Transit planners kicked off a major shift in Houston bus service Thursday, betting that the benefit of faster service on key routes will outweigh riders’ concerns about adjusting to new schedules and service patterns.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority on Thursday released a draft of its “reimagining” plan, intended as a sweeping upgrade to the region’s bus system. The map, which officials say will change over the next few months based on public suggestions, focuses on distributing service more efficiently. An interactive version of the map produced by Metro is below.

Some officials said the plan, if approved in about four months,could help increase ridership by 20 percent or more after two years.

Metro buses, still operating on a system largely developed in the 1980s, are essentially delivering the best service for Houston in 1990, said Geoff Carlton, a consultant on the reimagining plan.

“New job centers exist that maybe didn’t a while ago and we need to respond to serving them,” Carlton said.

Often, bus routes are redundant, especially downtown, wasting resources. Some buses also take circuitous routes to cover neighborhoods where few people ride.

The changes involve about the same about of service, but make service on some major lines much more frequent by developing a grid pattern. Popular north-south and east-west routes that pass by major job centers like Greenway Plaza, southwest Houston and the Uptown area will have buses arriving every every 15 minutes or less.

Less-popular but important routes will have service every 30 minutes or less, while low-use routes in less dense areas of Houston will have service every hour or less.

With the changes, which also re-route buses to avoid some delays like freight rail crossings, 93 percent of current riders will be able to catch a ride at the same bus stop they use now, according to the analysis used to create the map.

That bus they board will almost certainly have a different number, however, and it might go to a different destination.

Once they adjust, Metro member Christof Spieler said, riders will find the changes beneficial.

“Across the board we are seeing improvements to those trips and in some cases they are jaw-droppingly amazing,” Spieler said of the reimagining.

Spieler said officials know riders and others will balk at the changes, simply because they are so substantial.

“The reason we have never done this before is because of that,” Spieler said, noting the skepticism Metro might face.