New service text messages bus times

Bus arrival times are now just a text away. The Port Authority is beta-testing a new program,… Bus arrival times are now just a text away. The Port Authority is beta-testing a new program, RouteShout, that sends text messages with scheduled bus arrival times to its clients. The goal is to make the transit system more user-friendly. ‘The easier it is to know when your bus is coming, the more likely you may be to take transit,’ said Judi McNeil, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority. ‘We are also very interested in assisting burgeoning companies with testing out products that may benefit other transit agencies across the country.’ The Port Authority is testing the technology, which was developed by Pittsburgh-based company deeplocal, at 22 stops in student-heavy areas throughout the city. Each of the stops has an orange sign with a code on it. Riders send a text to the code and receive a text message with the next scheduled bus time. The service keeps the information from all text messages within the company, said David Evans, the chief technology officer for deeplocal. ‘ ‘Students don’t have to worry that they’ll get an ‘American Idol’ text message from us later,’ said Evans.’ ‘We don’t store user data, which might persuade potential users to go ahead and try RouteShout.’ Some Pitt students said they tried RouteShout and thought the system would be more effective if it gave actual arrival times as opposed to scheduled ones, which don’t allow for delays from heavy traffic. ‘Unfortunately, providing already scheduled bus times is terribly outdated,’ said Jono Spring, a Pitt graduate student.’ ‘If you go to many European cities, any major bus or tram stop will have a list of the approaching bus in real time, because it’s not really that hard to put a GPS device in buses.’ Evans said he also thought that RouteShout would be more beneficial if it provided actual arrival times. ‘We are prepared to install this system,’ said Evans. ‘It’s just a matter of when the Port Authority is ready.’ The Port Authority will do a cost-benefit analysis while it’s beta-testing the current system to see if it would like to expand the service, said McNeil. Evans said that deeplocal would eventually like to add a feature to the RouteShout system that would allow people to see what is going on near the bus stops. ‘ ‘Bus stops are places people know,’ he said. ‘So if there are parties going on at bars or restaurants nearby, it’d be cool to let people know.’