The New York City Subway system has lettered or numbered route designations. The subway normally operates 24 hours a day with five different service patterns: rush-hour, midday, evening, weekend and late-night. Each service has a table in its article to show what tracks are used and when. This article lists all the current services, along with their lines and terminals and a brief description; see Unused New York City Subway service labels for unused and defunct services. In the New York City Subway nomenclature, numbered or lettered "services" use different segments of physical trackage, or "lines". The services that run on certain lines change periodically.

Time periods

The New York City Subway is one of the few subways worldwide operating 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The schedule is divided into different periods, with each containing different operation patterns and train intervals. The MTA defines time periods as follows; these are used in articles (sometimes abbreviated by numbers in superscript or the symbol indicated): Other symbols are derivatives and are defined based on the rules above:

Service listing

Lines with colors next to them are the primary trunk line of the corresponding service; they determine the color of the service bullets and diamonds, except shuttles, which are dark gray.

Current services

Future services

Service variants

Several services operate shorter routes during lower ridership hours, but these are neither signed differently nor counted as separate services. Although service changes caused by General Orders for construction occur on most days during midday and overnight hours, and throughout most weekends, these changes are not counted as separate services.

Variants to a different terminal

Because of some terminal station capacity constraints, numerous services operate to a secondary terminal as well as their usual terminus during peak hours.

Event variants

The following lines run in special service or after sporting and other events:

Train frequency charts

Train intervals

The schedule offers trains every 3 to 5 minutes on the most used sections during rush hours. During other traffic periods, intervals range usually from 4 to 12 minutes or up to 20 minutes on outer sections. During late nights, only selected express services are operated and all late-night services usually run every 20 minutes.

Trains per hour

This is a list of average train frequencies during different times of the day, measured in trains per hour (tph). This chart shows frequencies based on the train intervals listed in timetables, with a margin of error of 2 tph.

History

See New York City Subway nomenclature for a complete explanation; this is just a table of when each service has existed (and been signed for the public). Shuttles were SS until 1985, when they became (which had been used for specials). See here for the colors used for shuttles in 1967; in 1968 all six became green, and in 1979 all shuttles became dark gray.