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Headway-Based Service (HBS): Early Findings w/ BRT

Jonathan Ahn, AICP & Eli Miller | January 7, 2025�2025 TRB Annual Meeting: Lectern 3080

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Metro Transit & the METRO Network

Metro Transit

Serving the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
~1300 bus/rail operators
~150k daily ridership

The METRO Network

~50% of systemwide ridership
2 LRT + 6 BRT
2 more LRT + 7 more BRT by 2030

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HBS at Metro Transit

Theoretical bases of our HBS pilots and implementations heavily rely on the TCRP Synthesis 155 (2021)

METRO A Line

12 days during the 2024 MN State Fair (Aug-Sep 2024)

Fleet type change. Added bus.

A Line on HBS btwn 7 AM – 11 PM
Can HBS provide better service for a corridor with heavy traffic and peaky ridership activities including overcrowding?

METRO D Line

On-going pilot Dec 2024 thru Mar 2025

Full quarterly service pick
Scheduling redone & staff retrained

D Line on HBS btwn 10 AM – 10 PM, M-F
Can HBS work with a longer route with heavy ridership but limited opportunities to recover service regularity?

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A Line & Minnesota State Fair

Opened June 2016

1st Arterial BRT in the METRO Network

10 mi-long route connecting Rosedale, St. Paul, and Minneapolis

Bi-directional all-day service, every 10-12 mins

Largest State Fair in the country (by daily attendance)
METRO A Line directly serves the State Fairgrounds

200k+ daily attendance
2M total attendance in a 12-day span

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A Line becomes the busiest bus route in MN.

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A Line becomes incredibly unreliable.

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2024 State Fair A Line: Summary of Changes

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Transit Control Center (TCC):

One dedicated supervisor�daily 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM (16 hours)

Street Operations:

Two dedicated supervisors�daily 7:00 AM to 1:00 AM (36 hours)

Added Vehicles Beyond Schedule�(A Line + Extra):

Weekdays: +8 buses

Weekends: +9 buses

Added Operator Hours Beyond Schedule (A Line + Extra):

Weekdays: +69 hrs

Sat/Suns: +125 hrs Labor Day +136 hrs

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We delivered more service with lower wait time.

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A Line: Daily Trip Count Comparison
	Weekday	Wknd/Hols
Scheduled Service (2022 State Fair)	182	151
Service Delivered (2024 State Fair)	208	210
Difference (Counts)	26	59
Difference (Ratio)	14%	39%

A Line: Median Passenger Wait Time

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METRO D Line

Opened Dec 3, 2022

5th BRT in the METRO Network (3rd Arterial BRT)

18 mi-long route connecting Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis, Richfield, and Bloomington

Bi-directional all-day service, every 10-12 mins

Minnesota’s highest-ridership bus route

Corridor ridership 50% higher than pre-D Line
Weekend ridership higher than pre-COVID

Limited ROW in urban neighborhood setting. Limited opportunity to recover service regularity.

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D Line 2024 HBS Pilot:�Estimated Added Resources & Summary of Changes

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Transit Control Center (TCC)

Dedicated supervisor �10:00 AM to 10:00 PM (12 hours)

Street Operations

Two dedicated supervisors�9:00 AM to 1:00 AM (32 hours)

Scheduling Changes

Suspended existing street relieves�Suspended existing interlining practices

HBS to Schedule Transitions

Pre-scheduled using “lockout periods”

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D Line 2024 HBS Pilot:�Very Early Impression

Does HBS make buses run slower?

Cycle time has been generally shorter than scheduled.
Have been reinvesting scheduled recovery time into revenue trips resulting in lower headway than scheduled.

Maintenance implications

Unpredictable pull-in times causing challenges to fleet maintenance.

More to come on actual headway regularity performance data.

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Challenges

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1. Technology & Vendor Management

Timely and Responsive Issue Resolutions

Lack of Automation

2. Institutional Friction to Change

Challenges in Crew and Vehicle Scheduling

Lack of Agency-wide Shared Understanding

3. Operational Hurdles

Overburdening Field/Front-line Staff

Forcing Ops to Mitigate “unknown unknown issues”

Just to summarize some of the challenges we faced- I’ll focus on 3 categories:

First, technology and vendor management. We faced issues with trying to resolve software issues in a timely fashion as we were nearing the launch date for the pilot. We also realized the software didn’t provide full operational autonomy and we would require field staff due to manually overcome those shortcomings

Second category of challenges we faced are institutional frictions to change. The biggest involved making changes to how our crew and vehicle scheduling is done since our entire service was previously built around a schedule. Now we basically threw the schedule out the window and had to reconfigure how to think about crew and vehicle scheduling to ensure the HBS system is fed a constant # of buses, ensuring operators were getting off work on time, and ensure buses would be in place to provide the scheduled service after HBS ended. We also experienced challenges with lack of understanding of how HBS works. We wanted to include basically everyone in the planning/implementation of HBS but had to carefully navigate misunderstanding and miscommunications to ensure that HBS was still being delivered as intended.

Third category of challenges was operational hurdles. Our frontline staff bear the brunt of unresolved issues and so any oversights/flaws would be saddled with the operations group to respond to. We knew some of these issues ahead of time, but we were also aware that there would be some unanticipated issues that we wouldn’t discover until the pilot began- we call these the unknown unknowns and ops would be the group that would have to figure out how to respond and mitigate those all while dealing with live service.

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HBS Pilot at Metro Transit: Program Timeline

2023

HBS Pilot program development
Proof-of-concept Test
Technical issue resolutions

2024

May – Rail Replacement Bus on HBS Test
August - A Line State Fair Special Service
December - D Line Full Quarterly Pilot

2025

Analyze results
Develop path towards permanent implementation
If successful, implement in conjunction with future BRT openings

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Thank You!

Jonathan Ahn, AICP

jonathan.ahn@metrotransit.org

in/ahnjo | @urbanahnjo | ahnjo.bsky.social

Eli Miller

eli.miller@metrotransit.org

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Supplemental Slides

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Operational Techniques Found to be Most Useful

Pre-Schedule HBS to Schedule Transition

Lockout period

Provide operator warning times to ensure on-time pull-ins
Eliminate reliefs
Eliminate interlining
Constant # of buses around transition shoulders
Minimum layover
Field staff at each terminal

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The idea here is that you need to give some buffer to allow a bus to transition from headway based service back to the schedule- min time equivalent to one-way trip + deadhead between terminals + min recovery time (give op chance to use restroom)

Similar concept was used to develop warning times- these provide enough time to be able to perform a trip and then pull-in. If you’re at the terminal at the warning time, you need to pull in directly to the garage otherwise you might be late pulling in.

Eliminate interlining during the HBS window- but then we ended up using interlining for the HBS to schedule transition to reduce vehicle requirements

You need a constant number of buses- super important. So if HBS is ending at 10 pm and it takes 15 buses to ensure 15 min or better headways, the earliest warning time has to be____ 10 pm

Minimum layover- this ensures that operators receivie a minimum of 7 mins or 15% of revenue time (whichever is greater). Helps increase operator’s willingness to adhere to messages to slow down since it won’t interfere with their layover time

Have dedicated field staff at each terminal especially during the beginning of the pilot

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Key Lessons

Involve frontline staff in decision making
Talk to EVERYONE – including groups you might not think are affected

Dispatchers
Fuelers

Conduct training for operators and operations supervisors

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The idea here is that you need to give some buffer to allow a bus to transition from headway based service back to the schedule- min time equivalent to one-way trip + deadhead between terminals + min recovery time (give op chance to use restroom)

Similar concept was used to develop warning times- these provide enough time to be able to perform a trip and then pull-in. If you’re at the terminal at the warning time, you need to pull in directly to the garage otherwise you might be late pulling in.

Eliminate interlining during the HBS window- but then we ended up using interlining for the HBS to schedule transition to reduce vehicle requirements

You need a constant number of buses- super important. So if HBS is ending at 10 pm and it takes 15 buses to ensure 15 min or better headways, the earliest warning time has to be____ 10 pm

Minimum layover- this ensures that operators receivie a minimum of 7 mins or 15% of revenue time (whichever is greater). Helps increase operator’s willingness to adhere to messages to slow down since it won’t interfere with their layover time

Have dedicated field staff at each terminal especially during the beginning of the pilot

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Hardest Challenges to Overcome

Working with vendor to create product that is operationally autonomous
Training operators and supervisors
Managing layover space at terminals
Guiding operators through transition and pull-in procedures

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Responsibility for Managing Headways

Street supervision managed terminals
Control center managed software and the markup
Operations team was part of the HBS pilot design/implementation
Had to improvise to overcome issues

Service protection around HBS to schedule transition

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Cultural Changes

Instruction

Operator SOP and training
Operations supervisor training
Tout operator benefits

Involve frontline operations staff in pilot design and decision making
Be flexible and compromise
Be nimble and respond to issues thoroughly and quickly
Be ok with incremental progress, even if different than anticipated
When facing a “roadblock” focus on solutions within your control

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Contractual/Logistical Changes Needed to Be Made

Develop the operator SOP
Engage operators’ union early and throughout process
Adhere to contractual requirements

Minimum layover
Pull-in times

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Integrating HBS and Schedule Based Operations in Staffing/Training

Staffing:

Dedicated control center incident commander for first two weeks of pilot
Dedicated street supervisor at each terminal for duration of pilot

Training:

In-person training and recorded videos available
Training offered multiple times to cover 24/7 schedules
Operations playbook and other reference material (job aids) developed

Scheduled HBS to SBS transition so operations wouldn’t have to manually put buses back onto schedule

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Future Research Questions

Incorporate anticipation of future states into HBS management

Anticipate future instances of # buses in layover

Buses estimated arrival at terminal from route
Buses estimated arrival at terminal from pull-out/interline
Buses estimated to leave HBS system at terminal and pull-in

Adjust headways based on anticipated future state

Decrease headway if future state involves exceeding terminal layover capacity
Increase headway if future state involves too few buses at terminal to maintain target headway

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