How To Read A Bus Schedule
You can read the bus schedule from left to right or right to left. It depends on if you choose to plan your trip by the time you want to get to where you want to go, or the time you want to leave where you are.
The timepoints listed on the schedule are not the only places the bus will stop along the route. The bus can stop anywhere along the route for pick-up or drop-off. You can stand at any corner along each route and flag down the bus.
When you open up the schedule, this is what you will see. A sample trip for Route 5 (West Side to South End) is outlined below to help you understand the schedule.
For this example trip you want to leave Municipal Parking Lot in Torrington, and take the bus to Stop & Shop any day of the week (Monday through Friday). You want to be there at around 10:30 in the morning.
Following are the steps you would take to read the schedule and plan your trip (read in conjuction with the Route 5 bus schedule image below):
- First make sure you are reading the correct schedule. The route number is on the top. For this trip you will need Route 5.
- Find Stop & Shop on the top of the route schedule.
- Look down the column and find the time you are most comfortable with, closest to the 10:30 A.M. time you want to be at Stop & Shop. You can arrive at 10:20 A.M.
- Look across the top of the schedule again to see where you want to leave from - in this example Municipal Parking Lot.
- Read across the row (right to left) from 10:20 A.M. at Stop & Shop to the Municipal Parking Lot column. You will see the time listed as 10:00 A.M. in this column. This means that the bus leaves Municipal Parking Lot at 10:00 A.M.
Plan to be at this stop (Municipal Parking Lot) at least five (5) minutes before the departure time listed on the timetable. You should be waiting at the bus stop at Municipal Parking Lot at 9:55 A.M.
