PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Starting next week, SEPTA will simplify how it alerts riders about canceled trips.
SEPTA will no longer send social media alerts that read “on such-and-such route, due to operator unavailability, trips are subject to delays and cancellations between this time and that time,” said SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch.
“It’s just going to be a little bit of a higher bar for those alerts, to be a bit more of an overall picture rather than warning of possible delays that may or may not happen,” he said.
Effective Monday, Feb. 9, SEPTA will end those generic alerts and instead direct bus, trolley and Norristown High-Speed Line riders to seek out specific trip information on SEPTA’s app, website and third-party apps.
“We really do want to get customers into the habit of checking for these more precise alerts so that they’re getting information that’s relevant to their trip,” Busch explained.
The “operator unavailability” messages about staffing shortages began during the pandemic, but Busch noted that bus and trolley operators’ jobs are now more than 95% filled.
He said the real-time information on which the alerts were based is more reliable now. If a particular run is canceled, it’ll be shown with a strike-through on the SEPTA website and won’t appear on the app’s trip planner.
More details can be found here.