For months, the Coronavirus pandemic has caused a constant need to adapt and quickly introduce changes to both bus and rail services. And it continues to do so throughout December. These exceptional circumstances have made it impossible to print and distribute timetable booklets – but they will be back in January.
This year, designing new public transport timetables has been not unlike a roller-coaster ride: In an attempt to maintain an ever-changing balance between the official legal requirements, travel restrictions, precautionary measures and the effective needs of passengers, the timetables have had to be rearranged dozens of times. All of this data is constantly updated by our technicians and incorporated right back into the data systems. This ensures that the online timetable search on our website is always up-to-date. But this has also meant that providing additional, printed brochures for the timetable transition in mid-December is neither possible nor sensible.
However, it has now been decided that a first set of timetables per district will be provided in a handy pocket-sized booklet format as early as January. Compared to the usual large-scale, book-format timetables covering an entire year, these smaller brochures are much more flexible and can be revised more quickly if necessary. School-run journeys will be listed separately, especially as these journeys are likely to be most affected by changes due to Coronavirus-related measures. So the New Year is all set to bring at least two novelties: the highly anticipated timetable brochures for our passengers and quite a few extra shifts for the timetable planning teams at the South Tyrol Department of Passenger Transport and STA.