If you want to know where your bus is these days, you can text it.
In recent weeks all city and Kansas University buses have been equipped with GPS devices to track their movements. Riders wanting to check on the location of a bus can use any phone with text messaging capabilities to find out. The technology is meant to minimize the wait time at bus stops for riders.
Similar systems have become common in transit systems around the country. "It's really becoming an expectation among people who are relying on public transit," said Danny Kaiser, assistant director of KU Parking and Transit.
"People don't want to just walk outside based on what the schedule book says," he said. "Now you don't have to stand outside as long in the cold."
The new system — dubbed "Where's My Bus?" — has been operable for a few weeks, but Kaiser said the KU and city transit systems wanted to work out bugs before releasing the technology for public use.
To find a bus, riders enter the bus stop number into a text message and send it to 785-312-2414. For a stop on multiple routes, riders must enter a comma after the stop number, followed by the route number. After sending the message riders should receive a text back with the wait time, based on the bus' current location.
Those wait times are estimates, which can become more or less accurate depending on the position of the bus. "The further a bus is away, the more opportunities for the bus to change its on-time performance," Kaiser said. That's why he and the Lawrence Transit System still advise riders to arrive at their stops at least a few minutes early.
The service requires no signing up and doesn't cost anything outside of charges for text messages in an individual's phone plan.
MV Transportation, which services the city and KU's transit systems and recently signed another five-year contract with each, owns the technology.
Comments
Zach Davis 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Much of the API for a "3rd party app" has already been written with Google Trip Planner in Google maps if you were to place NFC tags or place 2d barcodes at each stop with the embedded URL to the said location it would make for a much easier user experience and probally be much more cost effective than using short messaging services. Although that would only be useful for smartphones
Bubu Fish 2 months, 4 weeks ago
This is really nice to have, and much needed. Sometimes there is an accident or other issue and then the wait is very unpleasant if one has no idea how long it will be. I've called headquarters a few times because of this, usually after having already waited ~15 min. It rarely happens but when it does, it's not good, especially if I'm in a hurry. Now I will check more routinely. I agree that an app would be nice and probably there will be one eventually, but this is great to have now to start with.
Also, I agree with Leslie that the drivers and the service are truly excellent.
Leslie Swearingen 2 months, 4 weeks ago
We are lucky to have such a good bus system in Lawrence. People in large cities routinely use the bus and it is time that people here did likewise.
I want to give a shoutout to all the drivers, and supervisors, who work tirelessly to make sure we get where we are going and do it pleasantly even when passengers are disgruntled and angry.
Brent Mowery 2 months, 4 weeks ago
I'm curious if the data is or will be made available for 3rd parties to create apps that might be more user friendly than having to text to get time estimates.
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