Posted by Rich Davey, MBTA General Manager and MassDOT Transit Division Administrator
I was pleased to join the dialogue on Blue Mass Group to follow up on a weekend post and invite those interested to an exciting event on Thursday. The MBTA is constantly working to improve services for our riders. Customer service in transportation is a top priority of Governor Patrick and MassDOT Secretary Jeff Mullan. I focus on it every day at the T. To boost service coordination, we are currently in the midst of a major upgrade to our scheduling software. This upgrade will allow data collected using GPS technology and other tools to be more seamlessly used to adjust schedules. While we work to do this today, the sheer number of different transfer options makes it a significant challenge. This new technology should help.
This summer, we will also roll out a pilot program to equip officials on six key bus routes with handheld computers to monitor buses in real-time. This program, funded by the federal stimulus American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will provide customers with better information but also allow operating personnel to make real-time service adjustments.
In addition to these initiatives, the MBTA is working to use technology better while harnessing the minds of the tech community in greater Boston.
In the Blue Mass Group post, the writer mentions the MassTransit app, one of more than a dozen apps created as a result of the MassDOT/MBTA Developers Initiative. All of these apps were created at virtually no cost to the T because the at the insistence of Governor Patrick MassDOt and the MBTA decided to unlock our basic route and schedule data- the information we have handed out as paper maps and schedules for 100 years. By opening the data, smart software developers like the team at SparkFish Creative are able to build apps like MassTransit.
Developers and more importantly riders were happy to have trip planning apps but they came back to us with a question, “How do we know when the bus is actually going to arrive?”
For the past few years, the MBTA has installed GPS devices on our buses to improve operations. In our bus operations center, our operators see every single MBTA bus on a screen. Last November, we decided to open MBTA bus location data for five MBTA bus routes to software developers. In less than one hour, the first app was built. In two months, there were more than a dozen apps. For more on what happened, check out the YouTube Video below:
If software developers built more than one dozen apps in two months for five bus routes, what is possible if we open the data for the rest of our buses? This Thursday the MBTA and MassDOT will host an event called “Where’s the Bus 2.0: The Wait is Over,” at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development center. The event is open to the public and designed for a general audience; we would love to see you there!
Please RSVP for the event and learn our answer to the question, “Where’s the Bus?”
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