“Pokey Awards”

Fall 2006

METHODOLOGY

These awards are intended as a follow-up to the NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign four previous “Pokey Award” reports issued in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. The methodology used by the campaign in this report is identical to the one used in 2005 .

Selection of Routes
Routes included in our sample are identical to those surveyed in our 2005 report; they had been selected on the basis of slow performance as reported in 2004. 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 M14A and M14D, these routes were measured separately. In total then, our sample includes 23 local bus routes.

Bus Speed Measurement
Surveys were conducted by Straphangers Campaign field organizer Charity Carbine along with four volunteers, between Monday, July 17 and Monday, October 9th, 2006. We thank our volunteers Brian Campos, Keishane Esturiene, Wanda Salas and Eric Talbot.

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 were measured on July 27, 2006. Surveyors boarded an eastbound M66, which pulled out of its terminus at West 66th Street and West End Avenue at 12:09:06 PM. The bus came to a stop at its eastern terminus—East 68th Street and York Avenue at 12:41:00 PM. This trip represents a distance of 2.06 miles, which was covered in 31 minutes, 54 seconds—31 minutes when rounded down. To the nearest 1/100th, this represents 0.52 hours. Eastbound speed on the M66 then was calculated as 2.06/0.52, or 4.0 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 12:51:10 PM and concluded at 1:12:56 PM at the western terminus, West 66th Street and West End Avenue. The westbound trip represents a distance of 1.91 miles, which was covered over 0.35 hours—a speed of 5.5 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 4.7 miles per hour.

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