BusTracker is operationable (for some people)

[BusHunter]

Seen an interesting site at Halsted/orange line yesterday. There was a supervisor (K35) sitting there with his labtop in his truck. I was aboard a #6000 and peered down into his truck (I knew these high floors were good for something) and seen he had BusTracker on. It was set to show the area over there and there were buses on it traveling north and south . It looked like the King Drive or something out of 77th also looked like it had Archer buses on it. No 74th buses though. BTW, I heard that CTA is supposed to have a board meeting on 2/13 maybe they'll discuss BusTracker then.

[Busjack]

BTW, I heard that CTA is supposed to have a board meeting on 2/13 maybe they'll discuss BusTracker then.

1. CTA always posts the dates of its board meetings.
   
2. The Board approved the expenditure for BusTracker. Thus, it is just up to the staff to implement it.
   
3. At least you have evidence that the supervisors have access to it, as promised.
   

[BusHunter]

1. The Board approved the expenditure for BusTracker. Thus, it is just up to the staff to implement it.
   

I just mean't that maybe the public release of possibly Archer,77th,FG,and the rest of Chicago routes would be discussed there. Maybe a date or two when this might be started for people that are not Supervisors or inside staff.

[Busjack]

I just mean't that maybe the public release of possibly Archer,77th,FG,and the rest of Chicago routes would be discussed there. Maybe a date or two when this might be started for people that are not Supervisors or inside staff.

Only if it is for information purposes in the President's Report, but there is no need for the Board to discuss it further.

[Kevin]

Ron Huberman told the Chicago Tribune in December that additional routes would go online in February. However, I wouldn't put too much hope in that statement considering CTA's track record. They've already blown well past their anticipated December 17th official launch of Google Transit.

[nextstopchicago]

Ron Huberman told the Chicago Tribune in December that additional routes would go online in February. However, I wouldn't put too much hope in that statement considering CTA's track record. They've already blown well past their anticipated December 17th official launch of Google Transit.

You may be right. However, this is a more gradual thing, and he didn't announce final, systemwide launch. He said they'd be adding routes.

Consider that there are two key operational challenges here -- one is to work out how to make sure all the buses have functioning transponders, and the other is to make sure the site can handle the traffic.

Both of these challenges are easier if scaled down to a few routes. That's rather different from something like Google maps, where you don't want to say "we're live on Google maps" and then discover that some portion of your system is being expressed inaccurately.

So it seems to me they'd do well to meet Huberman's deadline, and there isn't much excuse for missing it -- if they can't get a whole garage worth of routes on-line, adding 2 or 3 routes so that people see progress would still get them over the hurdle. I hope they do at least that much this month. We've seen a lot of incremental progress on slow zones, and we've seen the CTA start to get good publicity (in the paid media) and more friendly customer relations (as shown by the more positive blog postings on various sites). Progress on bus tracker would work the same way -- it would give the sense that things are looking up, even for those not yet helped.

Others have already mentioned the garage that was supposed to go first, but I lose track of these things. Can someone tell us again which garage, and what routes are served by that garage?

[OSUITS]

Last word (a little birdie told me), was that Clever Devices is doing some updates to Bus Time and that it would be delaying things a bit. The updates are to improve accuracy of the prediction model. I would probably not bet on seeing any new lines until everything is sorted out. This was said to be taking a few months time.

[BusHunter]

Seen an interesting site at Halsted/orange line yesterday. There was a supervisor (K35) sitting there with his labtop in his truck. I was aboard a #6000 and peered down into his truck (I knew these high floors were good for something) and seen he had BusTracker on. It was set to show the area over there and there were buses on it traveling north and south . It looked like the King Drive or something out of 77th also looked like it had Archer buses on it. No 74th buses though.

If you guys are interested in this the boxes that show the bus number and route are baby blue on the 77th routes. In looking back at the current public BusTracker version it appears that all buses will show up in the current color for that route. For example #85A is green a green box etc. Seen the same supervisor again at the same place and this time she had #24 buses on there. The red line shows up as beat red on there screens. I don't remember if the current BusTracker shows the rail lines. ( I don't think BusTracker is on the rails, but it would be a nice addition) :)

[nextstopchicago]

If you guys are interested in this the boxes that show the bus number and route are baby blue on the 77th routes. In looking back at the current public BusTracker version it appears that all buses will show up in the current color for that route. For example #85A is green a green box etc. Seen the same supervisor again at the same place and this time she had #24 buses on there. The red line shows up as beat red on there screens. I don't remember if the current BusTracker shows the rail lines. ( I don't think BusTracker is on the rails, but it would be a nice addition)

Hmm. That may make some sense. But it could also make it confusing for someone looking at an intersection where two routes from 77th cross. Which baby-blue box is for the route I'm trying to supervise. And for the public, it would be even trickier if that's the way it looks.

If anyone is reading this, I'd suggest that for the public interface, you should use two colors for most N/S routes, and two different colors for most E/W routes (for instance, E/W is blue at Chicago, red at Division, blue at North, red at Armitage, etc.) That would eliminate confusion for all those routes. You'd still have to figure what to do with diagonals and routes that come together downtown, but still, the color scheme I'm suggesting would eliminate most of the potential for confusion.

Of course, I don't know what the interface will be at all, and you may have to plug in the route you want to see, and you'll only get those buses, and then there won't be any confusion at all. But I can see times when I'd want to see as many as 3 routes at a time for genuine rider-convenience reasons, and not just as a transit fan.

At any rate, I'll be delighted when I can pull my own route up and see if it's on time, and I'm not too worried about the interface unless it's just unreadable. I'm just offering food for thought.