Bus Tracker Issues

[TripleTransit1]

I wonder what's up with Bus Tracker. It's not showing any buses for the Forest Glen routes.

[joerailfan2015]

http://www.transitchicago.com/travel_information/alert_detail.aspx?AlertId=23093

This might be the reason.

[Busjack]

http://www.transitchicago.com/travel_information/alert_detail.aspx?AlertId=23093

This might be the reason.

The link timed out, so what was the reason?

[joerailfan2015]

The link timed out, so what was the reason?

That Bus Tracker was unavailable for certain bus routes due to an engineering problem.

[BusHunter]

Looks like all the ghost buses have been fixed #1462 is on the #54 and #1580 and #1589 are on the #9. Last night #6721 on Belmont was a ghost though.

[Busjack]

Sun Times: "Canceled CTA buses will now be noted on tracker apps." There will be lines through scheduled times of cancelled trips.. However, now only on the Transit app. 

[Tcmetro]

22 hours ago, Busjack said:

Sun Times: "Canceled CTA buses will now be noted on tracker apps." There will be lines through scheduled times of cancelled trips.. However, now only on the Transit app. 

I've noticed in the transit app that some departures are tracking as an "added departure" and the scheduled bus is showing up on the list (as what I am assuming is a duplicate, not real, trip), but untracked. 

[Busjack]

Tribune says the cancelled trip info  is also om the BusTracker website, but not yet on the Ventra app.

[Busjack]

On 8/5/2025 at 10:01 AM, Busjack said:

Sun Times: "Canceled CTA buses will now be noted on tracker apps." There will be lines through scheduled times of cancelled trips.. However, now only on the Transit app. 

A presentation is on the August CT Board video starting here. It's too complicated for me to understand fully, but it points out that CTA is now using Disruption Management software to track such things as bus trip canceled, breakdown on the street, bus not ending a trip before starting the next one, and reroutes. The reroutes may be planned (NASCAR) or unplanned (water main break). Thus, in addition to any paper or web Alert that the bus is not stopping at Michigan and Jackson, an app will tell you that the bus is not stopping there, and the time the bus will stop at State and Jackson. If it all works, it seems very clever.

[strictures]

28 minutes ago, Busjack said:

A presentation is on the August CT Board video starting here. It's too complicated for me to understand fully, but it points out that CTA is now using Disruption Management software to track such things as bus trip canceled, breakdown on the street, bus not ending a trip before starting the next one, and reroutes. The reroutes may be planned (NASCAR) or unplanned (water main break). Thus, in addition to any paper or web Alert that the bus is not stopping at Michigan and Jackson, an app will tell you that the bus is not stopping there, and the time the bus will stop at State and Jackson. If it all works, it seems very clever.

But none of this still explains why the Bustracker I use on the home computer I'm writing this on never, ever has a ghost bus, but Ventra does & that's the CTA's own app. Why are they using a different database for Ventra!

[Busjack]

2 hours ago, strictures said:

But none of this still explains why the Bustracker I use on the home computer I'm writing this on never, ever has a ghost bus, but Ventra does & that's the CTA's own app. Why are they using a different database for Ventra!

I don't think anyone uses a different database. If you look at @maths22's tracker (any of them), and find the Page Source command in your browser, it is not HTML, but calls to certain General Transit Feed Specification fields ( @maths22 pretty much confirmed that when asked how he got the data when Pace said, unlike CTA,* that it didn't release its real time data**). It's up to each developer to have its app pull the new data. Apparently Transit did.

Also, the complaints seem to be about the "next bus" view, not the map view. 

-----

*See CTA Developer Page.

**See Pace GTFS Data page.

[Busjack]

8 minutes ago, jajuan said:

Well I encountered a couple of buses that apparently have broken trackers. I'm currently on 1440 on the 22, but it's not showing up on BusTracker. ...

 In several senswa, not Random.

Might explain why, with scheduked 8-12 or 9-13 minute service, someone consistently says ut is 45.

[Busjack]

1 hour ago, Bus1807 said:

Speaking of #621, it is 10 minutes late at Navy Pier and EL tracker is glitching saying 0 minutes and 1 minute from arriving at Grand and Streeter. Anyone know what’s going on?

If the bus was actually at Navy Pier (if you were at the L station and not at Navy Pier, you don't know), it is probably a combination of layover time, and future timepoints are estimated. One has to take estimates with a grain of salt, especially when they are one block apart. On the other hand, it indicating that the bus is at Navy Pier doesn't establish the assumption that it will leave immediately, which this chart seems to assume.

Not as bad as a couple of years ago when the estimates said a bus was coming, but there wasn't any bus. Those now are supposedly lined out on some apps (see posts above).

Another example of the virtual world not being the real world.

And, please, post in the correct topic.

[Bus1807]

17 minutes ago, Busjack said:

If the bus was actually at Navy Pier (if you were at the L station and not at Navy Pier, you don't know), it is probably a combination of layover time, and future timepoints are estimated. One has to take estimates with a grain of salt, especially when they are one block apart. On the other hand, it indicating that the bus is at Navy Pier doesn't establish the assumption that it will leave immediately, which this chart seems to assume.

Not as bad as a couple of years ago when the estimates said a bus was coming, but there wasn't any bus. Those now are supposedly lined out on some apps (see posts above).

Another example of the virtual world not being the real world.

And, please, post in the correct topic.

My apologies I forgot it was in the same thread. But also, #621 disappeared off the tracker after this occurrence so maybe it wasn’t supposed to complete another trip but still showed arrival times from what I’m seeing. The tracker could have stopped receiving its location, too. 

I guess it’s hard to know exactly what happened without knowing whether the bus was actually at Navy Pier or what its scheduled trip was.

[Busjack]

19 minutes ago, Bus1807 said:

My apologies I forgot it was in the same thread. But also, #621 disappeared off the tracker after this occurrence so maybe it wasn’t supposed to complete another trip but still showed arrival times from what I’m seeing. The tracker could have stopped receiving its location, too. 

I guess it’s hard to know exactly what happened without knowing whether the bus was actually at Navy Pier or what its scheduled trip was.

It could have been all sorts of things, such as that it was pulled for charging or similar reason.

The reason I became skeptical of the tracker and ask if people saw the bus is because of all the reports here and in the press about inaccuracies. People here defined a "ghost bus" as a bus that was on the street but not tracking, while the press defined a "ghost bus" as one with an arrival time, but not on the street. There were plenty of them during the post-Covid operator shortage.

This came to a head in correspondence with the instigator of The Grievances of the 22 Clark Bus topic, who claimed the bus was running only every 45 minutes, even though it is scheduled every 13 minutes. I assumed he was standing at a bus stop, and various members tried to explain what happened. After publicly taking jabs at each other, I pmed him and said I no longer believed it. He replied "I sit there & watch Bustraker for 45 minutes before I can go out to catch one at times!" I responded, "Waiting for an inaccurate tracker isn't waiting at a stop."