How are route and schedule changes decided upon by the MBTA?
Minor changes are made to MBTA bus, rail, and boat services several times a year based on service performance data, comments from customers, and employee observations. These changes generally address urgent crowding or schedule-adherence problems that may have occurred because of new commercial development along a route or increased traffic congestion. Examples of minor changes include lengthening the scheduled travel time for a route during certain periods of the day to respond to poor on-time performance, or reducing slightly the time between trips to respond to an increase in ridership during that time period. Major service changes are made as part of the MBTA´s ongoing service-planning process and are documented in the biennial MBTA Service Plan.
