DALLAS - DART's game day plan has been in the works for one year, after complete gridlock forced many fans to miss last year's Texas-OU game.
On Saturday, there was an even bigger test - a record-tying 96,000 people packing the Cotton Bowl.
The plan called for more trains on the line and dozens more buses in service.
DART designated some trains along the Red Line as express trains, which bypassed downtown and teamed up with the Fort Worth's TRE, to switch people to buses.
Although thousands of fans jammed trains to see Texas play Oklahoma, unlike last year, most people actually made it to the game.
This year seemed pretty smooth, wasn't packed or anything, said Chris James.
Last year, huge crowds overwhelmed, and in some cases, essentially shut down DART's green line.
Fans were delayed or stranded on trains for hours.
This year, DART promised changes, deploying more trains to run more frequently, boosting its capacity by 3,000 people an hour.
More than 80 buses shuttled the people the trains couldn't hold.
We tried to get ahead of it. Last year, we felt we had a plan that worked, when it didn't work, we didn't respond quickly enough, said DART spokesman, Morgan Lyons.
DART doesn't have final numbers for Saturday, so it's unclear if the success is due to the changes or maybe a case of fewer people simply riding the trains.
But some business owners don't consider it a success.
Tiffany Vollmer worried the schedule changes were too confusing which kept football fans from visiting her Deep Ellum bar.
We're trying to physically drag people to come down, if they don't know about it, and don't know to stay on the train, and don't know what they're doing, chances are we're going to miss their business, she said.
DART says it'll review how it all worked this year, promising riders it'll keep moving forward.
E-mail: jbetz@wfaa.com
