NJ Transit Report Card: October 2026

A train is on time at a station when it leaves less than 6 minutes late. Leaving early counts as on time, but it never makes up for being late at another station.

Each train is timed by its own reported position wherever one was read, and by NJ Transit's estimate everywhere else. This month, 68.6% of departures were timed by the train's own position. A train reports its position as a fixed point on the track, not by GPS.

A bus is on time at a stop when it passes no more than 1 minute early and no more than 5 minutes late, by its GPS. Early buses are only given one minute because a bus that leaves early is a bus that gets missed.

The grades follow fixed scales, set before any month was graded.

Trains: A+ from 95%, A from 90%, B from 85%, C from 80%, D from 75%, and F below that.

Buses: A+ from 80%, A from 70%, B from 60%, C from 50%, D from 40%, and F below that.

A bad day is a day when at least 1 in 20 of a line's train stops were 30 or more minutes late, or canceled. A line with 5 or more bad days in the month has “some bad days”.

For a bus route, a bad day is a day when at least 1 in 20 of its stops were 15 or more minutes late, and that was at least twice as many as on the route's usual day.

Each line's days are put in order, from its best day to its worst. The day in the middle is its usual day. When the usual day earns a B or better, the line is “mostly on time”. When it doesn't, the line is “often a few minutes late”.

A bus route that is often late, and whose late buses were usually 15 or more minutes late, is “often very late”.

The bar under each line splits its stops by how late the train was: less than 2 minutes, 2 to 6 minutes, 6 to 15, 15 to 30, 30 or more, or canceled. The first two parts count as on time.

“Late trains were usually … min late” looks only at stops 6 or more minutes late. Half of those were later than that, and half were less late.

A line's longest delay is one the train's own position measured, or one at its last stop that NJ Transit's record of the train's section of track confirms, and never one that NJ Transit's estimate, the train's next station or the departure screen contradicts.

A bus route's bar starts with the stops where the bus was more than 1 minute early, striped. Then come 1 minute early to 2 minutes late, 2 to 5 minutes, 5 to 15, 15 to 30, and 30 or more. The second and third parts count as on time. “Late buses were usually … min late” looks only at stops more than 5 minutes late.

Bus routes are listed once at least 300 of their trips are measured, and graded only when the result is certain enough: counting each day as one sample, the 95% margin of error has to be 5 points or less, which is half a grade. Each route shows its margin as “give or take”.

A train counts as canceled when NJ Transit's departure screens, its live train feed or its alerts say it was canceled at one or more stations.

NJ Transit counts a train as on time when it reaches its last stop within 5 minutes and 59 seconds of schedule. This report card counts every station along the way. For September 2026, NJ Transit's report to its board of directors said 91.3%; at each station, the same month measured 85.2%.

All of it comes from NJ Transit. This is how much of the month each source was read without a problem:

From October 1 to 22, bus stops were timed from stored bus positions instead of being measured live. That is accurate to about 15 seconds and changes the month's on-time share by less than 0.1 point.

On October 23, bus timing covers only the time after 2:16 PM.

Before October 12, only about 60% of trains could be read from NJ Transit's departure screens, so canceled trains also come from the live train feed.

From October 15 to 18, many trains were canceled. NJ Transit gave crew availability as the cause, and on October 17 the availability of engineers.