What is service planning?
Sound Transit’s service planning team continuously monitors and manages existing Link, Sounder, and ST Express service to better meet rider needs and improve system efficiency.
Throughout the year, we work with our operating partners and passenger care teams to address any questions, comments, and concerns from riders and community stakeholders. We also track on-time performance, monitor ridership, and assess upcoming Link, Sounder, or Stride Bus Rapid Transit projects for potential service improvements. We then incorporate these factors into service change proposals for public feedback, Board of Directors (Board) review, and implementation.
The purpose of service planning
When we adjust service, our goal is to optimize our services – whether that’s to improve on-time performance, adjusting a route to avoid traffic or difficult turns, or connecting to a new Link, Sounder, or Stride station. These changes can help make your trip more reliable and make connections easier. Sometimes, we make emergency service changes in response to unforeseen challenges like operator shortages. Even then, we use the same principles to minimize any inconveniences from service cuts.
What does it mean for me?
Depending on the type of change, your trip may look different. The most common changes we make are updates to operating schedules and minor route adjustments in response to traffic conditions. In this case, your trip start or end time may change by just a few minutes.
However, bigger changes – like updating ST Express bus routes to improve connections with Link or future Stride stations – may mean new transfers and revised routes.
Our Annual Service Plan will have an overview of these changes, so you can get a peek, and our rider alerts are a great way to stay up to date on any upcoming changes.
How does it work?
Once we know what improvement opportunities we have, we collaborate with other teams at Sound Transit and our operating partners King County Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit – the agencies that operate and maintain our trains and buses -- to determine which changes are possible. Next, we develop an annual Service Plan proposal that we believe balances riders’ needs with what is financially responsible and operationally feasible.
After drafting our Annual Service Plan, we work with our System & Equitable Engagement team to connect with our riders in the spring and summer. We are seeking feedback on our service proposals, so we can understand if we met riders’ needs or need to explain a change. During these outreach efforts, we work with community-based organizations to publicize our efforts and collect input from riders of historically disenfranchised communities. In the late summer, we update our draft Service Plan to include this feedback before submitting it to the Sound Transit Board for their review and approval in October.
Once the Board approves our Service Plan, we prepare the plan for implementation. This means developing a “Service Change Package,”, encompassing all the details needed to make changes. These changes include turn-by-turn instructions and schedule parameters. We work with our operating partners to implement those changes in March and September of the following year.