Starting September 11, 2023, BART will roll out a reimagined service plan that is responsive to post-pandemic commute patterns and ridership growth opportunities.
The new schedule ends all 30-minute frequencies on nights and weekends and significantly increases service every day on BART’s Yellow Line (Antioch-SF), which has the highest ridership but is only served by one line.
No BART rider will wait more than 20 minutes for a scheduled train no matter what hour of the day or day of the week. Currently BART riders experience wait times of 30 minutes on nights and weekends (except for daytime 15-minute service on Saturdays on the Yellow line).
The Yellow line will now have trains arriving about every 10 minutes before 9pm, Monday-Friday, instead of every 15 minutes.
To make this significant investment in service on nights and weekends, some weekday service will be slightly scaled back based on ridership trends and areas of the system where riders are served by multiple lines with the option to transfer. BART’s Blue Line to and from Dublin will have 20-minute frequencies at all hours, marking an increase on nights and weekends, but an added 5 minutes between trains during weekday daytime hours. BART’s Blue (Dublin-Daly City) and Orange (Richmond-Berryessa) lines serve the fewest riders in the system on weekdays.
Riders coming from the Richmond and Berryessa/North San Jose direction will now have a train about every 10 minutes on weekdays during daytime hours instead of a train every 7.5 minutes. BART will increase communication on these lines about the option to take an Orange Line (Richmond-Berryessa) train and transfer if necessary to complete their trip.
SFO and OAK Airports will be Better Served
The new schedule improves service to and from San Francisco International and Oakland International airports. During the daytime, 9 trains per hour will serve SFO instead of 8, and on nights and weekends, trains will arrive and depart every 20 minutes instead of every 30 minutes.
All Red Line trains will now stop at SFO before heading to Millbrae, this will streamline the customer experience to and from the airport. Currently the Red Line passes through Millbrae before heading to the airport. There will also be more trains on nights and weekends to OAK.
Improved Reliability
This new service plan will also improve on-time performance and improve reliability during the peak commute because there will be less train traffic and congestion through the core of our system. Trains won’t stack up as frequently as they will be better spaced apart, allowing us to recover from delays faster.
BART will still maintain a clock-face schedule seven days a week offering a consistent timetable for easy planning no matter what day of the week, but now it will be with 20-minute common headways.
Changes in Frequencies
The maps below display the changes to the number of trains per hour for each line for weekday daytime 5-line service, weekend 5-line service, and evening 3-line service.
For more information & Maps, click here
