Tufts team urges faster, more frequent bus service on three Worcester corridors

A Tufts University research team presented a plan to increase bus frequency on three high‑priority corridors in Worcester and urged the city and WRTA to take steps that would make bus travel faster and more reliable.

Professor Justin Hollander, who leads the Real Rapid Transit Coalition work, said Worcester’s transit mode share is low — “less than 5% of Worcester residents commute by bus” — and that frequency rather than fare is the system’s primary barrier to ridership. He told the Public Service and Transportation Committee that just four of WRTA’s 26 routes run at half‑hour or better headways and that targeted frequency increases on trunk corridors could make the system attractive to many more riders.

The Tufts team identified three corridors for priority investment — an “orange” trunk (routes 19, 27 and 33), a “blue” trunk (routes 5 and 12) and a “green” trunk (routes 23 and 26) — and recommended steps such as transit signal priority, better public messaging, and stop spacing to reduce bunching. Hollander said the blue corridor in particular could be shifted from roughly 27‑minute average headways toward 15‑minute service and estimated such improvements could replace “about 200,000” car trips a year in typical conditions.

City staff acknowledged right‑of‑way and equipment limits that complicate immediate deployment of dedicated bus lanes but highlighted transit signal priority as an incremental step that could be piloted on Lincoln, Grafton and Main Streets. The committee asked staff and WRTA to prioritize signal‑priority work and to continue studying corridor‑level frequency increases.

The committee held Item 3b (the Tufts presentation) for further follow‑up and directed staff to return with next steps; no formal vote to adopt a specific service change was taken at this meeting.