NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign • Transportation Alternatives

METHODOLOGY

This report is intended as a follow-up to Straphangers Campaign three previous “Pokeys” award reports issued in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The methodology used by the campaign in its 2005 awards represents a significant departure from those in the first reports; details are listed below.

In previous reports, Straphangers Campaign relied on MTA New York City Transit schedules to determine average local bus speeds. In this report, we decided to measure distances and times recorded from actual trips conducted by campaign staff.

Selection of Routes
Routes included in our sample were selected on the basis of slow performance as reported in our 2004 Pokeys report. The sample includes the ten slowest routes system wide, plus the three slowest from each borough. As the ten slowest in 2004 were all Manhattan routes, our sample included three routes each from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. Due to significant differences between route patterns of the Manhattan M14 A and M14 D, these routes were measured separately. In total then, our sample includes 23 local bus routes.

Bus Speed Measurement
Surveys were conducted by a Straphangers Campaign field organizer along with four volunteers, between July 15 and August 8, 2005. Each route was measured with an actual trip in both directions , beginning with the first bus departing from a terminus after 12:00 noon. The return trip was made from the second terminus back to the first on the next bus available. During each trip, surveyors recorded to the second the amount of time taken from terminus to terminus in each direction. Timing began as each bus pulled out of the first stop and concluded immediately after stopping at the last. In our analysis, times were rounded down to the minute and converted to a fraction of an hour. Distances covered were measured to the nearest 1/100th mile using computer GIS software.

Bus speeds were calculated by dividing the number of miles per trip by the fraction of the hour taken to cover that distance. For each route, the bus speed cited in this report is an average of the speeds calculated for each direction on the route. Below is an example of how this methodology was applied to a sample route, Manhattan’s M66.

Sample Calculation—M66
Bus speeds on the M66 was measured on July 27, 2005. Surveyors boarded an eastbound M66 which pulled out of its terminus at West 66th Street and West End Avenue at 12:04:22 PM. The bus came to a stop at its eastern terminus—East 68th Street and York Avenue at 12:38:16 PM. This trip represents a distance of 2.07 miles, which was covered in 33 minutes, 54 seconds—33 minutes when rounded down. To the nearest of 1/100th, this represents 0.55 hours. Eastbound speed on the M66 then was calculated as 2.07/0.55, or 3.8 miles per hour.

Immediately following their eastbound measurement, surveyors boarded the next westbound M66 at its eastern terminus, East 67th Street and York Avenue. The trip began at 12:44:12 PM and concluded at 1:08:37 PM at the western terminus, West 66th Street and West End Avenue. The westbound trip represents a distance of 1.89 miles, which was covered over 0.40 hours—a speed of 4.7 miles per hour.

This report cites an average of the west- and eastbound speeds on routes surveyed. For the M66, this speed works out to 4.2 miles per hour.

news release | bus speed table