MBTA and City of Boston Announce Partnership to Improve Bus Reliability by Expanding Transit Signal Priority City-wide After Successful Test Along Brighton Avenue

The MBTA and the City of Boston aim to improve bus speed and reliability citywide with a major transit signal priority upgrade as a part of the MBTA’s Better Bus Project.

Buses along the three test intersections along Brighton Avenue experienced a 21% reduction in red light delay, resulting in 8% faster travel times. These improvements saved a total of 110 minutes in travel time each weekday.

An MBTA bus approaches a green light as it travels through the intersection along Brighton Avenue at Allston Street. Complimentary photo by the MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department.

The MBTA and the City of Boston today announced a partnership to improve transit reliability and travel times through an upgrade to Boston’s Traffic Management Center that integrates MBTA bus locations into real-time traffic signal adjustments. Up to 50% of transit delay consists of waiting at red lights in signalized intersections and these upgrades have the potential to significantly reduce that time.

“The Healey Driscoll Administration is transforming the state’s transportation system to make travel safer, more reliable, and more efficient, and great strides are being made, especially when it comes to trips being taken on public transit,” said Transportation Secretary and CEO Monica Tibbits-Nutt. “The MBTA Transit Priority Group, Barr Foundation, and municipalities have strategically implemented initiatives to improve bus travel times with transit signal priority and dedicated bus lanes. Their collaboration and innovative ideas are a catalyst for getting people out of cars and onto public transportation.”

“The MBTA has great municipal partners who continue to collaborate with us on improving bus services, and we’re grateful to the City of Boston for building on the success of the 2019 Brighton Avenue bus lane project to add Transit Signal Priority to the bus lane corridor,” said MBTA General Manager and CEO Phillip Eng. “This will add to the reliability benefits already felt by riders on Routes 57 and 66 every day, improve bus service for the community, and bring riders to their destinations more quickly. We thank Boston for their partnership.”

“We are thankful for the partnership between the MBTA and City of Boston as we continue to improve the reliability of public transportation options across the city,” said City of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. “Traditionally traffic signals have been timed without prioritizing the flow of bus routes. This is another step to retime signals to keep traffic moving for all road users in our city.”

Before scaling the upgrades citywide, the MBTA and City of Boston has been running a three-intersection one-year proof-of-concept test to make sure the system would function properly. The three-intersection transit signal priority (TSP) test is along Brighton Avenue at the intersections of Allston Street, Harvard Avenue, and Linden Street, improving reliability on two key bus routes, the 57 and 66. Combined, Routes 57 and 66 have about 15,000 daily riders and both routes are in the top 10 for highest ridership with the Route 66 being the third highest.

The traffic signal software was deployed and running as of July 2024. Since installation, buses traveling through the corridor spent 21% less time waiting at red lights on average and arrived at a green light 5% more often. This resulted in 8% faster travel times with each bus saving an average of 16 seconds for a combined total of 110 minutes saved each weekday. Travel time savings were even greater during peak hours as each inbound Route 57 trip through the corridor was over 60 seconds faster.

The MBTA and the City of Boston have been working hand in hand with Boston’s traffic signal vendor, Control Technologies, Inc (CTI), to manage the project and update Boston’s traffic management center software to be more flexible in signal timing. Helping CTI will be LYT who will use their machine-learning TSP technology to track and predict the bus location, enabling Boston’s traffic management center to be able to prioritize a green light for the bus as the bus approaches each intersection.

Development on the system began in 2023 and the proof-of-concept test started in July 2024.

An MBTA bus travels through a green light along Brighton Avenue at Linden Street. Complimentary photo by the MBTA Customer and Employee Experience Department.

The MBTA Transit Priority Group was created in 2019 to further bus priority projects around the region. As an important part of the Better Bus Project and guided by the MBTA’s Transit Priority Vision, the team works closely with municipal and state partners to deliver over 40 miles of bus lanes and activate transit signal priority at 110 locations in six cities. These reliability benefits have had a far-reaching impact. While 3% of the bus system operates in a bus lane, travel time and reliability benefits extend to 65% of bus passengers system-wide.