septemberoctober2024 - 38

Bay Area Transit
BART station. The alignment will enhance reliability for riders
traveling between Marin and West Contra Costa, Calif., counties
via the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. In this iteration, the two
agencies focused on coordinating transfers for AC Transit's
Line 76 and Golden Gate Transit's lines 580 and 580X.
The transfers would allow a rider traveling southbound
on Line 76, looking to transfer westbound across the Richmond-San
Rafael Bridge via Line 580X, to no longer have to
face a near-miss for the transfer at key times.
" With the new coordinated schedules, the departures are
now staggered, reducing the wait time for westbound riders to
approximately 10 minutes instead of 15 minutes during most
of the operating day, " said AC Transit Media Affairs Manager
Robert Lyles. " AC Transit aims to achieve even greater improvements
for riders by the end of the year. Ultimately, this alignment
improves reliability for riders traveling between Marin and West
Contra Costa counties via the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. "
ing agencies such as Caltrain and Santa
Clara VTA. Its upcoming changes to some
of its rail transfers at Millbrae Station will
go into effect when Caltrain launches its
electric service on Sept. 21. With BART's
schedule change that went into effect on
Aug. 12 and Caltrain's schedule change
that begins on Sept. 21, approximately 85
percent of all weekday trains will have a
transfer between five and 19 minutes at
Millbrae Station. On the weekend, approximately
90 percent of trains will have
a transfer between five and 19 minutes.
BART notes that if trains were scheduled
with less than a five-minute wait, delays
would frequently break the transfer and
result in a longer wait.
Schedule syncing isn't a new idea
to the transit industry. It can be hard
to step away from something that has
worked in the past to accept something
that could make things better. Participating
transit agencies have embraced
the idea of change to invite a bright and
more efficient future for local transit.
Even after the most recent schedule
change, Bay Area transit agencies are
still coming across issues that challenge
them to find efficient solutions to improve
rider experience.
Some of the issues Bay Area transit
BART Fleet of
the Future train.
Photo: Bay Area
Rapid Transit
The new schedule changes to AC Transit have also helped
to promote faster rider boarding on southbound Line 76 at
Harbour Way and Cutting Boulevard, specifically during
the morning peak. AC Transit reports that riders previously
had to wait 27 minutes for the next westbound Line 580 or
55 minutes for the next westbound Line 580X. With the new
coordinated schedules, the wait time has been reduced to
seven minutes for the next westbound Line 580X. Similar
wait time improvements are being realized for southbound
Line 76 riders boarding at Harbour and Cutting.
In the afternoon peak, a southbound Line 76 rider boarding
at 6:31 p.m., 7:30 p.m. or 8:27 p.m. at Harbour and Cutting
previously faced near misses or missed connections to the westbound
Line 580, with wait times of 53 to 57 minutes for the next
westbound Line 580 if a connection was missed. With the new
coordinated schedules, if the rider misses a transfer, the wait
time is now significantly reduced to between 13 and 17 minutes.
BART
BART is also a major player in this program to sync transit service
schedules. Being one of the bigger regional transit providers
in the area, BART has always shared its schedules with neighbor38
Mass Transit | SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024
agencies are still seeing include:
* A better transfer for one end of a route
may create a worse transfer for other
areas of the route.
* Adding service to allow frequencies
to match each system requires new
funding at a time transit agencies are
facing significant budget challenges.
* Transfers between BART and Caltrain
at Millbrae Station don't always line
up perfectly because Caltrain has four
trains per peak hour and two trains per
off-peak hour/weekends. BART has
three trains per hour at all times. Both
systems are also limited in flexibility due
to key system timing points elsewhere.
The 27 agencies are currently planning
for the upcoming schedule changes in
January 2025. The coordinated schedule
changes will help to benefit current
transit riders while attracting new riders.
The ultimate goal is to increase ridership
by making transit more attractive and
easier to use through one " Big Sync " .
septemberoctober2024

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