[unimaginative2]

Welcome to the Nineteen Eighties!

Seriously, though, this is all fantastic news. This $10 million will really make riding the TTC a lot more pleasant.


Technology adds bells and whistles to Toronto transit

ERIKA BEAUCHESNE

November 14, 2007

Technology is coming to the rescue of wait-weary transit users, Toronto Transit Commission chairman Adam Giambrone said yesterday, as he announced plans to spend more than $10-million on customer service improvements over the next two years.

The initiatives, designed to reduce waiting times and improve service, will use a geographic information system to track the location of TTC vehicles and feed that information to, for example, a screen beside a stop that indicates when the next bus, streetcar or train is coming.

"In January, when you're out there waiting for a bus and you know it's coming in eight minutes, you know you have time to duck into Coffee Time and get a coffee without missing your bus," Mr. Giambrone said.

Other bells and whistles include a spring, 2008, redesign of the commission's website so riders can check for service delays. Wheel-Trans customers will also be able to book their trips online.

Mr. Giambrone also promised an end to line-ups of "literally hundreds of thousands of people buying individual passes" by starting to sell Metropasses and weekly and daily passes online.

A year and a half from now, Mr. Giambrone said, the TTC website will be able to generate a personalized map with directions, including estimated waiting times at transfer points, from one location to another.

Riders should notice the earliest initiative next week when subway service interruptions will be posted on the electronic boards at stations. Eventually, the commission will look at sending these alerts by text message to riders who subscribe to an alert service.

Mr. Giambrone said staff will look into providing cellphone service on subway platforms and cars.

 

[CDL.TO]

-----------------------------
| 501 KINGSTON RD..1mins...|
| 501 NEVILLE PARK..26mins.|
| 501 NEVILLE PARK..26mins.|
| 501 NEVILLE PARK..27mins.|
-----------------------------

 

[CDL.TO]

Seriously, though. Good news. Hopefully this should have some effect on service reliability.

 

[ShonTron]

LOL @ CDL!

Though knowing the TTC, here's what I would expect:

----------------------------------
| MAKE THE TTC THE KINDER WAY.|
| DUDSON IN 3min!..CUDDLY HUSK.|
| TTC DAY PASS ON SALE AT.ALL..|
| 501 HUMBER..27mins..501 RONC..|
---------------------------------

OR:

----------------------------------
| SORRY - OUT OF SERVICE..........|
| ............................................|
| ......REVOLUTIONARY................|
| ............................................|
---------------------------------

I also find it odd that it would take a year and a half for the TTC to get what many other systems have - a trip planning feature on-line. They'd better get the system fixed by then given the unreliability of many of the routes. Generally good news, though.

 

[Tuscani01]

Mr. Giambrone said staff will look into providing cellphone service on subway platforms and cars.

Yes to platforms, no to cars!

 

[CDL.TO]

"In January, when you're out there waiting for a bus and you know it's coming in eight minutes, you know you have time to duck into Coffee Time and get a coffee without missing your bus," Mr. Giambrone said.

Read:
"In January, when it's twenty below and you're out there waiting for a bus, you'll be able to know that it will be quicker to walk than freeze your ass off waiting"

-------------------------

The countdown signs on the Croydon Tramlink don't even use GPS. They simply show the scheduled departures and the trams are reliable enough to stick to it.

 

[scarberiankhatru]

Future frustration: the countdown says "3 minutes" but beyond a curve in the road, the bus gets mobbed by people paying in pennies, then they're blocked by an accident, then the bus doors swing open and get caught in a snowbank, etc. Meanwhile, 10 minutes pass and the countdown still says "3 minutes"...

 

[Tuscani01]

Future frustration: the countdown says "3 minutes" but beyond a curve in the road, the bus gets mobbed by people paying in pennies, then they're blocked by an accident, then the bus doors swing open and get caught in a snowbank, etc. Meanwhile, 10 minutes pass and the countdown still says "3 minutes"...

Maybe that bus driver will be able to shut off the system, and the bus behind it will have its ETA displayed at the stops ahead instead?

 

[unimaginative2]

Wait a minute... I gave this a bit more thought. There is no way that CIS is capable of providing accurate data for these countdown clocks. Either they're going to replace CIS and install GPS units on all the vehicles, which would cost a lot more than $10 million, or these things are just going to be based on the published schedules.

The delay for the trip planner is pretty ridiculous. I know the TTC commissioners were talking about working with Google, which would be a great idea, but I fear that the TTC bureaucracy won out and they're once again going to reinvent the wheel and create their own system from scratch.

SeanTrans, that's absolutely perfect!

 

[unimaginative2]

Wait a minute... I gave this a bit more thought. There is no way that CIS is capable of providing accurate data for these countdown clocks. Either they're going to replace CIS and install GPS units on all the vehicles, which would cost a lot more than $10 million, or these things are just going to be based on the published schedules.

The delay for the trip planner is pretty ridiculous. I know the TTC commissioners were talking about working with Google, which would be a great idea, but I fear that the TTC bureaucracy won out and they're once again going to reinvent the wheel and create their own system from scratch.

That's absolutely perfect, SeanTrans!

 

[Disparishun]

I am quite pessimistic about this. The best thing that could have happened would have been for the TTC to separate out the IT and the media functions, by taking all the data that can be gotten to display units and trip planners and things -- asset locations, bus and streetcar and subway schedules, and so forth -- and just publishing it as an Internet feed in some well-specific and well-established standard.

Then, having completed the raw data portion of its work, it could proceed with the next phase, i.e. turn it into media. But, in the meantime, the data would be out there, so everyone else could create their own media incorporating TTC data, too. From a trip planner standpoint, that's particularly important, because otherwise -- i.e., in the real world -- we are tied to whatever platform the TTC rolls out. Whereas, by publishing a data feed, Google and the rest of the world would be able to pull in the data and do their own version, too.

The advantages should be obvious, but I guess they boil down to two things: (1) not relying on the TTC to be a media company, (2) not relying on a single point of failure, and (3) being able to incorporate the data into a wider range of applications from a wider range of sources. Live maps on how to get somewhere that incorporate bus routes and times. 905 transit authorities which could be pull in the TTC's data into their own trip planners, and which could in turn publish their own data feeds, allowing for a range of regional trip planners. And so forth.

Point is, this is a both/and which has a lot more going for it than the either/or of the closed-data model the TTC is pursuing. Too bad.

 

[unimaginative2]

It sounds like you work in the IT sector. Those are really good points.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Wheel-Trans customers will also be able to book their trips online.

please please implement this ASAP!

 

[CDL.TO]

Wait a minute... I gave this a bit more thought. There is no way that CIS is capable of providing accurate data for these countdown clocks. Either they're going to replace CIS and install GPS units on all the vehicles, which would cost a lot more than $10 million, or these things are just going to be based on the published schedules.

From what I understand the TTC is to replace CIS with a GPS-based system. The automatic stop announcements is the first phase of the plan.

They probably just didn't include the GPS in the price of this system as it's supposed to be happening anyway.

 

[khris]

Yes Mississauga Transit is also installing GPS so that they can give accurate times as well. If they gave the times at the stops based on scheduled times, well, we all know how well that would work. LOL.