LIRR App Will Help Commuters Plan Around Crowds

NEW YORK — A new feature on the Long Island Rail Road app will enable commuters to plan their trips based on which trains are least crowded, officials announced Tuesday.

The updated TrainTime app will include data on the ridership of a train's past seven trips at any station and rate how crowded each train is from 1 to 4, with 4 being the most crowded, according to an MTA news release.

That means someone traveling from Babylon to Penn Station about 7 a.m. could check ahead of time whether the 6:49 a.m. or 7:10 a.m. train will be emptier, and a customer heading from Amityville to Penn Station can see whether the train will become more crowded as it approaches the LIRR station in Jamaica.

"Make no mistake, the features in this app are as innovative as anything we're seeing in public transportation globally in the aftermath of the pandemic," LIRR Chief Innovation Officer Will Fisher said. "These are immensely challenging times, but this unprecedented crisis has also given us a rare opportunity to rethink the ways we interact with and empower our customers."

The app's new feature is an expansion of a tool introduced in June that calculates how many passengers are on board a train at any given moment, in an effort to help commuters follow social distancing guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic.

That technology, which relies on infrared sensors, has since been made available on the LIRR's full fleet of diesel and electric trains, officials said Tuesday.