What are System Adjustments?
When scheduled service does not match what was performed on the road. Entered system adjustments will account for any deviations and automatically feeds the differences into your NTD reporting metrics, to not only save you time, but to guarantee that what you report for NTD is correct.
To receive ridership data for passenger trips, revenue miles and hours in NTD reports, it is required that the agency enter system adjustments daily, where needed, to account for differences in scheduled service. Enter adjustments for instances of missed service, added service, and short-turned trips.
How to Enter System Adjustments
Open the DataPoint card.
Select ‘Adjustments’ from the blue menu on the left.
Click on a date on the calendar that displays to enter an adjustment. A ‘Task Menu’ displays below the calendar. Click on ‘System Adjustments’ link to enter any service adjustments (reduced or added service) for the selected date.
Task Menu Description
Toggle Typical Day - ONLY use this button to indicate the ENTIRE day was cancelled. For example, service was cancelled due to severe weather/ emergency event. Mark the day as Atypical to exclude this business date in NTD reporting.
System Adjustments - Use this link to enter adjustments for scheduled service miles. For example, there was a short-turned trip due to winter weather or you added a tripper for special service to a county fair. Calculate the missed or added service miles in the Adjustments calendar.
Review Trip Samples - The software automatically captures completed trips and displays a value for all accepted trip samples. Use this area to review your trip samples to be used for NTD reporting.
The Adjustments Menus display for use. Select from each menu to populate the information
Reason Menu Options
Missing Trips - trips that were not performed
Tripper Service - additional trips added to already scheduled service
Special Service - service offerings outside of regularly scheduled service. For example, maybe your agency has a partnership with a local entity. "Our agency provides service for Life Strides twice a year, where we teach people with disabilities how to ride the bus."
Major Route Detour - many missed trips or a run that was missed but scheduled
Other - any conditions that fall outside of the options offered in the menu
Short - turned - indicates some last stops on a trip were not serviced
Route: Select the Route
Trip: Use the menu to select the trip
Enter deviations (adjustments)
Notes - Free type field to add any pertinent notes, as preferred
Enter the missed or added service:
- Enter a negative value for reductions (-1 mile or -5280 feet)
- Enter whole numbers for additional service (1 mile or 5280 feet)
- Indicate reason and service effected
For reductions, enter a minus sign (like a calculator) in both the 1) Distance Deviation field and in the 2) Time Deviation field.
Reduced Service
Be sure to enter a minus sign to allow the software to calculate the reduction.
After saving the adjustment you'll see the reduced service record below the menu. This data will now feed into your NTD metrics, adjusting it for accuracy.
Additional Service
Be sure to enter whole integers/numbers to allow the software to calculate the addition:
Task Complete
When all adjustments have been accounted for, you'll notice the menu displays the deviations.
Related SOPs: Incident Management SOP 006