BART and Caltrain are working together to better serve the region with continued schedule coordination to support transfers between systems at Millbrae Station. Schedules were built to provide transfer wait times that are convenient for riders but also flexible enough to avoid missing connections or a just missed connection if one or both system is experiencing a small delay.
Both agencies have partnered to publish a helpful timetable showing the wait times of each connecting train. The timetable is also posted at the Millbrae station.
The timetable highlights trips with the most convenient transfer times. Due to the higher frequency of BART trains to Caltrain trains, not every train lines up.
Transfer timetable effective September 21, 2024
With BART’s August 2024 schedule change and Caltrain’s schedule change in September, ~85% of all weekday trains have a transfer between 5 and 19 minutes at Millbrae Station. On the weekend, ~90% of trains have a transfer between 5 and 19 minutes.
5-19 minutes allows for both systems to be off schedule a bit but still provide a reliable connection. If trains were scheduled with less than a 5-minute wait, delays would frequently break the transfer and result in a longer wait.
Transfers at Millbrae don’t always line up perfectly because Caltrain has four trains per peak hour and two trains per off-peak hour/weekends. While BART has three trains per hour at all times. Both systems are also limited in flexibility due to key system timing points elsewhere.