Lisa Rheinheimer stands in the Monterey Transit Plaza, her iPhone in hand, and watches the next bus on the “Jazz” line approach on her phone, in real time.
Rheinheimer, the director of planning and marketing for Monterey-Salinas Transit, is using the app Transit, which MST has been beta-testing over the last month, and which is now ready for download. The app brings the capability of allowing riders to know exactly where buses are at any given time.
Rheinheimer says studies have shown that for riders who know exactly when their bus is arriving, “The perceived wait is shorter. It feels like less [of a] wait because they know where the bus is.”
The app allows users to set alarms based on the location of a bus. For example, the app lets a rider set an alarm that will notify them 15 minutes in advance of a bus’ arrival to the nearest stop. As Rheinheimer wheels through the app’s capabilities, she says, “It’s almost like Garmin [GPS], but for transit.”
The app is free to download, and costs MST nothing; all they do is provide the information to Transit. The ridesharing taxi service Uber is also linked on the app. Transit is also supported in other regions, as well as in eight other countries.
If all goes as planned, MST will also roll out a service in April that allows riders to text or call from a cell or a landline to get the arrival time of the incoming bus.
Yet for riders with a smartphone, the app is the best option: They can see where any bus is, any time.
(1) comment
I had wondered why MST seemed to not be publicizing this, but I understand it now. But you can do this through Google Maps, and have been able to do so for several months. Click on a bus stop, click on the list of buses that loads below, and you'll see the real-time waits for buses in green with a "wifi" type symbol next to them. No app download needed. It doesn't show exactly where the bus is, like GPS does, though.
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