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Grand River Transit
(09-11-2018, 06:22 PM)bgb_ca Wrote:
(09-11-2018, 02:23 PM)Spokes Wrote: Are there any significant system wide changes that will roll out when ION officially starts?

Yes. Major changes are proposed. Details are here

I didn't think these changes were going to wait until ION launched though.
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A lot of them require Ion to launch - Ion is replacing the 200, which parallels much of the route but not all of it. Making these changes before Ion launch would cause numerous issues.
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(09-11-2018, 07:44 PM)KevinL Wrote: A lot of them require Ion to launch - Ion is replacing the 200, which parallels much of the route but not all of it. Making these changes before Ion launch would cause numerous issues.

That and the changes are entirely dependent on the buses being run on the 200 between Fairway Station and Conestoga Station being freed up for use on all the other routes
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(09-11-2018, 03:35 PM)KevinL Wrote:
(09-11-2018, 02:23 PM)Spokes Wrote: Are there any significant system wide changes that will roll out when ION officially starts?

Beyond the end of using Charles and Forest Glen terminals, and rerouting many buses to connect to Ion stations? There's the removal of 7's alphabet soup, making the 8 rational as a single bidirectional leg, and re-working quite a lot of the network. The post above links to it all, of course.

Thanks!  I always wondered why all of the 7s were left the way they were.  I also didn't realize forest glen plaza was getting chopped.  What's the rationale there?
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(09-11-2018, 06:22 PM)bgb_ca Wrote:
(09-11-2018, 02:23 PM)Spokes Wrote: Are there any significant system wide changes that will roll out when ION officially starts?

Yes. Major changes are proposed. Details are here

Thanks!  I hadn't seen that.
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(09-11-2018, 09:47 PM)Spokes Wrote:
(09-11-2018, 03:35 PM)KevinL Wrote: Beyond the end of using Charles and Forest Glen terminals, and rerouting many buses to connect to Ion stations? There's the removal of 7's alphabet soup, making the 8 rational as a single bidirectional leg, and re-working quite a lot of the network. The post above links to it all, of course.

Thanks!  I always wondered why all of the 7s were left the way they were.  I also didn't realize forest glen plaza was getting chopped.  What's the rationale there?

Block Line station and the Sunrise Centre are becoming the new hubs for that part of town. The 201 will go through along Block Line and no longer terminate there, the 12 will move to Bleams, etc.
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I was at that GRT easygo app panel this evening. Seems like they are looking at a total revamp of the app. Hopefully they take most of the suggestions they got and implement then.

And they gave out free swag which is nice.
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Dump the app and just accept that the Transit App is much better than anything they can design for wayfinding and route information. Go with a well-designed mobile site for fare card integration.
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(09-12-2018, 08:56 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: I was at that GRT easygo app panel this evening. Seems like they are looking at a total revamp of the app. Hopefully they take most of the suggestions they got and implement then.

Darn, I missed that one. What the Region really needs to do is turf eSolutions Group and open up things like this to other companies that will make better design choices. I know they were hobbled by the Region's short-sighted requirement of having a Blackberry version of the EasyGo app for stupid political optics, but even so the app sucks mightily.

My significant other works for the Regional library and they just got new tool for registrations of the community programmes but it doesn't do half the things that were requested to be in it and what is there does not work well, and every time they go back to eSolutions they deny that something was supposed to be there, call it new work, and charge more for it.

eSolutions's graphic design is slick, but their actual programming/dev work is horrible.
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(09-17-2018, 10:32 AM)Bytor Wrote: My significant other works for the Regional library and they just got new tool for registrations of the community programmes but it doesn't do half the things that were requested to be in it and what is there does not work well, and every time they go back to eSolutions they deny that something was supposed to be there, call it new work, and charge more for it.

eSolutions's graphic design is slick, but their actual programming/dev work is horrible.

Having been in the custom software development business in the past … at least the highlighted part is not primarily a programming/development issue: it's a problem with requirements and specifications. The library (or region) needs to provide a good set of requirements, and then verify that the vendor's specifications match their expectations. If it's in the specs, the vendor will not be able to charge extra for correcting the problem.

Of course if you change the scope (specifications) of the project, you will need to pay more.
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(09-17-2018, 11:06 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(09-17-2018, 10:32 AM)Bytor Wrote: My significant other works for the Regional library and they just got new tool for registrations of the community programmes but it doesn't do half the things that were requested to be in it and what is there does not work well, and every time they go back to eSolutions they deny that something was supposed to be there, call it new work, and charge more for it.

eSolutions's graphic design is slick, but their actual programming/dev work is horrible.

Having been in the custom software development business in the past … at least the highlighted part is not primarily a programming/development issue: it's a problem with requirements and specifications. The library (or region) needs to provide a good set of requirements, and then verify that the vendor's specifications match their expectations. If it's in the specs, the vendor will not be able to charge extra for correcting the problem.

Of course if you change the scope (specifications) of the project, you will need to pay more.

To me that's just a failure of defining the scope of the project through the design phase...
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(09-17-2018, 11:58 AM)trainspotter139 Wrote:
(09-17-2018, 11:06 AM)tomh009 Wrote: Having been in the custom software development business in the past … at least the highlighted part is not primarily a programming/development issue: it's a problem with requirements and specifications. The library (or region) needs to provide a good set of requirements, and then verify that the vendor's specifications match their expectations. If it's in the specs, the vendor will not be able to charge extra for correcting the problem.

Of course if you change the scope (specifications) of the project, you will need to pay more.

To me that's just a failure of defining the scope of the project through the design phase...

Yes, it's all part of that. And the customer (the region) needs to make sure the scope is clear and the details defined before they sign the contract.
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I’ve noticed they started posting the actual GRT ridership below the actual chart. I could only find data back to May 2016 for the entire system, not by route or stop.
 
Based on the actual values August 2018 had 10.3% growth from August 2017 while July 2018 was up 9.2% over July 2017.

   
 
There have now been 13 straight months of year-over-year growth (median = 4.2%).
 
As of May 2017 GRT carried 19.5 million riders in the previous 12 months (53,591 per day), but as of August 2018 GRT carried 20.4 million in the previous 12 months (56,104 per day). Recall that ridership peaked at 22 million in 2013 before falling off for a few years then stabilizing. Depending on when Ion launches I could see >22million per 12month period by the end of 2019.

   
 
I wonder if they will change their measures when the new fare card is up and running. It should be easier to count new riders vs. transferring riders. Maybe ridership data available by route, stop, and time of day/day of week too?
Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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This is new - a flex route is being launched to serve the elderly and infirm populations in the Fairway and Freeport areas. You must pre-register.

http://www.grt.ca/en/schedules-maps/901-...eport.aspx
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