NYC BUS TRACKER: METHOD AND COLLECTION CHANGELOG
Every change to how data is collected or computed, newest first. Dates are
when the change took effect. The daily files carry methodVersion; rollups
refuse to mix versions.

2026-10-06  Method version 2. Every day since 2026-04-22 reprocessed from the
            raw snapshots on the bus-data branch:
            - Hours are Eastern clock hours (they had been UTC, which would have
              shifted every hour label when daylight saving ended).
            - Weekdays and weekends are averaged separately and blended 5:2.
              Previously each hour pooled whatever days were caught; in thin
              spring weeks the 7 and 8 a.m. hours were weekend-only.
            - System figures count each local, limited and SBS route once.
              Previously the hourly speed pooled every bus reading, so busy
              routes weighed more, and express routes, shuttles and layovers
              were included.
            - Elapsed time comes from each bus's GPS timestamp; readings where
              the position did not refresh, and layover readings, are dropped.
            - New headline measure, speed with stops (distance over time,
              stopped time included). Moving speed kept for comparison.
            - Comparability: every hour must be caught on 3+ weekdays and 1+
              weekend day (was: 50% of day-hours caught overall); up to two
              missed hours per day type are filled from the usual shape of the
              day and listed.
            - Major holidays and weekdays with sharply reduced service are left
              out of weekday figures.
            - Route, borough and geography figures are hour-balanced too.
            - Temporary shuttles identified from the MTA timetable (GTFS) and
              left out; Q06-Q09 joined to ridership data that spells them Q6-Q9.
            - Bunching, gap, wait and reliability fields removed from all files.
            - ISO week labels fixed for years starting on a Friday.
            - Daily files for 2026-03-19 (one test snapshot) not carried over.
2026-10-06  Collection: one self-renewing collector replaces 34 scheduled runs
            a day; bursts at :09 and :39 past each hour, 6 a.m.-10:59 p.m.
            Eastern. Snapshot format v2 adds trip id, scheduled departure,
            progress rate, distance to next stop and the passenger-counter
            estimate. Collection health is published and the daily job fails
            when a day has under 12 of 17 hours.
2026-10-06  Ridership: paid fare taps and the counter-to-tap ratio added; Queens
            bus network redesign dates marked on affected routes.
2026-10-01  GitHub's scheduler began starting only 3 to 5 collection runs a day
            (Oct. 1-6 caught 3 to 5 hours a day).
2026-09-16  Bunching, wait and big-gap figures retired from the pages after an
            audit. Borough speeds exclude express routes.
2026-07-13  Collector timeouts fixed (each run had been downloading the whole
            snapshot archive).
2026-06-30  Collector timeouts fixed; most of June 2026 was caught only in the
            evening.
2026-05-26  Collection moves to two bursts an hour, at :09 and :39.
2026-04-25  Snapshot pairing window cut from 75 to 10 minutes.
2026-04-22  Automatic hourly collection begins.