Navigating the New Muni

Wednesday, April 8, 2020

Man on bus checking his phone

Today we’re rolling out a new service plan that will operate 17 Muni core routes from 5 a.m. – 10 p.m., plus expanded evening-late night or Owl service. We are making these changes to ensure that the limited resources we have are used to provide service for essential trips on our busiest lines with the highest demand with adequate space for passengers.

We appreciate your understanding as our agency has been working diligently and as quickly as possible to develop and communicate this plan. Our blog posts on the essential core routes and the expanded Owl service have more details on these changes and our COVID-19 webpage has more information and resources, including updated service maps.

We understand that usually each of us has our preferred method for tracking our bus or timing the train we catch. We wanted to let you know what to expect from our schedules and NextMuni in the coming days. Again, we appreciate your patience as we implement these changes.

New Muni Updates & Related Data

Muni planners routinely modify routes and schedules a few times per year. From planning to implementation, this process typically takes several months. In this case, however, our response must be expedited, so we’ve restructured Muni service quickly and compressed this process into days.

Can I rely on the published schedules for the core routes?

Until they are updated in our systems over the next few days, the published schedules on our website and others such as 511.org that use on this data may be temporarily inaccurate.

We will update the schedules for our tracking and management purposes as quickly as possible. Muni service during this time will operate with attention to vehicle frequency or headways, not specific schedule times.

Will the NextMuni real-time arrival predictions work on the core routes?

On core routes, NextMuni will continue to provide predictions for buses on signs at shelters and by visiting www.nextmuni.com.

Generally speaking, we expect that the NextMuni predictions on the core routes to be accurate. However, some of the core routes are operating differently than normal. For example, the 44 O’Shaughnessy is running between the Bayview and Forest Hill Station only and the T Third bus is running between the Castro and Sunnydale. In these cases, predictions may temporarily be less accurate until all our systems are updated.

The following routes may experience inaccurate predictions: 9 San Bruno, 14R Mission Rapid, 38 Geary, 38R Geary Rapid, T Third bus, 44 O’Shaughnessy, 8 Bayshore.

Again, this should only be an issue only until we update our scheduling systems.

What about mobile apps?

The SFMTA provides digital route and schedule data to the public on an open API (Application Programming Interface). This data also relies on the schedule systems we are currently in the process of updating. Mobile apps may use this data to provide transit information to their users; however, the SFMTA does not control these independent apps and cannot guarantee their accuracy.

Our COVID-19 response and service information is covered daily in our blogposts with a more in-depth look into the changes we make and why. Consider subscribing and receiving daily blog email updates. You can also receive real-time email or text service updates, Monday – Friday, 5 a.m. – 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, by subscribing to our Muni Alerts.

Our priority is to reduce risk of COVID-19 transmission to our employees and riders. We are committed to being transparent with the community as we make changes to pursue this priority. We look forward to restoring as much service as possible as soon as possible. In the meantime, these service changes are necessary to keep the system moving during this crisis.

The SFMTA asks San Franciscans to: