Transit Scheduling: Implementing Special Services / Special Trips Case Study

Transit agencies use the terms “Special Service” or “Special Trips” to describe variations to their typical Weekday, Saturday, and Sunday services.

Special Services are usually created by using one of the regular services and modifying it to fit the demand of a certain day or days of the year. Examples of this would be a modified Sunday service that would operate on certain holidays. This could be called the Holiday Service. Other holidays may require a modified Saturday service (possibly the day after Thanksgiving in the United States as an example). These types of days tend to have their own Service name (I.E. Day After Thanksgiving Day).

When the term Special Trips (in some software applications they are referred to as exceptions) is referred to, it is usually extra trips that are added to one of the regular services. These Special Trips would not operate every day for the service they are created in. The trips would be controlled by a service calendar.

Software applications have different approaches to how Special Trips are handled in the application, but the logic is very similar. We will discuss a few variations in this course.

Agencies face many challenges when trying to implement Special Service/Special Trips. This course will help your agency understand the best approach to incorporating these services.