Real-time bus tracking made its Staten Island debut on Wednesday, and this week, the MTA released video exploring the technology. Give a watch to find out how the authority, working with students from Columbia and the folks from OpenPlans, have improved upon GPS-based technologies. I’ll have more in the coming weeks on how the agency plans to tackle the canyons of Manhattan and how you can track buses as they move through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m one of the judges in the ongoing MTA AppQuest contest, and today, the MTA and ChallengePost released a video urging the public to vote for their favorite apps. In a few weeks, my colleagues and I were determine our winner, but for the next 23 days, the public can vote for their favorite. Right now, it appears as though the NYC Station Finder is in the lead, but take a glance through the submissions gallery and pick your favorite today. The winner of the popular vote will get a $2000 prize, and the public will get a whole new slate of transit apps to help augment our rides.
Nearly five months after first announcing the MTA AppQuest challenge and after a few unavoidable delays, a group of new transit apps are ready to face the public. The authority announced last week that, after two delays in the submission date, they received 42 submissions for their app contest, and public judging is now open at MTAAppQuest.com.
“We’re thrilled at the partnership that has developed with the tech community to bring new innovations to our riders at no cost to the MTA,” the authority’s Executive Director Joseph said in a statement. “We’ve got a great crop of apps and we can’t wait to see which ones the public likes best.”
Public voting will be open through January 11, and the MTA and ChallengePost will award two winners. The winner of the public voting will take home $2000 while the runner-up will earn $1000. The MTA is not contributed financially to the prize money.
In addition to the public voting, a group of judges –including me — will also evaluate the apps. Joining me on the panel will be the following:
- Jen Chung, Executive Editor, Gothamist, and Co-Founder, Gothamist LLC
- Jeff Ferzoco, Creative and Technology Director, Regional Plan Association
- Cas Holloway, Deputy Mayor for Operations, City of New York
- Mark Gorton, Founder and Chairman, OpenPlans and Founder, Tower Research Capital LLC
- Wael Hibri, Chief Enterprise Information Officer, Metropolitan Transportation Authority
- Noel Hidalgo, Director of Engagement Technologies, World Economic Forum
- Lawrence Levy, Executive Dean, National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University
- Rachel Sterne, Chief Digital Officer, City of New York
The winners of that contest will take home $5000 with second and third place worth $3000 and $1500 respectively. I haven’t yet had the time to explore all of the offerings yet, but right now, City Maps and NYC Station Finder are in the lead. The MTA, meanwhile, is profiling each app on its Facebook page.
With 42 submissions, the contest has seemingly been a success for the authority as it looks to outsource its app process to developers with the skill and wherewithal to create these on-the-go resources. The challenge, though, was not without hiccups. Originally slated to end in September, the MTA had to push back the submission date twice to both prepare more data for developers and all coders more time to complete their submissions. Furthermore, as Transportation Nation notes, the biggest possible data dump — an API that ties into the system’s new countdown clocks — isn’t yet available. Such a move could truly revolutionize commuting patterns.
I’ll try to have more on these apps over the next few weeks. In the meantime, head on over to the AppQuest homepage and vote for your favorites.
Bus riders throughout the five boroughs will enjoy real-time bus tracking by early 2013.
While Londoners can now track their city’s buses, New York City isn’t too far behind. According to MTA documents released this week, if all goes according to plan, the MTA’s BusTime system, in use in Brooklyn and nearly ready on Staten Island, will be available city-wide by April of 2013. It could revolutionize the way New Yorkers use the bus system.
For the past few years, as surface travel has grown slower and bus service less frequent, the MTA has noted a marked decrease in bus ridership. According to numbers released this week by Transit, average weekday bus ridership in August was below 2.3 million for the first time in years. Although some of that decline was due to the total shutdown of the transit system in advance of Hurricane Irene, the bus system has not enjoyed an increase in ridership in years.
We could spend hours debating the reasons for the declining bus ridership. The vehicles are slow and uncomfortable. They don’t run on or close to the MTA’s posted schedules. Facing congestion and long boarding lines, crosstown trips in Manhattan, in particular, are often slower than walking. It’s no coincidence that as Select Bus Service improvements are rolled out across the city, bus ridership along those lines are among the highest around.
One of the key drivers behind the lack of faith in the city’s bus service concerns reliability. Although the authority posts schedules, buses come when they feel like it, often in bunches and rarely on time. Bus tracking projects, similar to the ones in place along 34th St. in Manhttan and the B63 route in Brooklyn, take the surprise out of bus travel and better allow riders to program their trips. If all goes according to plan, every bus will be equipped with such a tracking system by April of 2013, and riding the bus in New York City should become convenient again.
According to the presentation (found in the Capital Program Oversight Committee materials), the MTA is moving forward aggressively with plans to outfit the entire bus fleet with the tracking software. It will be activated in all 830 Staten Island buses by December of this year, and the project is coming in within the allocated budget. The city-wide rollout will begin next year.
Already, the project in Brooklyn, according to the MTA, is drawing high praise. The authority reports 1500 daily requests each day, and 94 percent of current users want to see it available through the city. I wonder what the other six percent want, but I digress. A “small percentage” of users find the text messaging function or website interface “difficult to use.”
For Staten Island, meanwhile, the project has been exceedingly simple to introduce. The authority awarded three contracts — one for on-bus hardware, one for back-office software and one for text message services — and installation began on the first of this month. Once the service is nearly ready, the MTA will begin a publicity blitz to prepare Staten Islanders for bus tracking.
Meanwhile, this project has an added benefit in that it will help drive forward the plan to replace MetroCards with a smart card tap-and-go payment system. The project was budgeted with $6.9 million from the New Fare Payment System initiative, and the $1.2 million in technology the MTA purchased for Staten Island’s bus tracking system will work with the new fare system as well. Furthermore, they’ve locked in software development through the city for $7.5 million, a total that includes development and six years of maintenance and hosting services. All in all, that’s not a bad deal.
As an information geek and transit advocate, I’m excited for the potential that BusTime should realize. If riders of any bus route can easily look up how far away the next bus is, they can better plan travel of all kinds. It should encourage people to use the buses as a way to supplement their subway rides, and it will take the sheer mystery out of riding the bus. Eliminating both the surprise of the schedule and the frustrating aspects of the wait should only increase customer satisfaction and use.
The buses have had a tough go of it lately, but things are starting to look up. Now if only we could bring a pre-boarding fare payment system to the entire bus network as well.
Communications-based train control is coming to the 7 train. For years, Transit has talked up this technology improvement, and this weekend, installation begins. Per the press release:
MTA New York City Transit announces that this coming weekend will be the first of five planned service suspensions on the 7 line between Queensboro Plaza and Times Square this fall. There will be no 7 subway service between Times Square and Queensboro Plaza from 11:30 p.m. Fridays through 5 a.m. Mondays during the weekends of October 7-10, October 28-31, November 4-6, November 11-14 and November 18-21, affecting an estimated 280,000 customers each weekend. The E, F, N, Q, S and free shuttle buses will provide alternate service.
This fall, as we continue our maintenance efforts in the Steinway tunnel, we begin installation of a new signal system known as CBTC – Communications Based Train Control. This automated train control system ensures the safe operation of trains using wireless data communication that will allow for more frequent service and the use of countdown clocks in the future. Fiber optic and computer equipment will be installed on the tracks along the entire line. This work requires service changes in October and November and will continue for several years. We realize this will be an inconvenience, but the work is necessary to modernize and improve the reliability of the 7 line.
Eventually, when all is said and done, CBTC will allow the MTA to run more trains on 7 line — a necessity as the route will soon be a mile and one stop longer — than they currently can. “Several years” of service changes to accommodate this week sounds pretty painful though. Is that the cost of progress or indicative of the slow pace at which the MTA works?
Suspicious activity is about the only creative announcement the PA CIS system is capable of broadcasting. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
For the past few years, I have been an unabashed supporter of the MTA’s new countdown clocks. The system, available in most A Division stations, is based on a signalling system that can assess where along the signal blocks and also how far away the next train is. Ostensibly, the system is flexible as well as the CIS part of PA/CIS allows the MTA to provide customer information to certain stations from a centralized location. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to work like that.
Last night, I had one of those moments that I often have at Nevins St. when something goes wrong with the subway system that could have easily been avoided. It’s happened often and usually it involves headways that are improperly spaced or an announcement that should have been made. Last night, it was the latter.
This story begins as my tales from Nevins St. often do: on a 4 train on the way back from Yankee Stadium. It was around 11:30 when we pulled into Nevins, and the PA/CIS clocks said the next local train was eight minutes away. Usually, I would just walk home from Atlantic in the face of an eight-minute wait, but I was tired and had a good book with me. So I waited.
As I waited out those eight minutes for the 3 train (with a 2 train just two minutes behind), another 4 came and went at Nevins St., and no signs of a problem emerged. The 3 arrived on time and inched its way to Atlantic Ave. I noticed something was wrong when it hit the switch and wound up on the express tracks. Only then did the conductor announce that all trains were running express from Atlantic Ave. to Franklin Ave. due to track work.
Now, this was not an unplanned service change. Had I read the service alerts before leaving or had I walked to the other end of the Nevins St. platform to inspect the one sign hanging there, I would have seen it. But I didn’t. Instead, I waited. I waited as the automated PA/CIS announcements alerted me to approaching trains. I waited in sight of a countdown clock that not once warned passengers of a service change. I waited near a column that had no hanging signs. In fact, only until I walked past Bergen Street — a station closed because of the service change — did I see a sign warning of the 11 p.m. start time.
Over the years, I’ve written about the MTA’s need to focus on its customer. The authority has taken great strides in the realm of technology, but it hasn’t yet bridged the gap between active and passive information. The conductor on my original 4 train should have warned riders that there would be no local service between Atlantic and Franklin Aves. The conductor on the next 4 train should have said the same thing, and the MTA, which has the ability to do so, should have programmed the PA/CIS monitor to announce the change. For nearly ten minutes, I waited in Nevins St. with no visible or audible sign of an impending service change.
Ultimately, last night, I learned a lesson I should have learned a long time ago. Even if there are no individual signs, it’s best to check the service advisories at any time of day. Still, the MTA should learn a lesson too from the numerous irate customers who found out about the change after standing around Nevins St. for ten minutes: Information is key. With new technologies, Transit can better alert its riders to service changes, and they can take an active role in doing so. That is, after all, why the new devices are called Public Address/Customer Information Signs. It’s in the name.
Paul Fleuranges offers up a demonstration of the MTA's new On The Go video board. Photo courtesy of New York City Transit.
Over the past few years, the MTA has moved its technological offerings into the 21st century. The authority took a staid website with little interactivity, and bit by bit, they have added more real-time information about subway and rail services, introduced a better TripPlanner and unveiled a map that will change as the weekend service does. With bus trackers and countdown clocks going live, customers should be better informed than ever before.
Still, though, the MTA has to get its information through a physical barrier. As a large portion of the subway system is underground, cell signals do not penetrate to the stations below, and at the times when customers most need that real-time information, they have no way of accessing it. Enter the new “On The Go” program.
The new travel stations, unveiled yesterday at Bowling Green by MTA officials, is part of a pilot program that will include five subway stations and commuter rail hubs. Interactive touch screens will be set up Bowling Green, Grand Central, Atlantic Ave./Pacific St., Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Avenue and Penn Station. The interactive data offerings include maps, TripPlanner capabilities, real-time status updates, escalator and elevator outages and local neighborhood maps. The MTA will also partner with third-party app developers to provide additional local information and, for example, dining guides from Zagats. Similar to those in taxicabs, the screens will also show a news crawl and the latest weather.
“With On the Go, we are adding yet another layer of state-of-the-art customer communications into our subway system, but it goes far beyond the already helpful information provided by our countdown clocks and the displays in our new technology subway cars,” Transit President Thomas F. Prendergast said. “On the Go will provide riders with instant information that makes using the transit system more efficient.”
The technology behind these terminals comes from Cisco’s Interactive Services Solution. A general manager from the company spoke about the way the screens can both improve passenger experience while creating new revenue sources for the MTA. “We have worked with cities all over the world, as a part of our Smart+Connected Communities initiative, in using the network as the platform to transform physical communities to connected communities. This pilot demonstration shows the potential for technology to connect, enhance and improve the quality of life for communities,” Syed Hoda said.
Following the unveiling yesterday, a few commentators wondered about the durability of such devices, but Transit says they are built to withstand the beating to which New Yorkers will subject them. Antenna Design New York Inc., the same firm behind the Help Point pilot program, has constructed a stainless steel enclosure with components that are durable and easy to clean and maintain. Of course, based on the MTA’s touchy relationship with technology, that’s one area in which the authority will have to prove itself through actions rather than words.
Ultimately, if customers are accepted of the new technology, the MTA anticipates installing these devices throughout the system. Officials believe the screens can also generate revenue through advertising which would “help to defray the costs of installation.”
Despite Jay Walder’s looming departure from the MTA in six weeks, the MTA is still moving ahead with a variety of technological innovations. Staten Island will soon have real-time tracking throughout its entire bus system, and the MetroCard replacement project will slog forward toward a mid-decade completion date. While that project has more uncertainty surrounding it in the face of Walder’s departure, the authority appears committed to finding a newer fare payment system than the MetroCard.
New York isn’t alone in that regard. Across the world, cities and transit agencies of all stripes are moving forward with various plans to unify fare payment sometimes. Some are looking at charge card-based technology as the MTA is and others are examining tried-and-true smart card-based solutions run by the usual private players in the fare media field. Not every effort is going smoothly.
Recently, San Francisco unveiled the Clipper card, a payment system designed to unify the Bay Area’s seven different transit agencies. As Scott James of The Bay Citizen detailed for The Times, the new system is suffering through some growing pains. As James details, San Francisco commuters have taken to Twitter and other social media outlets to voice their complaints over the new service, and while BART, Caltrain and SF MUNI downplay the problems, they are indeed out there.
James writes:
Clipper, named for the high-speed 19th-century ships that revolutionized sea travel, is hitting a few head winds, including system failures and overcharging customers. The service began in June 2010 — the first one-card-serves-all solution for the region’s fragmented transit system — simplifying access and payment to regional trains, buses, subway lines, streetcars and ferries, all with varying fare systems.
In some ways it has been remarkably successful…But it has proved difficult to eliminate all the glitches. And some expected improvements, like increasing Muni efficiency, have failed to materialize. Clipper was built and is operated by Cubic, a San Diego military contractor and transportation company. To date, the system has cost $140 million, with another $17.6 million expected in the 2011-12 fiscal year…
Although Cubic officials declined to be interviewed, e-mail sent by the company said there were 38,000 calls to its customer service hot line in August. “The fact that 99.7 percent of transactions did not require interaction with Cubic customer service representatives suggests a successful system,” Matt Newsome, a Cubic vice president, said in a statement.
But that math obscures the truth: transactions (500,000 daily, 14 million monthly) do not equal passengers. Each leg of a journey counts as a transaction. A weekday round-trip BART to Muni transfer, for example, counts as four transactions a day (two BART transactions, two Muni transactions), 84 a month. Officials said it was too difficult to determine how many passengers regularly used the card, but it is clear that far more than 0.3 percent of passengers are complaining.
Cubic, no stranger to unfavorable press, has always been a major player in the fare payment field, and theirs is is a name familiar to us on the East Coast. They have supplied the MTA with its MetroCard system, and the ever-increasing maintenance costs, I am told, is one of the drivers behind the push for an open fare payment system. That they are encountering problems or “growing pains” in San Francisco is not much of a surprise.
Now, the MTA is in a situation where they can get something right. They can see how other transit agencies adopt to this new technology, and they can see which companies provide good service and which do not. They could compile some best practices as they identify potential MetroCard replacements, and they can usher in a technology that is both forward-looking and flexible. It’s a tall order for an agency that has struggled to adopt an old system to new technologies, but the other outcome — more pain from closed systems — seems less desirable all the time. Just ask San Francisco.
The real-time bus tracking system currently in place along the B63 will be live on Staten Island by the end of the year. (Photo by Benjamin Kabak)
Even as uncertainty reigns supreme at the MTA right now, the authority is moving ahead with projects that will welcome transit-oriented technologies to New York City. This week, in fact, the MTA Board approved a deal with Verifone that will help bring real-time bus tracking to Staten Island by the end of this year. The $6.9 million contract will be the first of a series of deals that will eventually total an additional $48.4 million the on-board components of a city-wide bus tracking system. Verifone’s deal includes only Staten Island, and the contracts for the remaining boroughs will be subject to future competitive bidding processes.
“Today, our transit system is quickly catching up with our 21st century expectation that real-time information is available on the go for all New Yorkers,” MTA CEO and Chairman Jay Walder said. “That means knowing if your bus is on time before you leave home, getting updates on delays while you’re out and about, and unlocking opportunities for better service across our entire network. MTA Bus Time is a big part of this new vision for bus service in New York.”
Verifone’s role on Staten Island will be that of a systems integrator. They will install the necessary hardware in every Staten Island-based bus that will allow for real-time tracking. The MTA will soon award a contract for the software that integrates location and, as the authority puts it, “other relevant information.” Those who worked on the B63 pilot in Brooklyn will lend their expertise to this project as well.
“I’m certain that bus customers will be thrilled with MTA Bus Time,” said NYC Transit President Thomas Prendergast. “Having next bus arrival times right in your hand available at any point in your trip is part of our ongoing effort to improve the customer experience.”
Both future deployment and potential next-generation fare technology provisions are included in the Verifone commercial. First, through a competitive bidding process and subsequent negotiations, Verifone will be paid an additional $48 million to bring the bus-tracking hardware to the other four boroughs over the next few years as well. They will also hold an option to purchase smart card readers as the MTA gears up to replace the MetroCard. It’s all a part of Walder’s technology push, and the contract award guarantees that New Yorkers will at least see the bus-tracking project expand.
Furthermore, the contract represents the MTA’s new way of doing business as well. Verifone’s original bid came in at $8.9 million, and the authority negotiated it down to $6.9 million, a figure over $300,000 lower than the next lowest bid.
I’ve long been a big proponent of the MTA’s BusTime system. I explored the technology and development process behind it earlier this year, and I believe it will only get better and more popular as it spreads throughout the city. Right now, it’s of limited use as it is in place only along 34th St. in Manhattan in one form and along 5th Ave. in Brooklyn in another. By blanketing a borough in a bus tracking system, the MTA will have the opportunity to see how much easier and convenient buses will become when real-time location data is at our collective fingertips. It can improve everything from waiting to transferring, and I look forward to seeing it spread throughout the entire city.
“With a variety of ways of accessing MTA Bus Time, Staten Island customers will find it extremely convenient and useful. It’s another way we’re committed to improving bus service,” Darryl Irick, VP for Department of Buses and President for MTA Bus, said.
Over the past few weeks, a few readers have e-mailed me wondering about the state of the popular countdown clocks. At a handful of stations throughout the system, the clocks had gone dark as the temperatures rose, and the two were indeed related. As a few news outlets reported yesterday and as I had learned last summer, the MTA has been treading carefully with the countdown clocks when it comes to the heat. As with every type of computer-based technology, exposing the underlying technology to extreme heat can be damaging, and so Transit officials opted to turn off the clocks in 13 particularly toasted stations.
According to Transit, those stations impacted by the heat so far include the following: Spring Street and 77th St. on the 6; Intervalue Ave., Park Place, 191st St., 145th St. – Lenox Ave., Clark St., Gun Hill Road, 79th St., 59th St. – Columbus Circle and 145th St. on the 1, 2 or 3; and Utica Ave. and the express platform at 86th St. and Lexington along the 4 and 5. The authority also issued a statement: “In certain subway stations, when we experience several days of hot weather, temperatures can exceed 120 degrees in the communications rooms that hold the equipment that drive the countdown clocks. We are constantly monitoring temperatures and working to install cooling systems in impacted communications rooms.”
This is, of course, part of the problem with installing 21st Century technology in a 20th Century transit network. The space for the appropriate types of cooling systems is at a premium. Still, Transit has at the least acknowledged the problem. “We know our customers have come to rely on the ‘next train arrival’ information,” they said, “and we apologize for the inconvenience and ask for their patience as we work to resolve this issue.”