PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA is launching an ambitious effort to re-create its bus routes from scratch, with the goal of a faster system that is easier to understand.
The project is a clean-slate redesign of SEPTA's current spaghetti-network system of bus routes. The plan aims to redeploy the existing fleet in a way that means faster trips and shorter waits.
The first year of the three-year redesign will be spent gathering information about how today’s bus riders use the system. The project will redeploy the existing fleet.
The effort will next involve presenting options and collecting feedback during the second year, with implementation of new bus routes planned by the end of 2023.
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Project manager Bethany Whitaker said her firm, San Francisco-based consulting company Nelson/Nygaard, will gauge where riders get on and off of buses by analyzing farebox data, automatic passenger counts and even data from cell phone tracking.
She says they’ll use low-tech methods, too.
“We will be standing at the corner – you know, hopefully COVID permitting – riding the buses, talking to bus riders, standing at the corner talking to people about what their experiences have been," said Whitaker.
“We are learning a lot, including who needs the bus the most, who the reliable riders are, when they’re traveling, where they need to go. That is really the road map to the core of the network.”
“So then it becomes, ‘Did you want to walk a minute more to a bus that’s 15% to 20% faster? Or do you want to keep your slow bus and your short walk?’” Nelson/Nygaard’s Geoff Slater added.
He explained that because the pandemic has changed travel patterns, it’s likely the recommendation will involve less peak service and more midday and evening service.
As for any local resistance, Slater points to the firm’s redesign of Pittsburgh’s transit system.
“Pittsburghers don’t like change," he said. "When we got done we changed almost everything, and we also had very widespread public support.”
The results by the end of 2023 could involve new routes created, current routes modified, or possible route eliminations.