Should transit agencies consider a different schedule for Fridays?

A few weeks back, I decided to exercise my freedom in going into the office more than I needed to and commuted downtown on a Friday. The first thing I noticed was how much emptier my usual bus was. Of course, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Friday ridership is down relative to the other days of the week, although none of the local transit agencies publicly report this kind of breakdown.

Many employers now operate a hybrid working mode, with workers in-office some days of the week, and at home the others. The problem is that hybrid" is a spectrum: some companies don't require in-person work but provide an office for those who want it, some companies mandate a few days in-person, chosen at the discretion of employees, and some companies mandate specific days in-person. This lack of predictability makes it difficult to plan for the right amount of service across the week.

Transit agencies have already shown willingness to cut trips and even entire routes for being low-performing. But it raises the question: for commuter routes, especially, does an altogether different schedule for Fridays make sense? This would create potentially four schedule categories for routes that have weekend service: Monday-Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

There are some immediate downsides that come to mind:

• Schedule complexity: riders might have increased difficulty sorting through the right schedule and not mistakenly consulting the wrong schedule.
• Regularity for M-F riders: those who still need to take transit all five weekdays might be unduly burdened by a different Friday schedule. This is particularly true of those in the trades or other professions that do not accommodate remote work.

On the flip side, trimming extremely unproductive trips on Fridays might provide a useful source of hours that can be reinvested in other lines or bolstering all-day service elsewhere, particularly with an uncertain future financial outlook. That said, employment patterns continue to evolve post-COVID so looking at day-of-week ridership will be an increasingly useful tool for planners to consult in the coming years.