McMaster University researchers are starting a new project to re-envision bus service with transit provider Hamilton Street Railway (HSR).
HSR announced the exciting new project with civil engineer Moataz Mohamed of McMaster University’s Faculty of Engineering and the McMaster Institute for Transportation & Logistics. The team involved in this new project will undertake a systematic review of Hamilton’s transit network to re-envision the HSR.
HSR will work alongside the world-class researchers at McMaster University to engage with customers and other key stakeholders to broadly assess Hamilton’s transit network. The project aims to better understand what customers want and need from their transit service and will ultimately bring forward suggestions for reconfiguring the transit network across the city.
The project announced today has two key objectives. The first is to arrive at an understanding of the perceived and desired quality of HSR service from the point of view of a wide range of Hamilton residents, including those who use transit regularly or not at all. The second objective is to suggest a multi-criteria reconfiguration of HSR service based on the evidence from data collection and modelling efforts.
Public engagement efforts will begin later this spring.
“Improving the experience of our customers is a top priority for HSR. This project is going to help us to identify what our customers need and want from their transit service, and find solutions for how to improve transit in Hamilton. We’re going to find out if we’re servicing the right areas of the city, if we’re running buses to when and where our customers need to go, and find out how we can improve our routes, destinations and time tables. Ultimately, we’re going to identify the changes that will help to re-envision transit in Hamilton.” – Debbie Dalle Vedove, Director of Transit, City of Hamilton
“There has been so much growth and development in Hamilton over the past number of years, and while that is a wonderful thing for so many reasons, we need to ensure that we’re monitoring the impacts of that growth and development and are responding appropriately. Transit is a great example. Today, the design of our network poses challenges for some customers, and there are many areas of the city that we don’t service or don’t service frequently. This project is going to help us identify ways we can improve the network to better meet the needs of Hamiltonians across our great city.” – Dan McKinnon, General Manager of Public Works, City of Hamilton
“Improving the quality of transit service must meet the desires and expectations of users with the quality standards and targets of service providers. Transit is not only about running buses around the city, it is about providing a quality experience to attract more users. In this project, this model will be applied to benchmark the quality of HSR from different perspectives including current users, potential users, and operators. These, along with performance measures will be used to guide the future of HSR service.” – Dr. Moataz Mohamed, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering
“Transit is one of the central pillars that will support Hamilton’s very bright future. We at MITL are delighted to participate in this effort which will yield important evidence to enhance the mobility of Hamiltonians.” – Dr. Mark Ferguson, Senior Research Associate, McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics
