Upon learning of reported overcrowding and traffic congestion on its “W” line, Unitrans has increased the number of buses on the route, which runs up Cowell Boulevard to South Davis.
Unitrans general manager Geoff Straw said that extra buses that don’t appear on the schedule, called “trippers,” are always run on lines that have problems with passenger loads, traffic congestion or other delays.
Straw also mentioned that this practice, which has been done silently for years until very recently, is important because it keeps lines on schedule.
“If we just ran the buses that were shown on the schedule, we would never carry as many passengers as we do and on-time performance would be very poor,” he said.
These “trippers” have already been around for years, so there is no additional cost to shifting more buses to the “W” line, Straw said.
– Victor Beigelman
