Bus Tracker

We've been having a very busy summer here at CTA. In addition to all of the work you see on the rail lines (slow zone removal, 3-track operations, tie renewal on the Red Line in the Loop and station work) we are continuing to pursue creative enhancements to our buses as well: cleaner buses, new buses hitting the street every week, planning for bus rapid transit and of course, Bus Tracker.

If you haven’t yet tried Bus Tracker, I encourage you to give it a shot on your next bus ride. I think it's a great implementation of customer-driven technology. We now have 67 routes on Bus Tracker and plan to eventually have every route on the system. I find it a great time management tool. I bookmarked the site on my Blackberry so in a matter of minutes I can look up when my bus will arrive no matter where in the City I happen to be.

Of course Bus Tracker is also an operational tool for CTA. With it we can better manage bus bunching, better measure operator performance, improve our fleet allocation, and address problem hot spots (traffic accidents, construction zones, etc.) much more effectively. We are still making tweaks to the interface and underlying system, so stay tuned for updated and improved editions.

On a technology like this, I think it’s important to get user feedback and incorporate that feedback into the system, so please post your comments—negative or positive—as well as suggestions on how you think we can make it more effective and user-friendly. And for you Iphone users out there, we have heard from some of you already about making an Iphone-specific application. Duly noted.