‘Bus bunching’ prevention: Metro Transit hopes D Line schedule changes will make it more reliable and less crowded

This winter, Metro Transit is promising to make D Line buses more predictable and less crowded. 

From Dec. 9 until March 21, Metro Transit will try what is called “headway-based scheduling” on the state’s busiest route serving Brooklyn Center, north and south Minneapolis, Richfield, Bloomington, and the Mall of America. 

“The goal of headway-based scheduling is to have buses arriving at bus stops at evenly spaced intervals, improving service reliability, reducing wait times and overcrowding, and ensuring operators have consistent time to use the restroom, eat, stretch, etc., between trips,” wrote Metro Transit spokesperson Drew Kerr in a statement.   

Headway-based scheduling, which will happen only on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., involves drivers relying on the buses’ onboard computers to determine when to leave a terminal and to ensure they are spaced between 10 and 15 minutes apart from one another. “Those indications will help operators adjust as needed, such as holding at a stop if they are too close, for example,” wrote Kerr. That’s in contrast to a driver trying to stay on a stringent schedule for each stop. Buses will also be able to manipulate traffic signals to keep moving.

The agency plans to have extra buses available on standby to make trips, just in case of delays. The agency currently uses at most 21 buses on the route, according to schedules obtained from the Pantograph app, an app that tracks the real-time location of buses. 

The D Line isn’t Metro Transit’s most reliable route. D Line buses going in the same direction sometimes operate closely with one another, with one running on time, and another running several minutes late, in a phenomenon known as bus bunching. The late bus could be slowed down by icy or snowy roads, a driver or a malfunctioning machine trying to secure a passenger in a wheelchair, a large crowd boarding a very late bus, or transit personnel trying to remove an unruly passenger. Agency staff say its length — 18 miles — as well as its ridership of just under 14,000 average weekday riders as of September, are contributing factors.

Metro Transit says the bus has had a 75% on-time performance rating so far this year, with on-time performance meaning the bus arrives within one minute early or five minutes late to a stop. In the past month, the Transit app — which provides estimated arrival times and trip planning information — reported that among 129 users, D Line buses arrived on time 63% of the time. 

Elliot Park resident Wanda Edwards is looking forward to the change as the weather turns. “I think that’s wonderful, especially knowing the weather is going to change. It’ll be convenient. I can walk out my door and catch the bus,” Edwards said on the D Line on her way to a store. 

Headway-based scheduling isn’t new to the agency. Metro Transit has used this on the A Line on Snelling Avenue over the past two Minnesota State Fairs to ensure buses arrive at stops every 10 minutes despite traffic congestion. 

Headway-based scheduling is also used on high-frequency bus routes on the West Coast, with mixed results. The Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, serving cities immediately to the east of San Francisco, found implementing headway-based scheduling on one of their busiest trunk lines in the early 2000s reduced travel times by 17%, an effect noticed by riders. On the other hand, Los Angeles Metro plans to discontinue headway-based scheduling on one of its local bus routes connecting West Hollywood with downtown Los Angeles next month because the project did not improve reliability. 

Metro Transit says it still plans to use a printed schedule to support trip planning and real-time information tools, as well as to divide up work to their drivers. They are also directing riders who need to make transfers to less frequent routes to use their trip planner, which provides a five-minute time buffer for transfers.

Dwayne Smith, who recently started working at the Mall of America and takes the D Line there, was confused upon hearing about Metro Transit’s headway-based frequency plans. “You wanna know, when you walk out, is this bus gonna be there a particular time,” said Smith while riding the bus to work. 

Despite the changes, Smith adds the D Line overall is an improvement over the route it mostly replaced almost two years ago, the Route 5. “It’s a fast route and it’s accurate. It’s on time, never really late,” Smith said.

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