San Francisco frequent network here. Steve has created a series of transit maps for other cities, which can be found at his website, San Francisco Cityscape. Have a look at a small part of the map showing Downtown Oakland, below (or follow the link to view the full map):

Screen Shot 2013-04-16 at 09.20.18

Steve's done a great job drawing a map to show routes running at 10-15 minute weekday frequencies, and uses color to draw a distinction between local and rapid bus service, BART, and several shuttle services that operate in the same vicinity.  The map doesn't try to show the more complex background of less frequent services.  The best agency maps (Seattle, Vancouver, Spokane, Portland) have begun doing thi as well.  But maps showing only the Frequent Network are also highly useful, especially for people who want to use transit but just can't afford to wait long.  That's why every Los Angeles rapid transit station has a "15-minute map", and why many other agencies (Portland, Minneapolis, Brisbane) do maps of the Frequent Network alone.  Remember: Frequency is freedom!  So a frequency map is a map of your freedom as a transit rider.  

 

how google (or you) could change the game

Google could transform how many people experience transit in about 15 minutes.  Well, maybe a few days.  They have the tools to do something that's a big effort for the transit agencies: Frequent Network maps.  

But in fact, any app-maker could do it too.

Nate Wessel's guest post, on why trip planners can never replace or substitute for maps, gives us the clue. 

Spokane sliceFor the last three years, this blog has been preoccupied with the visualization of frequency. Frequency is freedom.  Reducing the wait is the essence of what makes transit resemble the freedom we associate with cars, and it's also crucial to allowing multiple lines to function as a network. 

As this comes to be better understood, the concept of frequent network mapping is gradually spreading through the transit industry.  I first made the case here, and explored some details here.  The idea is spreading.  If you don't believe me, just explore this blog's Frequent Networks category (let me know if you encounter other examples I should feature).  

Frequent lines are so special — as the network useful to busy people who can't build their lives around a timetable — that they need to stand out.  If you haven't seen a map of the Frequent Network in your city, I contend that you really don't understand how your transit system works.  As I argue at the links above, frequent network mapping can be transformative in helping people understand how a transit system actually functions, and why frequency is worth caring about.

As Nate argues, and as I argued a few years ago, no trip planner will ever substitute for maps. What's more, no map of a single trip we care about will substitute for a map that actually shows you the network, just as most of us need to see maps of our city.  The Frequent Network is especially crucial to see, and not just for the general public.  Powerful people form ideas about transit from looking at maps, and if they can't see frequency, they are being misled about how the network works.

Still, it takes time for ideas to penetrate a transit bureaucracy.  Google, though, could do it tomorrow, by just setting up a little interface that reads midday frequencies out of the timetable data they already have, and draws a Frequent Network map.  OK, quick automated mapping is often ugly.   It might take a few weeks to make it beautiful.  You might also want to give the user control of the frequency threshold.  Service every 15 minutes is frequent in Phoenix but not in San Francisco.

Actually, it doesn't even need Google.  Given public GTFS feeds, anybody can build this app, right?

Imagine arriving in an unfamiliar city and wanting to see where you can get to easily on transit.  Or imagining thinking about a location decision, and wanting to make sure there's frequent service there, going to the places you go.  Simplistic tools like WalkScore's Transit Score won't help you!  You need to see the network yourself.  

Imagine that the resulting map is so useful that it comes to replace the convoluted transit information in most travel guides, which can't do much more than draw a map of a subway system, or give you a bunch of phone numbers if there isn't one.  Tourists, too, don't like waiting long.

What am I missing.  If this makes sense, give me some credit for the idea, and take it away.

more uk frequent network maps: nottingham

Nottingham, UK now highlights frequent services on its network map.  More detail at the link.

Nottingham slice

Often when you first map the frequent network, you notice for the first time how self-disconnected it is.  Nottingham's frequent network is entirely radial with just one frequent orbital (crosstown) service spanning about 45 degrees of arc along the west side, easily seen on the full map.  The orbital is an extension of a radial, but it's clearly in an orbital role for a while.

One of the great outcomes of frequency is easy connections, so once you map the frequent network you usually start seeing opportunities to build more non-downtown connection opportunities, whether they be full orbital lines or just ways for two radials to connect (or even through-route at the outer ends) so as to create more direct travel opportunities within a subarea of the city.  For example, looking at this map, I immediately wonder whether 44 and 45 should be combined into a two-way loop so that you could ride through, say, between Carlton rail station in the far southeast corner of this image and Mapperley in the centre.  (You wouldn't present it as a loop in the schedule.  You'd still call it 44 and 45 but note on the map and in the timetable that 44 continues as 45 and vice versa.  This is how you build more direct travel opportunities in small city while still keeping the network legible.)

quote of the week: the portlandia streetcar

 

"I think frequency is an overrated thing. Let's say there's a 20-minute [wait].  You can look on your phone, wait inside and have a beer."

— Portland Streetcar Citizens Committee member
Peter Finley Fry, justifying the 18-minute frequency
of the Portland Streetcar's new eastside loop,
quoted last August in Willamette Week.

Note that Mr Fry is referring to a very slow service (the original segment of the Portland Streetcar is now scheduled at around 6 miles/hr) which is useful only for relatively short trips around the greater downtown area.

toronto: a frequent network map

From Eric Sehr, here's a very clear schematic of the Frequent Network in Toronto — covering the Toronto Transit Commission Area but not adjacent regions.  If I were TTC, I'd just publish this as it is.  Note how clearly you can assess where you can get to without much delay, and also note how well-connected the Frequent Network is.  

For the full-size zoomable version, see here.

Toronto-frequent-transit-network-map3
About this series:  While a few agencies led the way with Frequent Network maps and brands, much of the Frequent Network branding "movement" seems to have followed from this post, later expanded as Chapter 7 of my book Human Transit.  Agencies that now market Frequent Networks include those in Montreal, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Spokane, and Seattle.  Portland was once a leader until its Frequent Network was destroyed by budget cuts in 2009.  For more — including both advocate-made and a few agency-made Frequent Network maps — explore the "Frequent Networks" category on this blog.  As a consultant I provide advice on Frequent Network branding worldwide.

seattle reveals its frequent network

Bravo to Seattle's King County Metro for their new system maps, which finally reveal their Frequent Network.  All can be viewed and downloaded here.  

Seattle NW slice

The wide blue line is light rail and the red lines are the new Rapid Bus product (both frequent and relatively fast).  The rest of the bus network is clearly presented in ways that advertise its frequency and span, so that (a) the Frequent Network jumps out at you and (b) services that run only at rush hour recede from attention so that you can clearly see the network that runs all day.  They do this by using black (numbers and lines ) for the Frequent Network, then solid blue for the other all-day service, then paler blue with blue-outlined white number bullets for the peak-only services.

Works for me.  What do you think?  If your transit agency hasn't figured out Frequent Network mapping yet, show them this map, and tell them to read Chapter 7 of my book, or this!

melbourne: updated frequent network map reveals grid gaps

Here's a new Frequent Network Map for Melbourne, by Campbell Wright, showing where you can get around easily all day if you aren't willing to wait long for public transport.  Download and explore it here:
PNG.  The image below is obviously illegible but the zoomed-out look shows us important things.  

15_min_frequent_updated2

What I notice:

1.  The inner north of Melbourne, immediate north of the CBD, should be a public transport paradise.  It's historic, very dense and has a grid street pattern for easy walking to transit.  It has frequent north-south trams on all the major streets, but it lacks the frequent crosstown services that would make a complete east-west grid for everywhere-to-everywhere travel.  The routes are there, as you can see here and here , but except for the one Mr Wright draws, none are frequent enough to make adequate connections, so their role is largely symbolic. This is probably because there are too many overlapping infrequent routes, and they need to be considated into fewer stronger routes.  

2.  The inner east and inner north grids are poorly stitched together.  There are frequent crosstown routes in both but it's hard to get from one grid to the other, except by coming almost downtown, to Hoddle Street, or going way out, to Bulleen where the blue 903 crosses.

3.  Melbourne has lavished great attention for years on the four orbital Smarbuses, inverted U-shaped routes that are obvious as north-south bands across the far right of the map.  What Melbourne really needed was a high-frequency grid, with crosstown (perpendicular to radial) lines concentrated in areas of high demand so that you could go from everywhere to everywhere with a simple L-shaped trip.  The Smartbuses oversimplified the grid concept by insisting, for no reason I can discern and at great cost, that these services all had to be complete U shapes wrapped all the way around the city. regardless of the markets through which they pass.   

You can see the effect.  Parts of Melbourne that could support high frequency crosstown service, like the inner north, or the Port Melbourne-St Kilda corridor, don't have much of it, while a fortune is spent on a vast outermost U (the grey line) which creates no grid effect because it lies far beyond the end of most frequent radials.  It's also far, far to long to be operated reliably, as are many of the Smarbuses.  The reliability can be assured only by inserting substantial break time along the way for schedule recovery, which would mean that they don't really flow continuously in the way that the route number and brand would suggest.  

4.  Only with a Frequent Network map like Mr. Wright's can you see Melbourne's network in a way that would help you understand it as an instrument of freedom, something that you might use for many purposes as part of am empowered life.  While the State of Victoria has recently taken over public transport information, their published maps still make it very hard to see the network this way.  If you arrive at the website wanting to see a real map of your transit system, and you figure out that you need to click Maps / Metropolitan Maps, you're asked to choose between train, tram, and bus.  Again, the assumption is that you must be looking for a particular transit technology, and that nobody would ever be interested in simply understanding how all public transport — with the technologies working together to form a network — might be useful their lives.  

What's more, maps of local buses are chopped up by Local Government Area, arbitrary boundaries that slice up the map in ways that further conceal patterns of usefulness.  And of course, there is no Frequent Network map, like you'll find in Brisbane, and like Mr Wright as sketched above, to help you figure out which services are coming soon and which require you to build your life around them.

So if you know how to get around Melbourne freely and easily all day, bookmark Mr Wright's map.  For now, it's one of Melbourne's most important bits of public transport info.

frequent service, mapped to your door

Vancouver's TransLink is one of several agencies who — with some input from me — have adopted Frequent Network brands that are designed to highlight services that are always coming soon, generally every 15 minutes or better all day and weekend.    I've always insisted that the Frequent Network can be both a short-term service branding tool (to build ridership by helping time-sensitive customers see where the network can serve them) but also a land use planning tool.

TransLink always understood it was both, and for several years has had a goal stating that half the region's population and jobs will be on the Frequent Network.  This is both a land use planning statement and a transit planning statement.  The message is not that TransLink will extend Frequent service to half the current population, but rather that it will do some of this while land use planning will also bring put residents and jobs on the existing Frequent Network.  More recently, Translink finally highlighted its Frequent Network on its maps for the public.

Ultimately, the Frequent Network, if properly mapped and promoted, should sell real estate, because the high level of all-day access should have a clear value as a city as a whole becomes more transit-oriented.  So this kind of micro-mapping should be really handy:

Ftn_skytrain_walksheds-1-2
This map (click to enlarge and sharpen) of transit access in New Westminster, British Columbia is by Jonathan X. Cote, a City Councilor in that city and also an urban planning student at Simon Fraser Univerisity. He takes the standard walking distances of 800m to rapid transit and 400m to local transit and plots the portion of his city that has access to those networks.  I've seen these maps before, and even if they are not drawn they are what lies behind any coherent statement about what percentage of population and jobs have transit access, within a given walking distance, to service of a given standard.

Remember:  If your city wants to do really honest transit analysis, it needs very small analysis zones.  This map shows you the kind of clarity that you get when you can analyze right down to the parcel.  You don't need that much fine grain, but the zones need to be small.  And a parcel-level map like this is certainly ideal for land use planners, who need to minimize walking distances for the centroids of transit-oriented developments. 

Notice what a good tool this is for analyzing bus stop spacing as well.  You can move the stops a little apart and count how many parcels fall out of the walkshed.  Out to about 400m (1/4mi) spacing the answer is usually "fewer than you expected."

washington dc: new network maps, with frequency!

The Washington DC transit agency WMATA has now released drafts of its new network map, which highlight the frequent network very dramatically with wide red lines:

Dcbusmidcity

Finally, it's possible to quickly see where the next bus is coming soon, rather than getting lost in a confusing tangle in which all routes look equally important.  The map is by the excellent firm CHK America.  Get the full story, with many more samples, at Greater Greater Washington, and remember, if you like these, don't take it for granted.  Transit agencies need to hear positive feedback where it's deserved.