Cancellation of shuttle service is never something we take lightly. When a snowstorm is predicted, we begin carefully following weather forecasts several days in advance—watching the storm’s predicted timing, temperatures, severity and potential location variations.
If we don’t think that we can get you home safely in the afternoon, we will not operate in the morning. On the other hand, if we operate your shuttle in the morning, we will get you home in the afternoon.
Factors that influence the decision to cancel for the day, whether because of unsafe conditions in the morning or unsafe conditions predicted for the afternoon, include:
- The severity, timing and expected duration of storm according to the National Weather Service.
- The compounding effect of previous storms: Has there been enough time to clean up? Will expanding snowbanks make roadways too narrow for buses to maneuver?
- Requests by public officials for the public to stay off of the roads and/or for private businesses to close.
- Roadway conditions that specifically affect large-chassis vehicles like our shuttles, but which may not be an issue for smaller personal vehicles.
- Conditions in the cities and towns that our shuttles travel through: For example, the roadways in Cambridge may be clear while the hills of Waltham are impassable.
- Other exceptional conditions, including flooding, dangerous winds, etc.
When a storm is happening during the workday—or during a storm’s aftermath—we do everything we can to operate shuttle services on a regular schedule. However, weather conditions (as well as delays to the MBTA services to which many shuttles connect) can cause your shuttle to run significantly behind.
When delays or other changes must occur, we will always keep you informed. Again, we post the most up-to-the-minute alerts about weather-related delays on twitter (@UnlockTheGrid)—which you can follow on your device or see on the front page of our site—and over our mobile rider app, which you also need for mobile boarding.
During storm conditions, if we’ve operated your shuttle in the morning, we will do our best to operate on a regular schedule in the afternoon. However, in very rare cases, we may need to run the afternoon shuttle schedule early (for example, starting the first pick-up at 2 P.M. instead of 4 P.M.) in order to ensure that you, your driver and your shuttle all get home safely.
If an individual member company would like an early release for its employees, we may be able to accommodate the request. The person who makes the request must be either our assigned member contact representative or someone that person has directed to make the request. The request must be made by 10:30 A.M. at the absolute latest—earlier is better.
During extreme weather events, please do not call 128 Business Council for shuttle updates.
Normally, we welcome calls from our riders, but individual calls during storms tie up our phone lines, hindering our ability to coordinate schedule adjustments and communicate clearly with everyone.
Again, we will keep you informed informed via twitter (which displays on the front page of our site), our rider app, notifications posted on the page for your particular shuttle route, and/or email notifications.
We also strongly encourage you to monitor storm forecasts yourself and to carefully consider your personal safety before attempting a commute.