The joyous celebration that our region experienced with the Phillies victory parade posed a basic arithmetic question for SEPTA – how can a transit system already operating at full capacity accommodate a record breaking number of people going to the party? 

On any given weekday the SEPTA Regional Rail system carries about 135,000 customers. As our daily riders already know, we operate every available train car in our fleet for regular weekday service and some of these trains are “standing room only.”  Friday was anything but regular, with approximately 215,000 additional customers trying to get to the parade, joining our usual riders.  With upwards of three times more than our normal full capacity service there was simply no means to carry everyone.

We regret that we disappointed some people, but it was just not possible to make the service “math” work any other way and keep riders safe.  So while extraordinarily difficult to accomplish, we placed as many trains as possible where the largest number of people were expected and made every effort to run them as often as possible.

At one o’clock, with the parade well underway, we temporarily stopped operating trains from outlying stations towards Center City and prepared to send those trains to pick up the celebrants at 30th Street, Suburban, and Market East Stations making their way home from the parade.

With the conclusion of the events at the Sports Complex coinciding with the start of our regular afternoon rush hour, we saw huge increases in the number of people arriving at Suburban and Market East Stations and there were some delays in train arrivals and departures, but by early evening most of the revelers were safely on their way home.

The Broad Street Subway, with Pattison Avenue Station located just steps from Citizens Bank Park and Lincoln Financial Field, had its own mathematic challenge – how to accommodate approximately 250,000 additional Phillies fans who rode along side the 150,000 riders we regularly carry on an average weekday.

To accomplish this, at two o’clock, when the program at the ballpark was scheduled to begin, we temporarily redirected all Broad Street trains towards Pattison Avenue in order to get the crowd back towards Center City.

Some of these operational decisions were difficult to make but never before have so many people safely ridden the SEPTA system in such a relatively brief period of time.  I wish that we had been able to accommodate everyone on Friday and I regret any inconvenience fans trying to get to the parade or regular commuters traveling to or from work experienced.