MBTA Buses & Infrastructure

It's likely associated with the (supposedly temporary) cutback of the 85 from Spring Hill to Union Square due to street construction on Summer St. and Central St.
 
Post about the T104 changes under BNRD that I've found on zombie reddit today.

The article is essentially positive about the T104 for the most part. Nothing major.

(I'm just crossposting this from zombie reddit.

bostontransit.substack.com

Better Bus Project: Route 104

Helping Everett and Chelsea take flight.
bostontransit.substack.com bostontransit.substack.com
 
I was on the 1 bus from Nubian to Cambridge about an hour ago. Because the bus was 7 minutes late upon departure (and I'm not sure if there was a missed trip before then), it was packed throughout every single part of the trip with high passenger turnover at various bus stops. By the time I got off, the bus was 22 minutes late, and the next one was about 2 minutes away.

The intriguing thing is: Passengers were boarding from the back door throughout the trip, and thus, not paying. This started from Nubian, where they should have had no excuse to do so ("bus is too crowded" etc). The driver didn't try to enforce fare collection, other than dropping off alighting passengers at Hynes slightly before the actual bus stop, such that the back door doesn't need to be opened for boarding passengers. But it seems like there was little they could have done at stop other than that and Nubian.

My question is... Has there been any consideration of installing tap-to-pay readers at back doors on buses? Sounds like they would really come in handy in situations like these.
 
Teban54 said:
I was on the 1 bus from Nubian to Cambridge about an hour ago. Because the bus was 7 minutes late upon departure (and I'm not sure if there was a missed trip before then), it was packed throughout every single part of the trip with high passenger turnover at various bus stops. By the time I got off, the bus was 22 minutes late, and the next one was about 2 minutes away.

The intriguing thing is: Passengers were boarding from the back door throughout the trip, and thus, not paying. This started from Nubian, where they should have had no excuse to do so ("bus is too crowded" etc). The driver didn't try to enforce fare collection, other than dropping off alighting passengers at Hynes slightly before the actual bus stop, such that the back door doesn't need to be opened for boarding passengers. But it seems like there was little they could have done at stop other than that and Nubian.

My question is... Has there been any consideration of installing tap-to-pay readers at back doors on buses? Sounds like they would really come in handy in situations like these.
Click to expand...
I asked this question to the 2.0 thread because there are two of the new readers on buses but they are both near the front but I also asked the MBTA. The official response was:
All door boarding is for the Green Line Trolleys when they are above ground. The MBTA does not do all door boarding for commuting on buses.
Click to expand...
Pretty, pretty lame. If I had to venture a guess as to why it probably is because they cannot afford to have people do spot checks for back door payment on the buses.
 
jbray said:
I asked this question to the 2.0 thread because there are two of the new readers on buses but they are both near the front but I also asked the MBTA. The official response was:

Pretty, pretty lame. If I had to venture a guess as to why it probably is because they cannot afford to have people do spot checks for back door payment on the buses.
Click to expand...
What about the Silver Line?

Also at least Key Bus Routes should be all door boarding (really any bus that is commonly crowded). Not caring about dwell time issues with buses shows the MBTA really is not serious about transit performance.
 
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JeffDowntown said:
What about the Silver Line?

Also at least Key Bus Routes should be all door boarding (really any bus that is commonly crowded). No caring about dwell time issues with buses shows the MBTA really is not serious about transit performance.
Click to expand...
This is a great point so I just asked. If I get a response, I'll post it.
 
Teban54 said:
I was on the 1 bus from Nubian to Cambridge about an hour ago. Because the bus was 7 minutes late upon departure (and I'm not sure if there was a missed trip before then), it was packed throughout every single part of the trip with high passenger turnover at various bus stops. By the time I got off, the bus was 22 minutes late, and the next one was about 2 minutes away.

The intriguing thing is: Passengers were boarding from the back door throughout the trip, and thus, not paying. This started from Nubian, where they should have had no excuse to do so ("bus is too crowded" etc). The driver didn't try to enforce fare collection, other than dropping off alighting passengers at Hynes slightly before the actual bus stop, such that the back door doesn't need to be opened for boarding passengers. But it seems like there was little they could have done at stop other than that and Nubian.

My question is... Has there been any consideration of installing tap-to-pay readers at back doors on buses? Sounds like they would really come in handy in situations like these.
Click to expand...
Everything you're saying is why I'm starting to conclude that we should just make the buses free. We already have a lot of people not paying, with no plans to stop it. You could put tap-to-pay readers at the back door, but you'll still get a lot of fare evaders. And I don't want bus drivers enforcing any of this because that slows the bus down, plus the confrontation puts bus drivers in unnecessary danger.

And really practically, make buses free just to reduce dwell times, speed up travel times, and improve on-time performance. The buses took in $55 million in fare revenue in 2022. That's really not much. That's not even the cost of the consultants who will advise the MBTA on which vendor to buy back-door-tapping machines from five years from now (joke). Some big chunk of those bus riders would have paid their full fare anyways because they're transferring to a subway, where it's much faster and easier to collect the fares. It could be implemented overnight and could be the cheapest, most effective possible way to speed up every single bus in the MBTA.
 
ritchiew said:
Everything you're saying is why I'm starting to conclude that we should just make the buses free. We already have a lot of people not paying, with no plans to stop it. You could put tap-to-pay readers at the back door, but you'll still get a lot of fare evaders. And I don't want bus drivers enforcing any of this because that slows the bus down, plus the confrontation puts bus drivers in unnecessary danger.

And really practically, make buses free just to reduce dwell times, speed up travel times, and improve on-time performance. The buses took in $55 million in fare revenue in 2022. That's really not much. That's not even the cost of the consultants who will advise the MBTA on which vendor to buy back-door-tapping machines from five years from now (joke). Some big chunk of those bus riders would have paid their full fare anyways because they're transferring to a subway, where it's much faster and easier to collect the fares. It could be implemented overnight and could be the cheapest, most effective possible way to speed up every single bus in the MBTA.
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Depends on the bus. I've been saying this should be done for the 32 for a while now because literally 80% of riders start/end their trip with a transfer at Forest Hills, but other buses have a much lower percentage of transfers. Routes like the SL4/5 for example have a lot of riders going right into downtown and then walking, or going to Nubian and then transferring to another bus. Fare collection on those routes is likely still worthwhile.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Depends on the bus. I've been saying this should be done for the 32 for a while now because literally 80% of riders start/end their trip with a transfer at Forest Hills, but other buses have a much lower percentage of transfers. Routes like the SL4/5 for example have a lot of riders going right into downtown and then walking, or going to Nubian and then transferring to another bus. Fare collection on those routes is likely still worthwhile.
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Do you know offhand what percent of bus riders transfer to/from the subway system-wide? The 32 is exactly the one I was thinking about with a high transfer rate, but I don't think that high transfer rate is uncommon. It's probably the case for a lot (or most) of the buses terminating at Alewife, Malden, Wonderland, Ruggles, Forest Hills, Sullivan, JFK, Ashmont, Quincy Center.... After you make all those best candidate routes free, I don't think it will makes sense to buy expensive equipment for the remaining routes. Fare collection is just expensive.
 
ritchiew said:
Do you know offhand what percent of bus riders transfer to/from the subway system-wide? The 32 is exactly the one I was thinking about with a high transfer rate, but I don't think that high transfer rate is uncommon. It's probably the case for a lot (or most) of the buses terminating at Alewife, Malden, Wonderland, Ruggles, Forest Hills, Sullivan, JFK, Ashmont, Quincy Center.... After you make all those best candidate routes free, I don't think it will makes sense to buy expensive equipment for the remaining routes. Fare collection is just expensive.
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During the fare-free Bus 28 pilot 33% of riders were bus only; 66% transferred to rapid transit. I don't think the T counts this data on a regular basis.

www.wbur.org

Fare-free MBTA bus pilot boosted ridership, but not always savings

A pilot program to run the Route 28 bus in Boston free of fares boosted ridership by more than 20%, while only about a third of commuters who participated saved money because of costs they faced elsewhere on the MBTA, officials said Thursday.
www.wbur.org www.wbur.org
 
Livable Streets Alliance has done some work on calculating how much would be lost in fare revenue if local buses were made free. They came up with $33 million as the cost in early 2020, which is likely lower now without full ridership recovery. This also doesn't appear to factor in any possible operational savings.
 
In general, I support free buses (for any number of reasons). However, IIRC the dwell time savings on the 28 during its fare free trial were modest. I don’t remember all the details (and unfortunately don’t have time IRL to go looking), but I do remember thinking that the results of the fare free trial on dwell time was something I mentally filed away as “Hmm that’s interesting and unexpected, I need to look further.”

Maybe the Transit Matters dashboard can help?
 
One of the things to realize is that current MBTA bus revenue totals include (or miss) a lot of free rides on crowded bus situations where the driver gives up and lets all door boarding happen. I observed this a lot on the Silver Line Washington, for example.
 
Riverside said:
In general, I support free buses (for any number of reasons). However, IIRC the dwell time savings on the 28 during its fare free trial were modest. I don’t remember all the details (and unfortunately don’t have time IRL to go looking), but I do remember thinking that the results of the fare free trial on dwell time was something I mentally filed away as “Hmm that’s interesting and unexpected, I need to look further.”

Maybe the Transit Matters dashboard can help?
Click to expand...

Dwell times per passenger went down, but the free fares also stimulated ridership, which made it basically a wash.

1724273483507.png


1724273541511.png

 
Riverside said:
In general, I support free buses (for any number of reasons). However, IIRC the dwell time savings on the 28 during its fare free trial were modest. I don’t remember all the details (and unfortunately don’t have time IRL to go looking), but I do remember thinking that the results of the fare free trial on dwell time was something I mentally filed away as “Hmm that’s interesting and unexpected, I need to look further.”

Maybe the Transit Matters dashboard can help?
Click to expand...
Good point. Looks like the T's measure of dwell time per passenger went down 23%. Basically, I think they're saying absolute dwell times stayed about the same, but all while ridership on the 28 went up 38%. I'd say that's still a big win, but slightly different than what I was saying before.

Also, I rode the 28 a few times near the start of the pilot (not my usual route). Pretty regularly, people would still line up to get on only at the front door, because that's what they were used to or that's what all the other buses do. Maybe that got better as the pilot went on. But that's another reason to just make all the buses free, instead of picking and choosing some. If some buses still cost a fare, then some people will still be lining up at the front door when they don't have to, or trying to tap in while the bus driver tries to explain they don't have to. If we make the whole thing simple and consistent ("No fares, just get on"), people will get in faster.
 
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