After years of fudging its on-time rate to meet voter-mandated standards, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency  finally published honest numbers and they validated what riders already knew―buses don’t run on time very often.

The first official stats released by Muni since The Bay Citizen uncovered the agency’s innovative math, which calculated any time between 60 and 119 seconds as one minute, showed buses were on schedule in August 57.2% of the time. That’s considerably less than the 85% goal that voters set when they passed Proposition E in 1999, or the 75% on-time record that officials were ballyhooing in 2010. The publication reviewed transit records and independently calculated that the agency was juicing its numbers about 18%.

Bonuses for Muni employees were tied to on-line performance.

After the Bay Citizen cast aspersions on Muni’s on-time performance, the agency adjusted its performance evaluation criteria to emphasize other metrics, such as the time between bus arrivals and how often two buses arrive at a location at about the same time.

Unfortunately, those numbers aren’t much better.

Transit gaps are measured by how often a bus misses its deadline by more than five minutes. They are up 16% since April. Bus bunching at a location was up almost 22% in the same period. On-time departures from terminals also declined 10%.

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Muni's Accurate On-Time Rate: 57.2% (by Zusha Elinson, The Bay Citizen)

Muni Service Ratings Slip Fast as Buses Slow (by Will Reisman, San Francisco Examiner)

New Math at Muni Led to Decade of Inflated On-Time Performance (by Zusha Elinson, The Bay Citizen)

S.F. Muni Finds Way to Make Buses Run on Time: Cheat (by Ken Broder, AllGov)