there are various locations which are really important. what are we doing right now to manage service and keep it on time as best we can? with the amount of the locals, expresses on this line, we want to make sure that we are consistent, that people are waiting and even the amount of time in between the vehicles. we try to keep the interpol's balanced -- intervals balanced. some of the tactics used, and this goes to the discussion on switchbacks. one thing that we do on the 14 mission is we trade operators. if someone is more than 15 minutes late, we send the operator on to another vehicle

so that it can go on time in the other direction. that is one thing we do. another thing we do on the 14 mission is we monitor misruns. part of this managing consistency is the time between the intervals. but, for example, we may have some light cars coming in. we send them back out into the mission. we make sure that we can bill as much of the work as possible. systemwide, we put out between 1112 hundred runs a day. typically, -- we tried to take these other actions to mitigate.

finally, the topic of switchbacks. we do do switchbacks. with a trolley line, obviously, it requires infrastructure to make a switch back. this is a listing of locations where we have the infrastructure that allows us to use this technique, if necessary, from a service management standpoint. one of the things we talked about, under what conditions, how do you switch back? our policy is on the trackless side, but very much the same on the rail side, we give notifications as soon as possible, we make an adjustment. we have to make sure a vehicle is no more than five minutes behind. in this case, we have to watch

our vehicles closely because we want to make sure that the vehicle behind it can accommodate the people that are being switched back. in terms of the 14 mission, -- and one of the things that i have tried to do in this issue -- you made a request about going back on the rail side. there is not much historic data available. much of the information was handwritten. we went through some of the material that i could find, but at this point, with the changes we have made over the last several months, i am in a position to identify on a light rail side, when we can make switchbacks, when we can address the issue. you have addressed the condition of which packs. are we making announcements? those kinds of things.

in january, on the mission, we made 137 switchbacks, more of them in the outbound direction. february, so far, 34. the path, to a great extent, would look like the pattern on the light rail lines, following the same principles and procedures. in this particular case, we make sure we try to, where possible, follow the policy we have laid out and make sure we enforce it. commissioner campos: commissioner carmen chu. commissioner chu: the switch back data, is that for a particular line or overall? >> this is just in january before the 14 mission. if i may, since you asked, there were 203 switchbacks in january

on the light rail lines. as soon as the letter is signed off, i will be sending you a report on one of the things that we committed to do in the package that we forwarded to you. a report of switchbacks by line, where they occurred, the time, and whether or not there was a vehicle within five minutes behind that to accommodate passengers who were being switched back. january is done and i will be forwarding it to you this week. >> and that is -- commissioner campos: that is for all the light rail lines? >> yes, correct. the distribution is in the letter, as i recall, the n line

and j line that had the most switchbacks in january. i am pleased to say, having met the conditions in the policy, we were able to pull that pretty thoroughly, in terms of having a vehicle right behind it, certainly within five minutes. i will again frame that in the letter. in response to a question on the mission, the number of switchbacks, this is the mission line only. commissioner campos: commissioner wiener? commisioner wiener: first of all, i wanted to thank commissioner avalos and commissioner chu for requesting this information. it really does impact people's commute in a significant way. my question is, typically, how soon before a switch back occurs

does muni decide to switch back? is there a typical time parameter? is it, we decide and two minutes later, do we know ahead of time? >> i can only give you a firm it depends. the conditions are such, where if we have a significant delay -- 15 minutes approximately on the rail side. it is a combination of the line management center, which has a view of the entire system. the control center speaks to the operators and st. inspectors who actually supports the switch

back on the straight -- street. we tried to give people notice as soon as possible when there is a gap. from our perspective, it should be soon and frequent, in terms of letting people know, both in terms of making announcements and resetting the destination sign. that is our practice, our policy. commisioner wiener: i asked only because people may not understand why switchbacks are necessary. for a lot of people -- and this is an issue that we see in a lot of areas with muni. what frustrates people the most, lack of information, a delay in information. people understand and operational issues, stuff

happens, but there is a general feeling that information is not provided in a timely way. i asked the question of how long in invents it is known. if there is information where muni knows well in advance that there will be a need for a switch back, alerting people before they get on, perhaps having proper sign it on the train or buses so that people know that this is going to stop at this place. it is a lot less frustrating for people to know that they need to wait for the next one as opposed to getting on and having the operator say, you have to get off, and not knowing what is happening. >> i agree. that is one area where you have helped us a great deal, you as a group, bringing this to our attention.

i am much more confident on the light rail side right now. in addition to restating our policy, we have new technology, and now we are able to monitor better. we were able to get all of our cited in sync so that the cited on board matches that signed at the platform. if you decide to switch to an outbound train that is leaving, let's say, embarcadero, we should be able to tell people consistently throughout the trip that we are short-turning a train at 8 particular destination. commisioner wiener: i am frequently on the k, l, or m.

i do not recall seeing any notification or silage. it does not affect me personally, but i would like to hear that it is turning around above ground. if that is something that is feasible -- i do not know that it is -- i do not believe it is happening, from my perspective. >> i will be happy to check. commissioner campos: commissioner avalos? commissioner avalos: anticipation about switchbacks occurring -- i wonder if a driver has that anticipation as well. generally, does a driver get an order to do a switch back at a moment's notice? how does that occur when you are

out there on the 14th line? i hear passengers getting frustrated when a driver has suddenly said that they need to get off. it seems the driver is equally frustrated. perhaps not always the best bedside manner, but there is certainly frustration as well about how quickly they have had to turn around. >> i want to make sure i answer your question. if you are asking me if it is possible for an operator to make a switch back on their own -- commissioner avalos: maybe that is a second part of the question, but how much anticipation does an operator had to make a switch back? are they going along one minute and the next moment they are trying to initiate a switch back? how much anticipation do they

have that it is going to occur? >> an operator can have very short notice that we are switching to a switch back. that is why communications, internally and externally are so important. once a decision is made, as a result of looking at our own policies and cleaning it up, we are making sure that inspectors effectively communicate the information, speak directly to the operator. in many cases, they go to the actual location and support the operator, make sure the conditions we have identified are met. similarly, on the mission, you

can still have little notice. depends on the situation. whether there is a delay caused by an accident, the blockage of a vehicle that fails. we have to adjust quickly. that is why -- having the technology that we introduced six months ago -- it gives us the opportunity to see the whole system. for example, on the 14 mission, if there was a vehicle that was not where it was supposed to be an attempted to switch back at a time when the line management center was staffed, principally, during rush hour, that would show up on the screen so that the inspector would be able to see that color change immediately and see what is going on. operators are required to adapt

a fairly quickly at times. they do not always have a lot of notice. commissioner avalos: i know you have other parts of your presentation to go through. commissioner campos: before you do that, and perhaps this is a dumb question. what is the definition of a switch back? for people that are watching and do not have a sense of what we are talking about. maybe you could also get to this in your presentation. what is the switch back rate at this line relative to others in the system? >> let me try to address both of those points. i guess i assumed incorrectly that everybody understood. a switch back is a service management technique that we deploy -- for example, on the

light rail, it is easier to describe to someone. when a line is substantially behind schedule, for whatever reason, one of the things that is available to us so that we balance the line's directions -- it is important for us to balance the system because everything goes through the subway. if something happened on one line, it can affect all the others. on a number of occasions, what we do to balance the trains -- if you had five trains in a row outbound on the n line, we would use a switch back to turn one of those trains in bound, so if

people were waiting, they could have a train coming as close to schedule as we can. it is a common technique in the industry. the reason why use it is it is one of the service management techniques we can use with our physical plant. we have talked about the potential of using gap trains, buses, but a switchback is essentially a service management technique to address a delay in the system. the second part of your question? commissioner campos: maybe you are already addressing this, but the switch back rate for the 14 line relative to the others?

maybe you do not keep that record. >> what i wanted to show you today on the 14th line is we do a number of things in addition to switchbacks, swapping of coaches. we have got a little bit more flexibility because it is operated by track less, which is less flexible, and diesel coaches. i would be happy to go back and look and compare, certainly for the month of january, looking at 14 and comparing that to how often others were switched back. i am happy to do that for you but i do not have that in my presentation. commissioner avalos: you did mention 137 switch packs on the 49 in january? >> 137 in january.

34 to date in february. commissioner avalos: compare that to switch back on light rail vehicles, which i think was 207 across the entire city. so january, relative to the light rail system on the year, has a large number of switchbacks. >> i would want to compare it to another trackless line. 14 has a lot of service, more trips. again, we use some other adjustments to keep the lines spaced evenly. i'm sorry, did you want me to compare -- i would offer that a comparable thing would be to look of other

lines in california to give you an apples to apples comparison. commissioner avalos: i think what would be a better comparison is the geary line compared to the 14. >> i have one more slide to offer in terms of what we are doing to continue to improve the performance of the 14 line. one of the things that we talked about, deploying parking control officers in certain areas of congestion. double parking in bus zones. we have been looking at delays at certain times. we have the advantage of looking at some video and we see at all different times double parking in bus zones and that sort of

thing. i really believe this second one is important. we could do a better job of outreach, helping people to understand the system. 14 is a good example because of the different kinds of services. sometimes, if you watch the operation of the line, there are interesting and things where somebody could be standing at the end of a bus shelter and the operator will pull up with a trackless coach and the person will have to run 5 feet. sometimes with trackless, that is where the breaker is. we need to help our operators better with that and also help the public understand. there are a number of things

like that that we could do. the other thing is -- we have talked about this in various committees -- the mission is an ideal candidate for us to begin a process of rear boarding, using fare inspectors. i think the management introduction in january was the first time we had been able to staff the line management center during the rush hour. first we start with light rail in september. now we have got it in january. that is the new technology that allows us to manage the system more aggressively. finally, as we are reviewing our own policies, staying accountable to the question that you have asked, everything we

are doing is committed to reducing time and improve performance. commissioner campos: measuring the line, is that your locator service? i think you would have something that would record, electronically, the day you have about into girls, where the spacing is between vehicles, how often you have switchbacks. why would you have to record that by hand, as you mentioned earlier in this hearing? >> what we had was, past practices, i cannot address

them specifically. u.s. a question about going back several years -- you asked a question about going back several years to see how many switchbacks there were for a vehicle -- i provided a sample of how it was done on paper. it was simply not reported. for whatever reason, i do not know. i keep using the term real-time, but we are able to see and identify vehicles in the system. now when we make a switch back, we can see where all the vehicles are on the line, whether they are track less or rail. i will try to go back and do research -- commissioner avalos: i am not really interested in what happened years ago, unless there

is a trend. what is important is what is happening now. demand is much greater than the service and they want to see more frequent buses. and we can only add just depending on how the resources. maybe you can print out a month of your data from your automated vehicle locator and you can come and share that with me in my office, and how that relates to the 14th line and the operations. that would be helpful. commissioner campos: thank you. i am certainly interested in that. maybe we can share that with all members of the committee. thank you. anything else? commissioner avalos: the question around where the work

is, in terms of looking at daly city bart. >> we have another power point set up for you. i will defer to my planning partner for that.

>> good morning, mr. terra, commissioners, mr. milosevic. thank you for having me today. i want to give you a brief overview of this proposal. this morning, i'm going to give you some background to the proposal and discuss service options available, sfmta service preferred routes, and the actions part is currently undertaking, and the next apps as well. as you know, sfmta has always been supportive of this proposal. it has been reflected in various documents in the past, but especially now in the transit effect of this project --

effectiveness project. at this time, unfortunately, we are not able to come up with a near-term proposal because of the current budget situation, adjustments that we are proposing to add back to the service. and the extension would improve service to this sector of the city, based on everything commissioner avalos mentioned earlier. we have considered a couple of options to meet this goal. option a is to extend to the daly city bart station using motor coaches, neither the 14 limited or 14 local.

both would provide service seven days a week with hybrid coaches which are cleaner and quieter. option b is to confront a neutral in overhead system along the route and extend service to the daly city bart from there. commissioner avalos: if i could cost you. we met in my office one year ago with daly city, the city administrator, bart was there -- i believe you were there as well. we put option b on the table because of infrastructure needs, it was something that daly city was not really interested in, and the cost was sort of prohibitive. we do not need to discuss option b. >>