Any Metro rider in the Seattle area has by rule waited for a late bus. Most of the time, riding a Metro bus means anticipating delays. This is why OneBusAway is such a popular app: it will tell Metro riders when they really have to get to the stop.
Even on Sundays, Metro buses are typically late. It's an embarrassment that Metro can't make even Sunday routes mostly on time. Most of them don't run frequently, and there isn't a lot of traffic to speak of on Sundays.
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| Fail. And this is on a Sunday. |
So how should Metro fix this? While there are multiple reasons buses typically run late, such as inefficient routing, stop spacing, stop location, and many more, inaccuracy of timetables is something that seems completely fixable.
If there is a route that consistently runs late, or early (what?), or there are future events that will make it so, the immediate fix is not telling customers 'Expect delays.' The solution is quite simply to make the timetable more accurate. So what if it makes the route slower, or appear less efficient? On time is defined by what the timetable says, not by anything else.
In other words, the bus is only late if it arrived after the time posted by Metro. If, after revisions, the bus runs a few minutes later or takes a few minutes more to complete its route, it is not late if it runs according to timetables. The passenger is dissatisfied if the bus comes after when they expected it to come. 'On time' is based on expectations.
Example: After rehearsal on Saturdays, I board a 31/32 to Fremont and SPU. I get out at 1:30. If I hustle and rehearsal ends exactly on time, I can catch a late 1:25 route 32. I usually end up waiting about 15-20 minutes for a route 31, though, which is always, practically every time, late by at least five minutes.
There are a few problems here: the usual bus route inefficiencies, which include traffic and a varying number of passengers. However, since this bus runs consistently late, it seems that it would just be easier to fix the timetable to have it start its route a few minutes earlier (to maintain the fifteen minute headways) or to simply show the route as arriving a few minutes later at the stop.
Note: this stop is a time point too, not something I derived from calculations.
One last thing: this solution is not a fix-it-all, and won't solve the real problems with most routes. Buses will run late frequently and always will. It is because they run in vastly changing conditions because they do not have the road to themselves. This means traffic, events and other factors that make the route inconsistent.