MBTA Announces Subway, Bus, RIDE Performance Progress in June 2024

Today the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) announced performance progress since last year across the heavy rail subway lines, bus service, and RIDE paratransit service, including more scheduled service, less time between trains, and excellent on-time performance of RIDE vehicles. These improvements are a result of the new way the MBTA does business through the leadership of MBTA General Manager and CEO Phillip Eng, the direction of his leadership team, and the cross-collaboration of management staff across the Authority.

“I am incredibly proud of the significant strides we’ve made this year. Our progress metrics demonstrate tangible, positive impacts on the lives of thousands of riders and the communities we serve. By increasing service frequency, reducing wait times, and improving on-time performance, we’re not just providing transportation; we’re giving our riders precious time back to enjoy with loved ones or pursue their passions,” said General Manager Eng. “I thank our Operations, Planning, Schedules, Hiring, Training, and many other MBTA teams for their work on this effort. We’re also grateful to the Healey-Driscoll administration for prioritizing and investing in the MBTA to help make these improvements happen. We know there is more work to do, and we look forward to giving them the transportation system they both expect and deserve.”

Subway Improvements

Due to higher availability of subway operators, the addition of new Orange Line cars, and steady improvements to track infrastructure, the number of weekday trips delivered each day on the Red, Orange, and Blue heavy rail subway lines has increased significantly over the last year. Additionally, the time between trains has decreased during morning and evening peak rush hours, meaning less time for riders to wait between trains. As of June 2024:

The Red Line operated about 300 trips per weekday (versus 249 in June 2023). The time between trains improved on the Ashmont and Braintree branches to about 14.5 minutes (versus 18.5 minutes in June 2023) and to about seven minutes on the Red Line “trunk” between Alewife and JFK/UMass (versus about nine minutes in June 2023).
The Orange Line operated 284 trips per weekday (versus 200 in June 2023). The time between trains improved to about eight minutes (versus 11.6 minutes in June 2023).
The Blue Line operated 357 trips per weekday (versus 295 in June 2023). The time between trains improved by over half a minute to about five minutes (versus nearly six minutes in June 2023).

The figures listed above reflect weekdays without service suspensions.

Bus Improvements

The MBTA has reduced the number of “dropped” trips considerably from more than 8.3% in June 2023 to about 1.8% in June 2024.

Dropped trips are scheduled bus trips that did not operate, which can occur when there are service disruptions, disabled buses, not enough bus operators to run stated bus schedules, and other factors. Through major hiring and training efforts and record labor agreements reached this year, the MBTA continues to boost its ranks of bus operators to improve service for riders. This improvement is also due in large part to the coordination, planning, and analysis work by the MBTA’s Service Planning, Bus Operations, and Operations Analytics teams to accurately predict resource needs and make data-driven decisions in advance and in the moment.

RIDE Improvements

In June 2024, the RIDE’s on-time performance reached a record high of 94%, exceeding the MBTA’s overall goal of 90% on-time performance and well above its lowest average over the past 12 months of 85% in September 2023.

Additionally, the RIDE Access Center (TRAC), which is the RIDE’s dispatching and scheduling center, substantially reduced its average call wait times from 13 minutes 22 seconds in April 2023 to 19 seconds in June 2024, also beating the goal of a two-minute wait time.

These improvements are in large part due to worker wage increases, which boosted morale among RIDE drivers and TRAC employees, improving the ability to maintain scheduled paratransit trips and fully staff the call center. As a result, RIDE complaints declined to a record low in June 2024 of 1.87 per 1,000 trips.