Ryan T. Judge has spent his career leveraging data to better serve his agency’s ridership and improve its efficiency. As Interim Assistant General Manager for Planning and Strategy at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Judge leads a division of more than 50 planners and schedulers responsible for every service plan and schedule across more than 125 bus routes, 15 metro lines and 13 Regional Rail lines while helping chart the course for the next chapter of the agency’s service planning.  

In this role, Judge oversees the direction of the agency’s strategy. He’s cited as the architect of SEPTA’s planning transformation—SEPTA Forward—its five-year strategic plan covering 2021 through 2026. The plan establishes the institutional direction for the transit agency, which is undertaking a significant service modernization project. He is now leading development of the agency's next five-year strategic plan for 2027 through 2031. Judge is also leading the development of SEPTA's vision summary for transforming the agency—a document that articulates an investment agenda to make SEPTA safer, more reliable and fully accessible while connecting riders across Greater Philadelphia to housing, employmentand opportunity. Judge is leading the execution of that vision through his work directing the planning and design of the New Bus Network, which will expand frequent service from eightto 29 routes running every 15 minutes or better. Further, Judge directed the Regional Rail Master Plan, a long-range planning effort to reimagine SEPTA's 13-line commuter rail system as a fully integrated, high-frequency network. He is also leading the planning phase for SEPTA's $5 billion trolley modernization program.  

Beyond planning, Judge secured $325 million in regional Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program funding for SEPTA over 13 years. He also established SEPTA's transit-oriented communities program. Through his work, Judge has changed how a major transit agency engages the public, uses data and turns analysis into action. Under his leadership, SEPTA's planning team held more than 290 outreach events, engaged more than 50,000 community members and reached more than 500,000 people through digital platforms—deploying demographic analysis mid-process to identify gaps in who was being heard and redesigning the engagement strategy to ensure underrepresented communities had influence over final network decisions. 

On the data side, Judge oversaw SEPTA's deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) video-based automated passenger counters (APC) alongside traditional APC technology. He also assisted in the development of ridership forecast methods and customer segmentation models using fare payment media—tools that now drive both service planning and executive decision-making across SEPTA.  Further, Judge also led the technical planning and proof-of-concept justification for SEPTA's automated camera enforcement program on buses and trolleys. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Judge organized an agency-wide recovery planning effort where he coordinated six cross-functional teams of more than 150 people and authored SEPTA's recovery plan, Move Better Together. He simultaneously built the ridership modeling tools the agency was in need of to make financial and service decisions in real time. 

Judge’s contributions to the transit industry extend beyond his work for SEPTA, including his service as Pennsylvania's alternate on the Northeast Corridor (NEC) Commission, appointed by the governor of Pennsylvania since 2022. This role has Judge representing the commonwealth in federal NEC governance on cost allocation policy, long-range capital planning and project prioritization for the corridor. He also serves as a non-voting member of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, SEPTA's federally designated metropolitan planning organization.

Is there a specific experience that led you to where you are today? 

My path to transit wasn't a straight line. I studied landscape architecture at Penn State, drawn to how design shapes how people experience the built environment. After working in county planning, I found my way to SEPTA and realized that transit planning sits at the intersection of everything I care about: how communities are shaped, how people move through them and who gets access to opportunity. The scale of impact available in public transit is unlike anything else in the public sector. 

What do you enjoy most about your job? 

The work matters to every single person who rides—every decision we make has a direct effect on someone's commute, their job, their access to care. What I love most is working with people who genuinely believe in that mission and translating long-range vision into concrete, operational reality. 

What’s the most challenging part of your job? 

Holding the long view while managing the immediate. Transit planning operates in a political, financial and operational environment that creates constant pressure toward the short term. The hardest thing—and the most important—is building the internal credibility and institutional patience to execute transformational work like a full network redesign while keeping the day-to-day system running reliably. The tension between "right now" and "what this should become" never fully resolves. 

What is the accomplishment you’re most proud of and why? 

Contributing to a more robust planning function at SEPTA—one that honors the legacy of a system with incredible bones while finding innovative ways to better serve our region. Over the past several years, our team has taken on transformational work: a complete redesign of the bus network, a Regional Rail Master Plan, a five-year strategic plan and more. What ties all of it together is how it was built—rooted in community engagement that reached more than 50,000 people. That scale of authentic outreach doesn't just produce better plans; it builds the public trust that makes implementation possible.