At Petaluma stoplights, public buses go first

New technology giving Petaluma Transit buses a little boost at some of the city’s signal lights is proving to have a big impact on the service’s performance, notably without drawing the ire of car-bound commuters, according to the agency’s director.

A first pilot phase of the transit signal priority system launched quietly along McDowell Boulevard in June, with new sensors and controls giving late buses a 10-second edge at intersections along the corridor.

While transit drivers have started to notice the speedier travel times, there have been no comments from drivers since the switch, said Joe Rye, Petaluma’s transit manager.

“Mostly, it’s imperceptible – you don’t even know it’s happening,” Rye said.

Completed in June, the first phase of the so-called signal priority project spans 13 intersections along McDowell Boulevard from Caulfield Lane through Old Redwood Highway. The span skips the intersection at East Washington Boulevard, he said.

The system only functions when a bus’s on-board location system determines it is behind schedule. If a light is set to turn red but detects a bus will arrive within 10 seconds, it will hold the light for that time in order for the vehicle to pass through. If a light is already red and detects a late bus is waiting, it will cut 10 seconds off the duration of the light.

The system has resulted in between 5 and 10 percent improvements in travel times for Route 2, which traverses the corridor, Public Works and Utilities Director Dan St. John told the Petaluma City Council last week.

“While a couple of minutes here and there doesn’t sound like much, it means a ton when you’ve only got a 30-minute cycle,” he said.

The Petaluma Fire Department has used a different signal priority system for two decades, one that uses infrared light to command signal lights to give emergency vehicles immediate priority, Rye said. The transit system is a newer generation of technology, and not susceptible to the chance that dirt, spiderwebs or other materials could interfere with the infrared signal.

Rye said signal priority systems have been in place for years in areas like the East Bay. The pilot project along North McDowell was pegged at $197,000, with more than 80 percent of that money coming from outside sources.

Eight Petaluma Transit buses currently have the ability to interact with the system, Rye said. Route 2 along McDowell is considered the second busiest in the system.

The Petaluma City Council last week authorized the design for a second phase of the project, a $168,000 project which will implement the same technology along East Washington Street between the Highway 101 interchange and Kentucky Street and on D Street between Lakeville Street and Petaluma Boulevard South. The project will be bundled with a retiming of signal lights along the East Washington corridor, a $100,000 project paid through regional transit funds that was last performed in 2012.

The new signal equipment and timing schedule are expected to be in place before June 30, 2017, according to the city. Route 11, which traverses the corridor, is the busiest for Petaluma Transit, Rye said.

Petaluma Mayor David Glass said the East Washington project dovetailed with the looming launch of passenger rail service from SMART, whose downtown Petaluma station will be located along Lakeville between East D and East Washington streets.

“It’s going to be important that people who catch that bus, catch that train,” he said. “It allows people to piggyback into the SMART system.”

Rye said the signal priority project was one of several changes made to Petaluma Transit over the past eight years, including new vehicles, new route alignments and technology like a real-time tracking app for riders called myStop. Ridership has more than doubled since the fiscal year that ended in June 2009, from 154,000 riders to 340,980 in the past fiscal year.

Despite the long-term bump, last year marked the first year-over-year decline in eight years, with ridership down 6.8 percent. Rye said the city was analyzing the cause, but noted that August ridership was back up to a record for that month.

“In the big picture, it’s still pretty strong,” he said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)