Recently, I was a spectator, not a runner, of a marathon. And I realized that marathon runners have something that most buses in the United States lack: a way to convey location and expected time of arrival. You see, runners in most marathons these days wear a computer sensor in their shoe that communicates start and finish times as well as other milestones, such as the 5-mile, 10-mile or half-way point. What's more, friends and family members can sign up to receive email and text message notifications of where their loved ones are on the course.
If a system exists to keep track of and communicate the location of tens of thousands of runners, how come there is no system sending real-time information to my cell phone or email about when my bus is going to arrive?
Or if another bus is going to arrive? Or if my bus already left? Not knowing is frustrating. It requires that I arrive at the bus stop 5 or 10 minutes before the bus' scheduled arrival and hang around 5 or 10 minutes after just to be sure. Oftentimes, I can walk to my destination in less time than it takes to wait and eventually ride the bus. I think the inconvenience of it keeps a lot of well-intentioned people from taking public transportation, which reduces emissions and road congestion.
Well, it that turns out there are systems. They just aren't wide spread and in use in many big U.S. cities where they could do a world of good. They certainly aren't in the works here in Boston.
Why not?
"The information portal is just now readily available," said Bill Long, president of Clever Devices, which worked with Chicago's transportation authority to make the system called BusTracker. If you're a Chicagoan with an Internet-enabled phone or PDA, you're golden. (You lucky dogs!)
Clever Devices licenses technology developed by Daniel Dailey, a professor at the University of Washington's Intelligent Transportation Systems research program.
According to Dailey, lots of transportation authorities have at least some of what it takes to make a real-time system like this work. They have GPS devices on all buses and digital data on a computer that translates into street maps and bus routes. But to make location information available to riders, buses also need a radio system capable of transmitting data (as opposed to voice) and software that can look at bus activity throughout the day and predict tens of minutes in advance.
"Practically, you need to get there one minute before the bus and wait one minute after," said Dailey.
His team is now looking at ways to combine location information from a variety of different services (other buses, trains, subways) to give riders the most optimal travel plan. And the information could also help transportation operators optimize their schedules.
For now, though, us commuters living without such a service are still waiting and wondering when it's going to arrive, if another service is coming, or if we're getting left behind.
Photo: Getty Images/John Rensten
Tags: WiFi and Mobile
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