Metro has started posting signs at thousands of bus stops around the region touting its Next Bus system.
But the program slated to give bus riders a better sense of when the transit agency’s buses will arrive won’t be ready for another month. Callers who try the telephone number on the signs get a cheerful message telling them that Next Bus was suspended in October 2007.
Yet Metro said the signs had to go up now to be ready in time for the July 1 relaunch date.
“It’s over 12,000 bus stops,” said Metro spokesman Cathy Asato. “It’s just a matter of time. It takes time to install them.”
For riders, it’s the latest tease in a long-running process of getting the technology program up and running again. Next Bus promised to be a solution to waiting for chronically off-schedule buses. Metrobuses arrived on schedule 74 percent of the time in March, according to the latest data available from the transit agency. That means more than a quarter of the buses were not on time.
And riders have needed to check their watches even when the buses are deemed to be on schedule. Metro considers buses on time if they arrive during a nine-minute window of the published schedule. They can be up to two minutes early or as much as seven minutes late.
Next Bus would not make the buses arrive on time, but it would help riders know when to wait for them. The system uses GPS data from each bus to track when it is actually headed to a given stop. The new round signs being installed show the unique number assigned to each bus stop that riders can key into a Web site or interactive phone system. Major bus hubs will also have electronic signs showing times similar to how the Metrorail system shows the time until the next train.
Metro let riders use the program in a pilot phase after the transit service agreed to pay California-based NextBus Inc. at least $2 million to create the multifaceted system in January 2006. But General Manager John Catoe decided to pull the plug in the fall of 2007 when he saw the system providing inaccurate information.
However, tech-savvy riders discovered a back door into the system and continued to use it secretly. They howled in protest with a petition and e-mail campaign when Metro and the NextBus company pulled the plug on the Web site this spring when they learned of the secret use. Officials said the system wasn’t accurate enough. They said they feared riders’ complaints and higher costs from the company.
Now, officials say, the system will be running within weeks, offering information that is accurate within several minutes.
