Bus Trackers to Alleviate Wait Time Guessing Game
On Friday morning, Mayor Rahm Emanuel along with Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) president, Forrest Claypool announced the first of several hundred Light Emitting Diode (LED) bus tracker displays to be installed at select bus shelters throughout the City of Chicago.
A total of 400 LED bus tracker displays will be installed around the citys 50 Wards, according to a press release from the Mayors office.
Installations of the first 150 signs began last Friday and are scheduled to be completed by spring of next year. After testing, the remaining 250 signs will be installed by September 2012.
Mayor Emanuel and Claypool made the announcement at the site of the first tracker installation at the corner of Lake Park Avenue and east Hyde Park Boulevard in Hyde Park.
As Mayor, my goal is to make Chicago the best city in the nation to live, work and raise a family with a high quality of life, said Mayor Emanuel. Every day, approximately 1.6 million riders take CTA to and from work, school or for recreation, and providing those riders with clean, reliable, safe and modern transportation, maintain a high quality of life for our residents.
The displays will provide four lines of text, via CTA Bus Tracker, showing bus arrival times and customer alerts affecting respective routes and surrounding transfer points the release stated. CTA Bus Tracker uses GPS devices to help report bus location data back to the CTAs server. The CTA can then in real time, show riders where buses are on a map and estimate when they will arrive at a particular stop.
Additionally, the LED signs will be installed on the sides of bus shelters and face outward so that they can be seen and serve as many riders as possible.
The installation of these signs will help simplify commuting by providing highly visible information on bus arrivals at that stop, including places where there are transfers to bus or rail service, said Claypool. The availability of these signs also will extend the benefits of CTA Bus Tracker to those who may not be familiar with the service or may not have the tools to access it while on the go.
The locations were chosen based on several criteria including ridership, stops serving multiple bus routes, bus-to-bus transfers, and transfers to Metra and Pace.
The maintenance and purchase of the displays are backed by $1.4 million of CTA funds, a $1.8 million Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) grant and a $640,000 Federal Transit Authority, Congestion Mitigation and Quality (CMAQ) grant.
Riders can log on to www.transitchicago.com to view a complete list of the locations for the first 150 signs.
by Thelma Sardin
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