Metro is testing a new system that for the first time will give transit officials the ability to gauge how far Metrobuses deviate from their planned schedules.
“We’re gathering the information from the system to analyze and set benchmarks, and we’ll be reporting that to you in September,” Metrobus chief Milo Victoria told the agency’s board of directors at a recent meeting.
Metro’s erratic bus service has long been the top customer complaint in the system.
Metro officials report to-the-minute delay statistics on the rail system every month, but until now have not had a way to track bus delays.
“Why don’t we have that information now?” Metro Board of Directors Chairman Chris Zimmerman asked staff in January. “That’s something we were promised years ago.”
Though Metro has a system that feeds schedule information into the transit agency’s database using GPS systems installed on the buses, the database has been unable to read the information, Victoria said.
“We’re developing a system so that all the buses can communicate back and forth to the database,” Victoria said. “The only other transit system that can do that is Los Angeles.”
The new system, which will show real-time schedule information, is part of a larger plan to improve the quality of bus service, which officials have been rolling out over the past several months.
The transit agency announced Monday that it is now posting Metrobus service disruptions on its Web site, including the route, the location and destination of the route, the start time and reasons for the delay.
Until Monday, the agency had posted such information only about the rail system.
Metro is also giving new authority to bus supervisors to manage bus traffic and is proposing a dramatic increase in the number of express bus routes in the region, officials said in May.
