I know Bus Tracker questions/concerns are common on this blog. I've talked to CTA's Chief of Operations and the GM in charge of Bus Tracker to explain to you how Bus Tracker works and why we can't just roll it out system wide (and why some routes have it but others don't yet). This is their explanation:
New CTA buses (despite no capital bill we're still getting old orders filled) do not come with the Bus Tracker equipment installed. This requires our vendor to install these systems after the buses arrive. In addition to new buses, we have to maintain the Bus Tracker equipment already installed. We recently hired a new contractor to help with bus tracker. There is a steep learning curve for the installation/programming work plus the need for them to perform maintenance on buses at the publicly launched garages, which, understandably, is pushing back rolling out more routes.
Once equipment is installed, we have to test each bus to insure that it communicates along the entire route. Just like your cell phone drops out at times so does Bus Tracker. As such we have to fine tune the system so that its communication stays constant so that you, the user, have a reliable tool to use.
For those of you who really like the details, Bus Tracker is based upon a prediction indicator. It compares bus actual travel time to what CTA schedulers plan for it to take. If this is off in any way then our announced wait time is off accordingly. When this happens we have to redo our bus schedules to make them more accurate in terms of each segments of the route. This takes a lot of time and must be done to give our customers accurate wait info.
There are a small number of routes that do not pass our prediction accuracy testing (including the #22 as has come up here often). As customers know, CTA has various types of routes: circulators, express, cross-town arterials, etc. The prediction algorithm in the Bus Tracker program can perform very differently on the different types of routes. For example, some of the downtown circulators (the 120s) confound the algorithm because the first timepoint on the trip is also the last timepoint, and is also the first timepoint for the next trip. Each route can fail accuracy testing for different reasons, so it requires a fair amount of sleuthing and coordination with the vendor and then our planning staff to identify the resolution. In fact, this schedule/communication issue is one of the most time consuming efforts before we are able to turn on a street for Bus Tracker.
Finally, we still have over 150 1991 and 1995 buses that do not have Bus Tracker installed in them since we plan to scrap them by end of year (or soon thereafter). Since these are still in use, we cannot turn on streets where they are being used since they create back holes in our data where the system assumes there is no bus (and predicts extraordinary waits) but there are actually buses. This gives a false impression of our service.
This, in a nutshell, is what's happening now with our Bus Tracker system. Ron Huberman has made great progress on this program and for that he deserves credit. We have very smart, capable people working tirelessly to address these challenges and get the system working across the service area. We are on track for that. But in the meantime, if a route you want isn't up yet please keep these facts in mind.
