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‘Real-time’ bus arrival notification coming soon

Signs are being tested at Uptown Transit Center

Imagine knowing exactly when your bus is going to arrive. You can relax or run a quick errand without having to check every twenty seconds to see if your bus is coming.

Improving the customer’s transit experience: that’s the goal of real-time bus arrival signage, being tested at Metro Transit’s Uptown Transit Center in Minneapolis.

“Route 17 westbound. Arrive: 5 minutes,” reads the small electronic sign. The flashing sign is the latest technological improvement in the regional transit system.

An electronic sign at the Uptown Transit Center tells commuters the arrival time of their bus.

If all goes well, “real-time” bus arrival signs will be installed at selected sites around the region. By year’s end, the same information also will be available via the internet and over the phone.

“It’s a great asset for our customers, and the early comments we’ve heard so far have been extremely positive,” said Wayne Babcock, manager of the Transit Control Center for Metro Transit. “For example, if the bus isn’t due for nine minutes, a customer can go get a coffee and be assured they won’t miss their ride. It’s a great tool.”

Metro Transit General Manager Brian Lamb was even more enthusiastic. “It’s the future of customer service for bus riders in the Twin Cities,” he said.

How the technology works

The bus-arrival information is generated from a wireless automatic vehicle location (AVL) bus-tracking system, which is installed on each bus. Using global positioning satellites, the AVL system monitors the exact location of any AVL-equipped bus in the system. The data is transmitted every 60 seconds from the bus to the Transit Control Center, then sent forward to the “real-time” signs at destination points ahead on the route.

“Essentially, it’s the same kind of tracking data used in many major metro transit systems around the world,” said Gary Nyberg, a TCC assistant manager and lead on the real-time project. For example, the transit system in London, England, includes 4,000 similar signs for its massive network of bus and rail transit.

Closer to home, Chicago and Vancouver also are developing real-time signage. Even smaller cities like Duluth and Waukesha, Wis., are now providing real-time arrival information for their customers.

The signs at the Uptown Transit Center were installed in December and activated in April, and it’s “so far, so good,” Babcock said. If the evaluation is successful, as expected, more signs will be installed at the other locations around the region.