NextMuni bus stop display. Photo used under Creative Commons from Flickr user joeosowski.
Real-time GPS-based data can greatly improve the transit experience for daily straphangers and casual riders alike. A quick glance at your cell phone or at a bus stop information display lets you know when the next bus is coming, and if it is delayed. But if the stop doesn’t have a display and you don’t have a cell phone, you just have to hope that your ride arrives when a published schedule says it should, and these aren’t always readily available (or accurate, for that matter).
Several transit agencies in California are already making real-time transit data available, including San Francisco’s Muni and L.A. Metro. In San Francisco, new bus shelters are being installed – some of these include the real-time data display, and some do not. While surveying the mostly working-class Balboa Park Station area for my recent story about the plans to redevelop the station and neighborhood, I noticed two new shelters – one adjacent to the BART station at Geneva and San Jose and one adjacent to the Phelan Loop bus terminal at Ocean and Lee – that do not have real-time information available.
Muni says the Geneva and San Jose stops do not have access to power for the displays because BART will not allow them to drill into their station. I’ve not received a response yet regarding the Ocean and Lee streetcar shelter. Nevertheless, not making this data available at the stop means that the only folks who are left waiting in the elements for a bus during a major #MuniFail are those who do not carry a cell phone with an expensive data plan. Those of us fortunate enough to have cell phones can find out if we have enough time to grab a coffee or to take an alternate route.
This data should be accessible to everyone. Ideally service would be frequent enough that real-time data would hardly be necessary, but in this age of service cuts we know that just isn’t the case.
What do you think? Is lack of access to real-time data a troubling issue for low-income transit-dependent populations and neighborhoods? Is there more we can do to empower these populations with access to it?
BART has real time info by texting, no expensive data plan required. I use it more than the app because it’s faster.
http://www.bart.gov/schedules/mobile/sms.aspx
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That’s a very good observation. I know NextMuni has that feature available too, or you can dial 511 and get the next arrivals that way.
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Real-time data is a must. Add a small advertising header that tunes in to local merchants above the local bus data for a new way to target an exact audience….I personally like the idea of a live map with dots… Most bus riders are exactly the poor…but everyone deserves to know when the bus is coming.. A phone-app should do the trick but redundancy and platform-crossing is only difficult,not impossible… we just need someone to match the advertising revenue opportunity to the actual product production…..
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