Keolis to introduce new schedules by 11/1/15

jamesinclair wrote:
NJ Transit does this, but badly. All they say is "early gateway service to begin at 3pm on Friday" and then give zero actual details on the schedule :/

LIRR & MNRR publish specific schedules for their getaway service: For example.

Here's the NJTransit plan for early release trains for the upcoming holidays.

Our "public input" should insist that MBTA_CR find a way to do this too.

NJ TRANSIT Holiday Rail Service - December 2015
December 10, 2015

For complete rail schedule information, use the “Station-to-Station Trip Planner” features HERE to find a train time during this time or view printable schedules HERE.

Kids ride free on NJ TRANSIT

For the Christmas holiday, NJ TRANSIT’s Family Super Saver Fare, which allows up to two children 11 and younger to travel free with each fare-paying adult, will be in effect from 7 p.m. Thursday, December 24 until 6 a.m. Monday, January 4.
Customers traveling to Newark Liberty International Airport are urged to purchase their tickets in advance.
For convenient ticket purchase via your mobile phone, click HERE for the MyTix App.

Early Getaway Service - Thursday, December 24:

Trains will operate on a weekday schedule on all lines with additional “early getaway” service from New York Penn Station, Newark Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal starting at 1 p.m. on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast, Raritan Valley, Morris & Essex, Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines.

Getaway trains are shown on all public timetables and printable schedules. A special Northeast Corridor printable schedule found HERE show all service leaving New York/Newark after 12 noon, including added Secaucus and Newark Airport stops.

Northeast Corridor (NEC) Getaway

Five extra trains depart New York between 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Four trains departing New York between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. add Newark Airport stop.
Trains 3867 (the 5:21 p.m. from New York), 3955 (the 5:41 p.m. from New York) and 3961 (the 6:39 p.m. from New York) are cancelled.
Train 3957 (the 6:01 p.m. from New York) adds a Secaucus stop this day.
North Jersey Coast Line (NJCL) Getaway

Two extra trains depart New York:
Train 8249 at 2:33 p.m. (express EWR-Woodbridge)
Train 8353 at 3:24 p.m. (express Newark Penn-Matawan)
Train 3373 (the 6:03 p.m. from New York) is cancelled.
Raritan Valley Line (RVL) Getaway

Extra train 8529 departs Newark at 3:34 p.m. and makes all stops to Raritan.
Trains 5743 and 5445 are combined as Train 8545, which departs Newark at 6:33 p.m. and makes all stops to High Bridge.
Morris & Essex Line (M&E) Getaway

Train 8935 departs New York at 2:26 p.m. and makes all stops to Dover except Secaucus, East Orange, Highland Avenue, Mountain Station and Mount Tabor.
Train 8939 departs New York at 3:12 p.m. and makes all stops to Summit except Secaucus.
Main/Bergen County/Port Jervis Lines Getaway

Train 49 continues to Otisville and Port Jervis this day (and is renumbered as Train 99).
Customers using Trains 1269 and 1223 must take earlier trains from New York. See timetable for details.
Train 59 is cancelled.
Pascack Valley Line (PVL) Getaway

Train 1653 continues to Spring Valley this day, making additional stops at River Edge, Hillsdale, Pearl River, Nanuet and Spring Valley. It is renumbered as Train 9653.
Train 1639 is cancelled.
Christmas Day - Friday, December 25:

Trains will operate on a weekend/major holiday schedule.
Saturday, December 26 and Sunday, December 27 on ALL LINES

Regular weekend schedule.
Meadowlands service operates for the Jets vs New England game on December 27. Schedule available shortly. .
Monday, December 28 until 6 p.m. Thursday, December 31

Modified weekday schedules on the NEC and NJCL. On these two lines, certain morning peak period trains are cancelled.
NJCL NOTE: Train 3216 (the 6:11 a.m. from Long Branch) will NOT operate this day. Additional Train 8234 (the 9:35 a.m. from Long Branch), making all stops to New York except Avenel and North Elizabeth) WILL operate this day. This change is not reflected in the November 8 timetables, but is shown on the printable schedules HERE and the “Station-to-Station Trip Planner” features HERE.
Regular weekday service on all other lines.
Additional service to New York during the mid- to late-morning hours on the NEC, NJCL and M&E/Midtown Direct.
Information regarding service after 6 p.m. Thursday, December 31 through New Year’s Day will be available shortly (week of December 14).

A thought, sort of a propos of nothing, that just popped into my head:

The most reliable (and indeed, really the only: the only better one as things stand might be bluetooth tracking, but that's effectively the same thing as mTicket) source of data on ridership of a particular train between a particular pair of stations is mTicket. It would not surprise me at all if the process of making schedules from here on is largely based on mTicket riders.

How so? It's only the occasional rider using mTicket.

In my observations, it's not quite the absolute majority, but a simple majority of at least 35-40% of people use the mTicket app on the trains I ride.

As of now, there is not any way of getting location services info from the app (on iOS) & I don't believe the activation info is sent in real-time back to a server, so you wouldn't know what train or time that the person pre-purchased a ticket for would actually use it. You could get the data of station-pairs for people that purchase tickets, assuming that those are the actual trips taken. You would miss the monthly mTicket trips.

It doesn't need to sync activations in real time for this purpose. But it must sync back that a ticket was activated at some point, in order to allow unused tickets to be transferred between phones, unless it's entirely on the honor system for that.