Why your bus is late — and what SEPTA is trying to do to fix it

SEPTA has rolled out proposed new bus routes designed to provide faster service, with less time between buses.

But even the most brilliantly drawn network of routes, backed by data science and logic, cannot stop many things that slow down your SEPTA bus, causing it to arrive late or, occasionally, in a different place from where you usually catch it.

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Some of these pop up anywhere in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Others are endemic to a 340-year-old city with narrow streets, old infrastructure, and an obsession with street parking.

Figuring out how to ameliorate delays is crucial to the success of the Bus Revolution program.

“People really want frequent service, they want reliable service, they want fast service,” said Matthew Zapson, a SEPTA operations planner working on the bus-network redesign. “But when you get stuck behind a trash truck, behind a delivery, behind unexpected detours, it threatens that vision and it makes it more difficult as a passenger.”

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Overlapping jurisdictions complicate progress. PennDot owns some streets. The city Streets Department, counties, or townships have charge of others. SEPTA must coordinate with other governments and sometimes multiple agencies within governments to get changes that could unstick buses.

Here are five top things that mess up a bus schedule, and some ideas SEPTA and the city are considering to ease the problems:

Pity the bus driver navigating a north-south route through South Philadelphia neighborhoods on trash pickup day. Narrow streets are lined with parked cars, and garbage trucks stop every few yards for crews to empty bins. Buses can’t swing around.

This leads to “bunching,” when buses are late and stack up behind each other. Solutions have proved elusive.

Timing trash collection for times buses are not running “would be great,” said Christopher Valentin, SEPTA’s chief officer of bus operations. “But I don’t know if the neighbors would be happy where you’re collecting trash at 2 in the morning.”

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At any given moment, orange circles with right turn arrows speckle SEPTA’s online status pages for the bus network, indicating active detours.

Stuff happens: road repairs, sinkholes, utility repairs, construction that blocks streets, special events such as the Philadelphia Marathon and presidential visits.

Some of these are planned and adjustments can be made. SEPTA talks with water, gas, and electric utilities, the Streets Department and contractors to learn about scheduled work so alerts can be flashed to riders and the agency can print temporary signs and post them along a bus route.

“Now, with the unknown detours, that’s hard,” Valentin said. “If something happens right in front of the bus, and they’re blocked and we need to detour, it's a challenge. It does make it a challenge to get the signage up or to communicate with customers immediately.”

People complain a lot about detours during public meetings on the Bus Revolution proposal, said Dan Nemiroff, the project manager.

“People have stopped using the system because their bus could be detoured a half dozen or a dozen times, they don’t know where it is or what is going on, and they find an alternative,” he said.

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UPS, Amazon, FedEx, and Postal Service trucks dart in and out of Center City traffic, pulling up to the curb to deliver packages, forcing bus operators to steer around them. Parking obstructs travel lanes and crowds bus stops. Fire, EMS, and police vehicles are responding to accidents, fires and other emergencies. Traffic at peak travel times has jumped since it plummeted when everyone was staying home during the pandemic.

And all over the city, trucks deliver goods to restaurants and stores. “Whenever Canada Dry decides to drop off their ginger ale you’re at their mercy,” Valentin said. Parents lining up in their cars to drop off and pick up students can also cause headaches.

Many cities are embracing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lanes, separated from the rest of the traffic with curbs or other barriers. Though they’re considered cost effective, Philadelphia has less room than other places, and building BRT could wipe out street parking. “That’s a third rail nobody wants to touch,” Nemiroff said. “We have to be creative.”

SEPTA is studying alternatives, including painting existing bus lanes red, as the city did on Chestnut Street in June. That increased visibility can reduce lane violations by up to 50%, studies show. Other possibilities: curb “bump outs” so people don’t have to slither between parked cars and wade into traffic, and bus boarding islands in the street, where feasible.

Philadelphia has about 3,000 intersections with traffic signals and they’re poorly synced, hampered by antiquated equipment. When a bus driver can’t time green lights, delays accrue along the route.

In June, city transportation officials began leading a study of transit signal prioritization — an electronic device communicates between a bus and traffic signal controls to keep lights green longer or shorten red lights for buses.

SEPTA is part of the study, working to identify busy bus corridors where the technology could make a big impact. “You can get real reliability and speed improvements in a way that’s almost imperceptible to somebody on the street,” Zapson said. “Nobody’s losing a parking spot.”

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People waiting for a late bus might see this smartphone notification more frequently these days: “Delays due to operator unavailability.”

SEPTA can’t hire enough bus operators to replace those who retire, get promoted, or quit. Most transit agencies have the same problem, as do private charter companies and schools.

“We’re interviewing and hiring people at rates we haven’t done in years, but it’s hard to keep up with the attrition,” Valentin said. SEPTA is aiming to enroll 39 trainees a month, he said. It’s increased recruiting and teams with nonprofits that help people get the commercial driver’s license needed to qualify.

The base starting salary for SEPTA bus and trolley operators, not including overtime, is $38,979, at an hourly rate of $18.74. With four or more years of experience, operators reach the top of the hourly pay scale, $31.64, which amounts to a $65,811 base salary.