For a major regional transit authority, we developed a strategic business case for providing separate baseline schedules on Fridays distinct from other weekdays due to significantly different time-of-day and geographical ridership patterns. At that time, regular commuters were trending towards more flexible work scheduling, telecommuting arrangements, and 4½-day weeks especially in the summer, and we observed from Automated Fare Collection (AFC) data that the gaps between midweek and Friday ridership have widened. These Friday exception schedules are not unusual: transit operators at one time ran full Saturday lunchtime rush-hours, while private bus companies, airlines, and freight railroads operate many exceptions today. They can help the operator better match service supply to passenger demand. We found through longitudinal analysis of data that more regular commuters skipped Friday’s trip than other weekdays’. Detailed analysis for 14 representative routes revealed 4.7% lower ridership on Fridays, potentially allowing 7.4% reductions in vehicle-hours operated. Available savings were route-specific, with 25% service reductions possible on some, whereas 25% service fortification was required on leisure-heavy routes having increased Friday ridership. We estimated that implementing separate Friday base schedules systemwide could provide an annual surplus of $10~$17 million for reinvestment elsewhere in the network. From a crewing perspective, we found that the resulting reduced Friday crew requirements could lead to an 1.8% increase in desirable weekend-inclusive regular days-off rosters, and 2.4% reduction in non-preferred midweek days-off rosters. Our recommendation was for the continued implementation of a computerized run-cutting system, and creation of routine analytical processes for multi-variate ridership analysis allowing differences across days, routes, time periods, and other variables to be determined, which together will form the prerequisites for implementing a separate Friday base schedule.
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