Interlining is a common practice in the transit industry that combines two or more routes that arrive and depart from a common terminal. A bus can arrive at a downtown terminal as one route and after a brief layover, leave as a different route.
Watch the video below for an overview
We did some number crunching based off of industry averages and best practices, and found surprising savings with interlining even two routes.
In the example above, before interlining, four vehicles and drivers were required to serve the Orange and Blue routes. By interlining these two routes, only three vehicles and drivers would be required to deliver the same level of service.
How much would an agency theoretically save in this example? Let’s assume that a bus operates 19 hours a day, 6 days a week at an average operating cost is $140/hour. Eliminating the need for one bus could translate to operational savings in excess of $800,000 per year!
Using Streets visual blocking and run cutting tool makes it easy to identify opportunities for interlining. Head sign integration ensures that signage always reflects the correct route and passenger information is reliable. And lastly, Streets makes sure agencies are still getting accurate mileage, ridership and time data for each route.
When interlining is supported by accurate data and solid scheduling, it benefits the agency, and drivers and riders. It’s a rare case of win-win-win.