We're wrapping up a six part series here on Transit Unplugged.

I'm Paul Comfort and we've taken, uh, the last six weeks to look at the

state of transit, uh, across North America and really across the world.

We've looked at what's happened with the federal government, with the Canada.

With America and rural and small urban, and a good look at the overall future

of transit and a look back at 2025.

I wanted to wrap up this series as we start the year 2026 with someone who could

join me on the show and talk about the big ticket items, transit automation, AI and

public transportation, privatization, the return of night trains, what's happening

with Amtrak and station renovation.

What about wayfinding?

Can we do any better than that?

Where are we at now when it comes to ridership, post pandemic,

and I found someone great to have this conversation with.

His name is Hayden Clarkin.

He may be new to some of our listeners here.

Hayden is a transportation engineer and a mobility consultant.

He was one of Mass Transit Magazine's Top 40 under 40 winners.

And he is a transit influencer.

He has thousands of followers online, both on LinkedIn and Instagram and

other platforms, and he puts out very interesting and provocative, uh,

discussion points on what's happening with transit from a big ticket item.

And so I invited him to come with me on this episode and talk about all

those items and more we break 'em down for you as we wrap up our six

part series on the state of transit.

As we punch into 2026 and onto the future, enjoy this

conversation with Hayden Clarkin.

Great to be with Hayden Clarkin, who is, uh, colloquially known as the Transit guy.

What a great person to help us wrap up our six part series on the state of transit.

Welcome, Hayden.

Thank you for having me.

I really appreciate this, Paul.

Yeah, absolutely.

Hayden, you're in New York City, the capital of transit in America, and you

told me you just got to meet your hero.

The Train Daddy, Andy Byford.

Yeah, it was really cool.

I, he doesn't know who I am, which is great.

And, uh, we got to talk about Penn Station rebuild and whatnot.

And, uh, he's, very passionate and excited about it.

And, I am very excited to meet him.

But I did keep it in to like, not look weird, and then I thought, oh,

maybe I'll ask him for a picture.

And then I was like, yeah, but we're at a conference and that might be a little odd.

So I didn't, I, I, I kept it all in.

But yeah, it was wonderful to meet him and, Talk about a

person with a, an amazing career.

Yeah.

Yeah, he does, hasn't he?

He told me, you know, I think I mentioned to you, he's been on the show a few times.

one of our only multiple guest has been here multiple times, but his

career, Hayden is very interesting.

Some of us kind of flow with the river of life and go where it takes us he was very,

uh, didactic about what he was gonna do.

He knew he wanted to be a CEO.

He told me so he said, all right, I need to spend some time in safety, some

time in operations, some time over here.

You know, so he went around to multiple locations and learned all the backdrop,

jobs of running a transit agency.

So when he got to the captain's chair, as they say, you know, in Star Trek, he was

able to know how that ship functioned.

So I think it's a pretty brilliant strategy if your mind thinks that way.

Yeah, I mean, not to call anyone out, but it's been very evident of CEOs or

transit CEOs that, have a background in transit versus those who are like just

appointed by a governor or whatnot.

You know, it's very obvious as to sometimes the results or

the, the, the lack of knowledge.

So you really, transit is really that, that that industry where,

like you really can't phone it in.

You really need to know and understand the product and, everything that goes in.

You know, with that product.

That's right.

Yep.

I agree with you.

Uh, wholeheartedly.

Okay, so today we're gonna dive into some big ticket items with transit.

We've spent the last few weeks on the podcast talking about the

state of transit, what's happening in Washington, DC, then a national

view and a, and the view of Canada.

For those of you who don't follow you on social media, I encourage you.

Follow Hayden Clarkin on LinkedIn and on other social media sites,

Instagram, et cetera, where he puts out some really good pieces.

And also you're active on Substack, right?

Yep.

The Transit Guy on all of those things.

Our listeners know that I post nearly every day something about public transit.

I like your posts.

They're like big ticket thought items.

So I thought of you when I thought about somebody who could kind of be

the cleanup batter for this six part series, and talk about big items.

Why don't we just jump right in.

Are you game?

I'm game.

So I just was in Montreal.

And, this month of January, our episode of our Transit Unplugged TV show is

from my visit to Montreal, and I rode the REM and I got to meet the people in

charge of the REM, and so tell us about the REM and tell us transit automation.

What's going on?

Yeah, I mean, I haven't ridden the REM yet.

I've been invited to, and I just was not able to get up there, but I am very, very

excited about it and I'm also excited to talk about the REM in relation to Toronto,

which I think has been like a really interesting backdrop of seeing two totally

different case studies and one, you know, obviously being, uh, the line, line six

I think, which is like the Finch line and the issues that have already come up

from that and, and what that looks like and the lack of priority versus a fully

grade separated automated metro that runs, you know, within minutes of each other.

yeah, I think the REM has really opened people's eyes with respect to

automation and what that looks like and what that can look like going forward.

I mean, a lot of people in New York City have made argument that like, we can't

be building IVX from, you know, the, the new, uh, transit line that we're gonna

be building between Brooklyn and Queens.

We can't be doing that if it's not automated.

Year, you know, 2025.

and so there's been a lot of conversation of like, well, what would that look like?

And even if we're not able to retrofit systems like the MTA, or

other legacy systems, at least the idea that like new systems that we

bring online should be automated.

it's just kind of transit malpractice not to do so.

Interesting.

And what's happening with WMATA, with their ATO?

Yeah.

So, the cool thing that's been going on with WMATA is that they've actually

been really, really, uh, pushing their, train automation and that they've

noticed, uh, I think there was a graphic that came out last week that they're

able to actually push 20% more trains, through capacity-wise in an hour.

and also run trains quicker given that, what they call it, ATO,

uh, automatic train operation.

and as a result of that, they need less trains to run the same frequencies

that they were running before.

And so they're saving that money and then they can add that service

onto other lines and whatnot.

And so that's been really, really cool to see of, You know, even if we're not

able to get to, full automation, at least getting to a place where the trains

are almost running fully automatic, with a human, at the helm is, has been

really, really cool to see because, I mean, I think everyone would agree.

The reason we have car accidents.

And the reason that like automation is a good idea when it comes to autonomous

vehicles is that, you know, removing human error, as to just driving normally

or otherwise is, is really, really gonna help with efficiencies without really

having to, make such crazy changes.

Yeah.

So it sounds like you're bullish on automation and transit heading into 2026.

You think that's a, big thing that transit agencies are gonna look at?

Yeah, I think automation is going to be, very important as well as

not just automation of the actual

operation of the trains, but also just as to way how we plan and the actual

mechanics of the transit agency and how it operates from like both the C-suite

side and, from just the lower level.

I think a fully, uh, autonomous transit agency could happen at one time.

Like, obviously not soon, but like, I think the idea of a lot of like

the paper pushing that we see and a lot of like, kind of that I, I don't

want the right words bloat, but a lot of that slack that we've seen from

like customer to, planner or planner to their boss or whatnot, can really

be cut down with, proper automation.

Alright, let's just dive into the next hot topic, which really coming out of 2025

into 26 has dominated conversations and that's AI, uh, artificial intelligence.

talk about where it's genuinely, you think useful today and

where it's still speculative.

Yeah, I, I think I don't think AI is going to help with respect

to transit operations in 2026.

Um, I think what is very interesting is that there are, scheduling software and,

and products that schedulers are using, that automatically, help them build out

timetables and schedules the idea that AI could help iterate and make those more

efficient, is a really interesting idea.

I don't know if that's fully like using some sort of LLM to do it, or if it's just

these existing legacy vendors, creating an option for AI to look at a, you know

how WMATA or how the CTA in Chicago or whatever, how they operate in their bus

scheduling and going like, Hey, actually we can even make it more efficient.

Or we could run more buses, and looking at it holistically.

I think that's gonna be something that's really interesting to see.

I think AI is not in a place of like replacing people.

I think it's really good at replacing.

paper pushing.

Yeah.

And I think there's a lot of paper pushing in transit that I

think all of us would agree on.

And if we're able to automate that and have everyone focus on, providing

better service and looking forward, I think that's gonna be huge.

Yep.

Well, working for, uh, one of the world's largest transit software

companies, I can tell you that that's big on, on, uh, everybody's agenda

is putting AI into the software to optimize it and to help our customers.

So I think you're, you're spot on there.

So one of the other things

Yeah.

Uh, that I'd like to talk to you about is you're, is

something that I've noticed too.

You know, I just got back from Italy where we filmed our Transit Unplugged

TV show and I got to ride high speed rail there and I noticed they were all

run by private companies, in Italy.

And when I see transit in Europe and in Latin America, largely operated by

big private companies, whether they're RATP Dev, Keolis, Transdev, these big,

you know, international companies or companies like Brightline here in America

that are really building our first high speed rail project out in LA to Vegas.

privatization and alternate delivery model seems to work.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, like, I, I think the jury is still out on whether Brightline

is a, is a financial, success.

I think it is still, you know, especially the in, in Orlando and Florida.

I think there's still, the jury is out on that even though I do think they

provide a great service and utility.

Yeah.

I am definitely looking forward to what privatization looks like.

I don't know if some of your listeners might know, but, in LA right now

they're trying to build a, a gondola, an urban gondola, and that is a fully

privatized project and that has taken a lot of the wind out of the opposition

because it's not on taxpayer dime.

And so I do see this idea of like, maybe there is a lane

for more privatization of rail.

or if not, I think private operators running on existing tracks outside

of public transit agencies.

We can talk about that actually in our, uh, our next, item.

But yeah, I, I think that there is a lane for operators, or private run

operators to, run, alternative service or just kind of fill in the gaps.

Very interesting.

Yeah, I think, um.

Most of our listeners know there's a, there's a clear differentiation between

contractors and private operators.

So a contractor would be like, Keolis runs the MBTA's commuter

rail line in Boston, so they have a contract with the agency to do it.

What you're talking about it sounds like, is even more like private

companies, doing it on their own.

Like what happens in Latin America where private companies, like I was in Brazil.

And all the bus companies are privately owned and they decide the

routes, kinda like the old school, what happened in the United Kingdom.

They get approval from somebody eventually, you know, the government

has to approve it, but they kind of take the revenue risk, which is what

Brightline's doing now in Florida.

Right?

Yeah.

And I think, I wanna be clear, 'cause I do get a lot of pushback when I do

talk about the privatization of transit.

JR railways is a great example of this.

In Japan, they run almost fully privatized.

Okay.

However, they do operate like a quasi public agency because the federal

government there does pay a large portion of their capital budget.

and so a lot of their capital budget does come from taxpayers.

and then the actual operation of the trains, the planning, the

maintenance, all of the other things are done by JR Railways.

And so that is a, a, a good, distinction because yeah, I mean,

if, if, uh, high speed rail tracks were built between two major cities,

many operators might wanna do that.

But if they have to then also build the tracks between the two cities, that's a

huge, a different, risk profile, right?

Yeah.

That reminds you of Hong Kong with MTR, where, you know, they're, they're

running service almost subsidy free, but they've got massive real estate

holdings, which helps support it.

And that's, you know, Patrick, the president of Brightline told me

a while ago when we interviewed him, that they did that in Miami.

You know, they've got that big station with all that, uh, all the

real estate development around it.

And so it is an interesting approach.

you mentioned, our next bullet point we wanna talk about was the return

of overnight trains or night trains.

That's big in Europe, right?

I mean, I've ridden them before.

Very big right now.

Yeah.

The train that goes from Hamburg down to Vienna and uh, it's one of our episodes

on the TV show and it's fantastic.

What are your thoughts on the return of night trains internationally

and you know, really the potential relevance here in North America?

Yeah.

So, um, I definitely have seen over the last year, uh, a big focus on

night trains in Europe, from both the private side as well as the, the, the

governmental side, EU regulatory body side pushing to, have night trains.

and so that has been expanding slowly and I know that there's a company,

called NOX Mobility, N-O-X Mobility, that is actually working on creating

this sort of rail model throughout the, of, of providing almost like a

luxury hotel-like, amenity for people.

Yeah.

And, and, and using existing trains and refitting like, retrofitting those

cars to then be able to provide service between, you know major cities and, and

maybe smaller cities between Europe.

And I think that model could work in America, especially

given like inner city bus.

Um, inner city buses have been actually, uh, seeing a boon, a

small boon, but nothing too crazy.

But I do think that that does spell, some blood in the water to come to

the United States and test that model, especially because freight rail is not

usually operating overnight in a way that like passenger rails can, could run.

and so I think that there is some sort of, I think it would be quite easy

to stand up some sort of night rail service that, you know, takes, I don't

know, 12 hours between, uh, a Raleigh or Chicago or Chicago to wherever.

And then, you know, you go to sleep and then you wake up and you're in

Chicago the next morning, right?

Yeah.

Um, so I think that there's definitely, uh, a lane there and I am gonna be

interested to see kind of what these mobility operators, if they do ever

come to, uh, to the states or Canada.

Yeah.

What about Amtrak?

What do you think their role is and new routes and, you know,

their new trains and all that?

You know it's funny, the expansion of Amtrak or anticipated Amtrak

expansion, was such a monumental move for under the Biden administration.

I was really, really nervous that under the new administration, that

that would kind of just all be set aside as a, as a means of just kind

of political, political fighting.

Uh, so far there has still been a good amount of money for long

distance Amtrak, uh service, that, that has not been largely touched.

and the corridor ID program, which I think was like, I think.

60 something routes were, were chosen to be studied under the corridor ID program.

that is still happening.

And that was actually, I just saw that like Chattanooga, Nashville

to Atlanta via Chattanooga is still like full steam ahead.

Um, so I think.

There is still going to be expansion.

Um, I, I, I don't know if you had asked me at the beginning of the year or the middle

of the year, if I thought Amtrak was gonna expand, I probably would've told you no.

I think the big problem, which has been a massive, massive, massive, massive

problem for transit in America is that all of these are being planned

at a state level with each DOT.

And so the expertise of 50 states or, uh, 48 states, arguing about, how to run

their own transit service that will then be like under Amtrak is kind of crazy.

I always bring up the idea of like, imagine going to Disney

World with 48 people and all 48 people are given equal amounts of

money to plan this trip together.

That would be really insane, and that's kind of how federal

transit dollars have worked.

And so that is the only thing that does give me pause of like a lack

of central planning when it comes to the expansion of all of these routes.

Because right now we're basically hoping that, you know, Georgia's, DOT and

Tennessee's DOT and New Hampshire's DOT all have like the same rail planning

capacity as like a New York or California.

And I think you and I could agree that that's not true.

and so what does that look like and how do those services all fit under an

Amtrak umbrella and look and feel the same is going to be a big question.

Yeah.

Roger Harris, the president, uh, the new president.

I've talked to some of his team and, um, yeah, I have big hopes for Amtrak.

I mean, there's a lot they could do and they, like you said, they

got a big infusion of cash under the last administration, and so a

lot of good things have happened.

I've ridden it in the last year or so and was impressed, you know, uh,

yeah.

With some of the amenities they brought back, et cetera, so.

Mm-hmm.

It's really our only national rail, right.

And so we need it to work well.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

And the new trains have been great.

Thanks for listening to the Transit Unplugged Podcast.

We are so glad you're here.

If you're enjoying this show, we know you'll love our other transit industry

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Paul Comfort for this edition of the award-winning Transit Unplugged podcast.

So, one of the other great things that's happened across the country is

the retrofitting and restoration and reinvestment in old train stations.

Speaking about Amtrak, you know?

Mm-hmm.

I remember my boss, Rod Jones, and I went to Detroit a few months ago and got to

see what they did there with the Ford

oh, that's cool.

Company and all that.

I mean, it's just.

It, it was almost emotional for him when he saw what it used to be, this

old, broken down, ramshackle building.

Horrible.

Which was, you know, demonstrating what, where Detroit was then to what it is now.

Talk to us about that and some of these, these new, um, you

know, new station restorations.

Yeah.

So if I would urge everyone to pause this, and Google search

South Bend, Indiana, Amtrak.

You will see arguably the most saddest train station you have

ever seen in your entire life.

To the point of like, actually you kind of wanna cry as like a taxpayer of like, this

is the result of like the current, the current iteration of trains in America.

It's really, really bad.

It's a cinder block building that's like like a dark royal blue.

Um, and it has like a padlock on it.

It's really, really sad.

Um, this week while we're talking, South Bend, Indiana Council just

unanimously approved a study to bring back the old train station,

which is this gorgeous old granite.

Like, I mean, you know, you've seen them from the 1940s and 1930s.

They're always the backdrop of every kind of movie, of this

beautiful old train station.

and they're currently studying rerouting Amtrak to, and the south shoreline

to stop there, and bring back that train station that's, that sat there,

you know, dormant or underutilized as something else for so long

again, you just brought up Detroit.

Detroit being that, I do have some hesitations about why we're

not running trains to that train station that we just restored.

Yeah.

Kansas City.

They've got a great one and they're running trains in it.

So, yeah.

And so that's another one that gives me a little bit of pause of

like, how can we not stop right at the train station instead of this

like random site across the street?

That, and then, even if train service doesn't come back to them, the Buffalo

train station, the old Buffalo terminal, which is one of the most beautiful

buildings, that just got restored.

It did not get restored as a train station.

but it did get restored in its former glory.

And so I am excited to kind of see those stations come back at some point.

And I will say that's a good step forward.

and as well as like, even though all of the stations that replace them.

Are all in terrible locations relative to where the population centers are.

And so, if we're able to also restore to these beautiful train stations,

we're also restoring to a better, more connected spot within a city.

And I think that's even a bigger, boon or, or a bigger benefit than

just, you know, the architecture.

That's great.

I agree there.

These union stations in so many cities across the country have so much to

offer us and to, to make transit, uh, give it a sense of place, and a sense

of character that we've been lacking.

I remember two years ago, my wife and I were down in South Florida.

I was filming an episode of our TV show with our videographer, and she stayed at

the hotel and with my daughter, and she said, you know, when I got back, Paul, I

would've ridden the bus outside the hotel.

But there was no information about where the bus is going, where

it's coming from, how often it runs, what it costs, anything.

It's just a, a bus stop sign stuck in the mud.

And, um, I remember talking to people in Florida saying, you know, at least

put QR codes on your signs bare minimum 1990s technology so that somebody

could click on it and go to your website and see when the bus is coming.

I mean, this really is, an issue for trying to get more people in transit.

Isn't it Hayden?

Clear way finding clear passenger information?

Talk to us your thoughts about that.

Yeah, I, I mean, like You could go to the worst airport in America.

You'll still figure out how to get the baggage claim when you land.

Right?

You'll always will.

I mean, it doesn't matter how ugly the airport is, how, how gross the

terminal is, how outdated it is.

You'll always figure out how to get around because the FAA requires pretty

good and robust way finding programs that is not something that the FTA does,

and as a result you kind of don't have a wonderful way finding experience.

I will say that's obviously been changing quite a lot in the last

five years, especially post pandemic.

Um.

But one of the things immediately after COVID was this idea of like, well, how

do we bring people back to transit?

And there was always these conversations like, well, they want wifi, or they

want the station to be like much nicer and all this kind of stuff.

And maybe there's some, truth to that.

But really like every survey was always like, we just need better information.

We want better information.

If my bus is not here because I mean, you know, there was a huge ghost

bus problem that we had, uh, yes.

During the pandemic and immediately after of like not having enough, bus drivers

and having a huge shortage that like buses sometimes, or a lot of times, especially

in LA they said that they were coming, but then they wouldn't because they didn't

have a bus driver called out that morning.

and so people were like, we need better.

operation, and this really kind of got spearheaded by the Transit App.

a lot of transit agencies kind of saw like, wow, this is the North Star.

This is the creme de la creme of like giving riders the most

accurate information possible.

and therefore a lot of agencies, the MBTA, the MTA, DC LA Metro, San

Francisco, a lot of them have been really spearheading better, signage, especially

when it comes to digital signage.

Uh, WMATA has in DC has done a full redo of their wayfinding program,

and that's been helpful a lot.

And I'll give you a fun example of, of one of the things that a lot of

transit agencies have been exploring.

If you go to Korea, you'll notice if you Google map, you know,

A to B, wherever you're going.

If you Google map, somewhere within New York City and you're using the

subway, it will just tell you get off at the northwest corner of Broadway

and Bleecker, people don't know where that is when you're underground, right?

I don't know where that is.

Right, right.

and in Korea, what they do actually is they'll be like,

get out at exit number one.

And so I'm following signs for exit or entrance number one,

and I get out there and great.

Now I'm still going towards my destination.

This has been something that was like such a simple thing.

Yes.

However, it is kind of hard in data with using our GTFS to be

able to like, add all of that in.

It it is a good project to work on.

And so, DC's actually done that now where, they've been piloting,

especially at like L'enfant.

actually like astronauts, like there is these beautiful images of like astronauts

on the corn- at the ends of, uh, if anyone has been a DC metro station,

especially one that has a transfer, you'll know that you could see all four

walls at the end because it's across.

And so you're able to actually see, you'll say A, B, C, D. And

so now you're able to understand.

Now that it's hardwired in, oh, I have to take entrance D or exit

D to get to where I'm trying to go.

And that's hard-coded, now into our, our transit data so that

riders can see that better.

And that's been a really, really cool.

And then the last thing I would say is, there's been a lot of work, especially

with like outside vendors, thinking of companies like Swiftly that have been

doing a great job with respect to like, on time, or, or in the moment delays.

And how does that work and how do we update the information instead

of saying to people, oops, sorry.

good luck.

Uh, how do we update that information for the rider that's sitting in the bus?

That just got, you know, delayed.

and also for the person who's two blocks away waiting for that bus, how do we like

tell them that information in both ways?

Yeah.

Um, and so that's been a huge, huge, uh, focus on a lot of transit

agencies right now, and I think they're doing a beautiful job of it.

The big problem that I see is a lot of smaller transit agencies do

not have the resources to do this.

And so how do they find either an open source template or whatnot for them to

replicate it because Cape Cod Transit Agency does not have the resources

that an MTA or a, Boston MBTA has.

And how do they get that same information now that riders are,

riding MBTA and then all of a sudden they get off a Cape Cod and want to

transfer and they've got a completely different information, experience.

Yeah, At this last year's Boston, I hosted a panel with the general manager,

Vontas, the head of swiftly and one of the big guys at the transit app,

and they've all now joined together.

Vontas is now with their CAD AVL, sending it through Swiftly, who then

provides it to the agency, and then that's sent to the Transit app, which

is open to the public, which they can then see, oh, something's running late.

So they've, they've figured out these three really, you know, they're not

really competitors, but they're not partners either, but they it up to

provide information for the public, which goes to write what you're talking

about, Hayden, that you've gotta get the information to the public.

I remember when I was at MTA in Baltimore, we would push out

service delays through Twitter.

that was the tool, you know?

Mm-hmm.

The software everybody used, and I think a lot of banks still do

it, but it is very important.

I, I love the way finding examples you gave, and I'm,

I'm hoping more people do that.

The easier transit it is for people to use for the first time, the more

likely they are to keep trying it.

Yeah.

And also just like, uh, and in person, like bus shelters are also

really important with this as well.

Yeah, you were just bringing that up.

We're like bus shelters.

I always like bring up the idea of like the, the best use case you could ever,

ever, ever, ever, like try to do is like, someone who's drunk at 1130 at night and

stumbles upon a bus shelter and like, does not wanna drive, but they need to figure

out how they can get to their destination.

Like how can you help them?

Oh, and their phone is dead because they were partying at the club.

Like, we really need to think of a lot of like, you know, not

everyone always has a phone.

You know, we're talking about like elderly people.

My grandfather never did have a phone.

so like, how do we make sure we're like thinking of all of these use

cases at every touch point within a, a service area is really important.

That's good.

Last topic is kind of a forward looking thing.

We know that pandemic and work for home has changed the demand for transit.

Talk to that and where you think things are going in 26.

Yeah, I think, right after lockdown when a lot of people started

going back and transit agencies were really trying to rebound.

there was a lot of conversation about how transit was down, and that was a

hundred percent correct, but transit was really down we noticed in areas like with

the, with the New York City, uh, transit system was really down at the peaks, but

didn't really taper off too much off peak.

and then on the weekends, the, the regional rail systems, the Metro

North, the Long Island Railroads and the New Jersey Transit were

actually larger than they had been previous to the pandemic or equal to.

And it was a very interesting phenomenon.

And what we realized and BART definitely, had realized this was, that people

were not not wanting to take transit.

They wanted to take transit at different times because the, way

that we had been living, I dunno what the right word is, but like, our

conventional nine to five was dead.

It was dead when a lot of us were working from home.

But that didn't mean, I still didn't wanna take the, you know,

the train to, to Broadway at night or I, I wanted to take it to go get

groceries or go shopping or something.

It was just that I didn't need it at 5:15.

like I did previous.

And so, um, there was a huge kind of focus, around clock face schedules of,

Hey, instead of us providing the most service we do at peak, we're actually

gonna provide service throughout the day.

That was something that the MBTA did with the installation of clock face,

schedulings on almost all of their lines.

Clock face for people is, you know, it comes at, you know,

if it comes at 2:42, it's gonna come at 3:42, it's gonna at 4:42.

So that's the idea of clock face scheduling.

and so we really focused on that, like as an industry, and doing that helped kind

of, push out, the demand for transit so that people could take it at all times of

the day in a way that was like not robbing the people wanted to get to work at like

8:00 PM for a third shift instead of just like focusing on, on the five o'clock.

And then on the weekends, people just figured they wanted to take transit

on the weekends more but service was not conducive to that service was

still, I mean, if you're on a regional rail on a weekend, I think everyone

knows that your service is lower.

And so the changes to bring those schedules up to the weekend

has been really interesting.

it's going to be interesting looking forward as to if return to office still

sees that kind of surge that we saw a little bit in 2025, we did see a lot of

people rejecting work from home for, or at least employers rejecting work from home.

So that will be an interesting development to see, especially as the economy's a

little bit on shaky ground of, are we gonna start seeing people to come back

and then need that nine to five again?

and what will that look like?

Will we then break what we just did?

Yeah, it'll be really interesting.

To be determined as they say.

Right.

TBD, but I guess we're gonna look out for it, right?

Yeah, that's right.

Hey, this has been great, a great kind of helicopter view of eight of the

hottest topics as we head into this year.

Thank you so much for sharing with us and I encourage our listeners

to, uh, check you out, tell us how they can connect with you.

The Transit Guy everywhere.

So yeah, I try to make it easy.

There you go.

Thank you for having me, Paul.

Yeah.

Thanks for sharing your insights, brother.

Good luck in the new year.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Transit Unplugged, the world's

number one transit executive podcast.

I'm Julie Gates, executive producer of the podcast.

Many thanks to the team that makes this show happen.

Host and producer Paul Comfort, producer Chris O'Keeffe, editor Patrick

Emil, associate producer Cyndi Raskin

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