While Muni is generally a zero chill zone that we love to gripe about, it turns out the system does have one great feature — its all-door boarding service.
You may have heard this news before, as the SFMTA released the official report in December, but just in case you're not one to peruse transit studies in your downtime, let’s recap some of the most important findings. For the most part, all-door boarding has led to faster trips (although it doesn’t feel like it), since “dwell times” have decreased. According to the report, at nine of Muni's busiest stops, people boarding at the rear increased from 29 percent to 54 percent from 2012 to 2014. This helped the average "dwell time" decrease from 4.3 seconds to 2.7 seconds, which makes a difference when you're forced to watch a fellow commuter clip their nails.
And although we still scratch our heads as to why tourists flock to Fisherman’s Wharf, it turns out they're pretty good at figuring out the two door policy. We might still have to yell “step down,” but the “greatest absolute and percentage reduction in dwell times per boarding” happened where tourists catch Muni most, bringing that number down to 49 percent. Looking across all types of stops from the Financial District to neighborhood commercial areas, there’s been a 25 percent increase in people using both rear doors to enter Muni.
But, alas, not everything is improving with the all-door boarding rules, which first began in 2012. From 2010 to 2014, bus speed only increased by 2 percent, but then again, more people moved to the city in those years and started riding the bus, which may explain the small change. And while CityLabis praising the all-door boarding service, the report still shows an estimated $17.1 million loss in revenue due to fare evasion. While that's lower than the $19.2 million cited in a 2009 study, it’s still not a figure to brush off.
Between this news and awesome MUNI riders and new maps, we're making strides.
h/t CityLab; photo courtesy of Ludovic Hirlimann/Flickr
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