MTA Real Time CIS Pilot
OpenPlans Transportation demonstrates the value of an open, standards-based systems architecture while helping the MTA leverage its existing capital investments.
Jay Walder, the Chairman of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA), recently declared that real time arrival information is a key priority for the agency. “In cities around the world, transit users look at digital signs to know when the next bus or train is coming. In New York, too often we’re left peering down a subway platform or standing at a bus stop guessing which of the oncoming headlights might be our bus.”
When the MTA wanted to bring real time arrival technology to New York buses, it faced a predicament: there were many solutions available in the marketplace, but they were all too costly for the MTA to implement across its 6,000 vehicle fleet. Concurrent with its real time arrival information initiatives, the MTA is rolling out new “contactless” fare payment devices on each of its buses and subway turnstyles. Could the same on-bus hardware device being installed as part of the fare payment upgrade be used to provide real time bus location information to customers?
OpenPlans Transportation helped the MTA find out. OneBusAway, a project started by Brian Ferris at The University of Washington, was adapted to receive location data from prototypes of the new fare payment device installed on each of 30 pilot buses. No contactless card acceptor hardware would be installed on the pilot buses, as this was a focused test of the real time arrival technology, but everything else would be the same. Using adapted Verifone fare payment hardware, each bus would send a location message every 15 to 30 seconds to a central server running OneBusAway. This information was then made available to bus riders under the program “MTA Bus Time.”
OpenPlans Transportation worked with OneBusAway to adapt the software to accept these location messages and make a statistically informed match to the bus schedule, using only the vehicle’s location, route and direction. Arrival information is provided to bus riders via a desktop web map updated in real time, a simple mobile HTML site suitable for use on smartphones and WAP-capable mobile devices, and an SMS interface for those without an Internet-connected phone.
Lastly, for those without any phone at all, local merchants were engaged to install DIY arrival time signs in their store windows. The DIY sign can be created with any monitor that can display a web browser. Based on the store’s location, the Bus Time site generates a custom large text web page that provides information to passengers (and potential customers) waiting for the bus outside.
As part of the pilot, the MTA also installed new signage at each stop to help riders use the Bus Time system. The signs included a list of bus stop IDs that can be sent to the system via the SMS interface, and QR codes to get real time information at each stop via the mobile web interface.
Bus Time launched February 1st, 2011, and was a huge success. Developers have already created a half-dozen smartphone apps using the system’s developer API. One developer even made an interactive voice response system for a friend, allowing her to dial a special phone number, provide the stop ID using the phone’s keypad, and then hear bus arrival information read back to her aurally.
Rider feedback has been very positive and, best of all, the pilot proved that the MTA can successfully and cost effectively integrate the systems of multiple vendors who adopt open standards.
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