CTA Tattler

But now they are putting extra cars on the streets, adding to traffic. But at least they're hybrid!

Wow, way to recycle old news, Ron.

Supervisors have been "out of the booth" for several years now. There are only a handful of locations where booths still are used. Even then, they use their little SUVs to get to and from the booths and incident locations. The only thing newsworthy is that they will be using more hybrid SUVs (good) and they are reducing the number of supervisors available per shift to respond to street disruptions (bad, very bad).

The supervisors have been using the handheld and laptop computers for over a year to track street/bus traffic - at least that's what he said last year this time when he announced roll-out of bus tracker pilot.

This is all recycled spin to get face time with the mayor. And then sharp news organizations (FOX, NBC) pick this up and announce that CTA is rolling out a brand new program called bus tracker to eliminate bus bunching and all bus routes will be online by end of July. Um, no.

i will say this, though -- the google-based bus tracker is hott. having seen some previews of it, i think people will be pretty impressed.

The recyled spin is to divert your attention from the real story: The CTA plans to eliminate almost 30% of the bus supervisor jobs rather than leverage those positions to solve the biggest operational problems they face.

Just 50 supervisors left. That's 400 man hours to cover 168 hours a week, or an average of 2.3 supervisors to cover the whole city at any given time.

Okay. I know that's an exageration. There will be times during the week when there might be 5 or even 6 whole supervisors to cover the whole system, but there will also be times when there will only be 1 supervisor on duty to cover the whole city.

There's the real story. There's not enough people to control bus bunching, and they're going to make it worse.

"Huberman warns that the bunching problem won't be totally eliminated with this idea, which he says is unique to Chicago."

What part is unique? None of the parts are unique. Perhaps there will be no other city with 50 supervisors. They might have 48 or 52, for example. Or the number of hybrid vehicles might be different. But the concept of mobile supervisors, and giving them the power to short-turn, or turn a bus into an express is not unique.

Essentially this story is all spin and diversion to keep you from noticing that they're cutting the one resource that's most central to resolving bus bunching.

Headline: Huberman thinks that fewer supervisors will result in less bus bunching. There's your real story.

Rusty, I think your calculator needs new batteries or something:

"Just 50 supervisors left. That's 400 man hours to cover 168 hours a week"

50 supervisors would provide 400 man-hours each 8-hour day, not each week, I assume. The apples-and-apples numbers would presumably be 50 supervisors * 40 hours per week, or 2000 man-hours weekly to cover the 168 hours in the week. That comes down to about 12 at a time, although obviously during night-owl hours the number can be substantially reduced, allowing the number to increase at other times. (Of course, those are rounded and estimated; neither of us is privy to true work schedules.)

Good catch on my math mistake, Bob.

But still, we're talking about way too few supervisors for a system with over 100 routes.

Let's think about this. How many employees should a front-line supervisor watch over? How many *can* they watch over? And in the case of the CTA, how much territory should be covered?

Let's toss this out.... How many supervisors are needed just for the 22? ;)

Also, the CTA announced that it seems that the coming upgrade to Bus Tracker will use Google maps and you will be able to filter the routes to just show 1-5 bus routes of your choice, click on the stops on the map to see arrival times, etc. Huge improvement. Wonder if the bus tracker data will come up in Google maps transit feature, not just through the Bus Tracker website, probably not. Also the list of buses being added in July has been released, I'm THRILLED the 147 and 146 are being added!

[Let's toss this out.... How many supervisors are needed just for the 22? ;)]

Is this a rhetorical question, or do you have an answer in mind?

Personally, I don't have any idea. I'd guess, however, that the Bus Tracker technology would *theoretically* lessen the need for supervisors dramatically. As noted, there's simply no need to have large numbers of them physically monitoring the progress of the buses, because all of that data is electronically tracked and stored.

So, that means that the need for supervisors becomes actively responding to issues as they arise. Which, if I understand correctly, is what the plan is here.

So how many are needed? Beats me. But theoretically it's not very many, especially since a relative handful of routes are probably responsible for the overwhelming majority of bunching complaints anyway.

I'm certainly not dismissing the idea that cutting supervisors is a bad idea. But it's not clear to me that a small number of responders couldn't work as long as they're able to make efficient use of the available technology.

Re: Rusty "Let's toss this out.... How many supervisors are needed just for the 22? ;)"

Put the 22 on the bus tracker, and give me a way to easily contact individual drivers of buses, and I could run the whole route myself from my apartment. Guaranteed. Hell I could probably run 5 or 6 routes at once. I'm sure you could too! I think that's the whole point of the cutting of supervisors.

I think part of the problem right now still lies in the "contacting individual drivers" part though.....

The buses don't have radios? I thought they did. Also did we ever determine if the newer buses have internal PA from the driver? It doesn't seem so. I've yet to see a driver yell over a microphone to move to the back, the backdoor is broken, etc, etc. What a joke that the CTA stopped putting in PA systems due to the automated annoucement feature.

The newer buses definitely have an internal PA system, I've seen a driver use it. Most don't however, for some reason they'd rather just yell (or talk quietly when they should be yelling), instead of talking into the microphone hanging near their left cheek.

Ed,
So you intend to have 2200 buses, supervisors, and control center all chattering at eachother on the same frequency? Even if CTA were granted a handful of frequencies, you'd really need about 1 per route to make it the least bit coherent during rush hour, and that seems impractical.

Ideally, perhaps, the Bus Tracker system, with its mobile router, can be configured for two-way communication so that supervisors send text commands to a display by the bus driver.

Aside from 20 people losing their jobs in an already tough economy (and it sounds like at least some of those positions were removed via attrition), I think this plan makes far more sense than, say, the thought of staging buses up and down routes to idle in case they're needed, as at least one person has urged here.

Again, since night owl hours need much less coverage, staggered shifts that have, say, three supervisors from each garage on the road at any time would probably provide most of the needed coverage.

Mind you, I'm not suggesting that, even if it works, it always works. But I'm surprised that someone who's spent months observing how the bus tracker isn't meant for the public, it's meant for supervisors to be more efficient and proactive reacting to these situations, is pooh-poohing the CTA's plan to do just that.

(And I hope I'm not bored tonight, because if I am, I'm going to go through old comments, find everyone who said "the 147 will be the LAST BUS to get the tracker," and call them out.)

I'm actually not that thrilled about the changes to the tracker map. It sounds like they're taking away the "route progress" window, which for us end users is a very great way to see bunching firsthand. I like the current tracker quite a bit and have always thought Google Maps kind of clunky -- I'll reserve judgment 'til I see it but I'm skeptical that the changes really improve things.

Whatever happened to DriveCam? They were supposed to put this in so they could watch drivers running red lights, driving like they are on a speedway or picking up people in the middle of the street not at a stop, etc. If big brother was watching and taping, there would be a lot less of the nonsense.

Also, anyone else fed up with how close some of the bus stops are? Talk about wasting gas and slowing down buses. I'm sure areas with closely spaced stops can also add to bus bunching. Inner Lake Shore and Marine Drive are the worst areas for this. There is a stop NB at Irving Park and Marine, then barely a 1/2 block north at Bittersweet. There is a stop at Inner Lake Shore and Stratford, then also Cornelia. Thats not even a half of a standard city block!

Where is the announcement about the 146 and 147 bus? I can't seem to find it...

Also, I agree about the stops right on top of each other. The 136 route which run along Marine (as well as the 146), stops way too close to the last stop sometimes. The Bittersweet stop can go, as well as a few others. Between Lawrence and Foster the bus stops at almost every intersection and Weiss Hospital has two stops despite the fact that one is for Leland street which does not run to Marine anymore. Eliminate some of these stops like they have done on rail lines in the past and they'll put the RAPID back in Rapid Transit.

>Let's think about this. How many employees should a front-line supervisor watch over? How many *can* they watch over? And in the case of the CTA, how much territory should be covered?

I can't give an exact answer, but if 50 supervisors armed with a constantly updating map of exactly where all buses are on the routes they're looking at can't do a hell of a lot more than 70 supervisors who don't know where 90% of their buses are, we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

I think you're talking about 12-14 supervisors during the daytime. Each might have a set of 12-15 routes to keep track of.

Bus Tracker should be able to tell them at a glance that, say, 10 of their routes are doing okay, the 11th and 12th need tweaking, and the 13th is a disaster. If they can't handle that much, then maybe they shouldn't be working.

The strange thing to me is the hybrid SUV's. BAD! Why make them mobile? Give them a way to communicate directly to drivers and put them somewhere central. The problem with the system before was they could only see and deal with buses wherever they happened to be. Now, they can see all their buses, but they can only deal with the ones where they happen to be.

Let them communicate with drivers, and you can do everything centrally and immediately. I could run 12 routes from home:

- Bus 6440, what was the stretch between 57th and 63rd like?
- Crash blocking lanes, but it's cleared now.
- Great (Over) Now, 6215, you'll be on 6440 in 30 seconds if I don't slow you down and speed him up, so I'm telling him to run express for 8 blocks. You'll have the people he misses in the next 5 minutes.
- Got it.
- Back with you 6440, run express to 73rd, but as you pass, use the outside loudspeaker to tell people waiting that your follower is only 3 blocks behind. He'll have them before they even start fuming.
- Got it.
- 6215, as you pick people up, apologize for the delays, but let 'em know we're keeping the route moving for everyone.

>Ed, So you intend to have 2200 buses, supervisors, and control center all chattering at each other on the same frequency?

I'm not Ed, but you can run this in other ways. It doesn't have to be radio. Cellular with blue-tooth earpieces and a clicker on the dash would work. The other thing is by forcing them to use the CTA blue-tooth, you'd know. A given supervisor might have maybe 50 buses, but again, 45 of them would be in place at any given time.

You'd have protocols for supervisor-initiated vs. driver initiated conversations, preventing driver-initiated calls except in emergencies and certain traffic situations where the supervisor might need to know quickly. Most delays would be apparent to the supervisor quickly enough that you wouldn't need the driver to phone it in.

I've actually done this sort of thing, on a different sort of project, but with 22 people on a single conference line. That's a very different situation, but it would be easy to create a better system if you were using it 24/7 to solve a serious problem. This was a one-night project. We quickly solved the chatter issues and used the system effectively.

Chris, the info's on http://www.yourcta.com under News. It's the first press release.

I like the bus tracker and I've even written in to the CTA to tell them so. It is sort of amusing to see that you have 3 #56 buses approching within the next 3 minutes...live bus bunching trackability!

Bob S., route progress window is retained based on the version I've seen.

Around 1:00pm today, here's what I saw on the Blue line shuttle between Rosemont & O'Hare:
- The tracks from the west end of the yard to about the international terminal were completely gone/buried under gravel.
- O'Hare/westbound bus quite full, but everyone sitting, looked good.
- Saw a Rosemont/eastbound bus go by full, a LOT of people standing in the aisle. The bus is marked "L Shuttle" instead of "Blue line" like the previous weekend CTA shuttles were at Cumberland, Harlem, and Jefferson Park. (Like anyone visiting Chicago from out of town would understand the connection between an electric train line down the middle of an expressway and the letter "L" - Yes, I know, elevated, NOT)
- While driving through the Arrivals level, was stopped by the TWO Traffic control personnel stopping traffic to let, what seems to be slightly higher number of pedestrians crossing, go from the Bus Shuttle Center to Door 1G.
- Stopped again for a solid minute at the second crosswalk as three CTA bus loads were dropping off nearby and a MASS of confused people with luggage on rollers strolled over the crosswalk from the Bus Shuttle Center to Door 3A. The TWO Traffic control personnel there gave the pedestrians all priority (Fine with me, but there was an immediate traffic backup through the entirety of Terminal 2 behind me, and Arrivals wasn't even close to being busy - a minute earlier looking quite clear)
- If you're traveling via the Blue Line or picking up people at O'Hare, leave some extra time for the new Blue line/Arrivals level mess, or recommend to people to fly through Midway and use the Orange line.
- Too bad they didn't route into the Kiss n Ride station on the O'Hare transit system(Same place where Pace 330 and 250 drop off and pick up - See NW Side on the CTA map online), but I can also understand the need to keep it as close as possible to the O'Hare Blue line station for arriving passengers, and because it's only for three weeks.

NW Side CTA map, including O'Hare Transit system here:
http://www.transitchicago.com/maps/maps/200806NW.html

"Also the list of buses being added in July has been released, I'm THRILLED the 147 and 146 are being added!"

Where is this list of routes? I don't see them on Bus Tracker, just "Stay tuned for more routes available in July."

yourCTA.com under News, John.

For those that can't quite grasp the concept of finding the CTA news releases...

http://www.yourcta.com/news/ctaandpress.wu?action=displayarticledetail&articleid=124391

And yes, you do have to scroll half way down to get to the list of the July 21 additions to bus tracker, which does include the 146 and 147.

Well, in fairness, it is buried, and every other month the CTA was pretty good about posting the new routes on the bus tracker site itself.

Buried? Three releases down and dated yesterday? If that's buried, then they didn't do a very good job hiding it.

As for the list not being added to the bus tracker page yet, it just appears that the press folks moved a little faster to post the info in a news release than the Bus Tracker folks did to add it to that site. The expansion is still 12 days away. I don't recall the Bus Tracker site having the June expansion listed 12 days in advance. (I believe they were announced on June 16 or 17 for a June 23 kickoff.)

Thank you Cheryl for the polite reply. Following your advice, I found the routes listed by going to yourcta.com which then redirects to www.transitchicago.com, then looked under news as recommended. Since there was no news heading there that referred to Bus Tracker, I then went through each news article. And lo and behold, under the news article called "Mayor Daley and CTA Launch New Supervisor Information System and Innovative Employment Program", I found the new routes for Bus Tracker.

In case this wasn't so obvious for anyone else here, you can just go to this link instead:

http://www.transitchicago.com/news/ctaandpress.wu?action=displayarticledetail&articleid=124391

or here:

http://tinyurl.com/5hbkmn

then scroll down between "New Programs Will Help CTA Streamline Operations and Improve Transit for Residents" and "Ex-Offender Apprentice Program" where you'll find a section called "Bus Tracker"

Really, I can't believe I couldn't find that on my own earlier.

Ed,

Please tell me what the headline "Mayor Daley and CTA Launch New Supervisor Information System and Innovative Employment Program" has to do with the Bus Tracker and how someone is supposed to be able to correlate an announcement about new bus tracker routes with this headline. You don't seem to be able to grasp the concept of not being completely rude. Obviously I wasn't the only one that thinks a headline should match the content of the article. Next time keep your comments to yourself.

Here's a copy of the relevant Bus Tracker section:

Bus Tracker
Bus Tracker, www.ctabustracker.com, is CTA’s web-based program that uses global positioning system (GPS) technology to provide real-time information on buses as they travel their routes. On July 21, 15 more bus routes will be added to the Bus Tracker web site bringing the total number of routes accessible through Bus Tracker to 67. In addition, new program enhancements and upgraded features, such as Google-based mapping, will provide customers and supervisors with improved capabilities.

“CTA continually looks for ways to improve the customer experience by getting better information into the hands of customers,” said CTA President Ron Huberman. “Customers will find that the Bus Tracker improvements will make it easier to navigate and access information in one convenient location.”

Routes that will be added to Bus Tracker on July 21 include:

* #7 Harrison
* #8 Halsted
* #10 Museum of Science & Industry
* #12 Roosevelt
* #17 Westchester
* #18 16th/18th
* #38 Ogden/Taylor
* #52 Kedzie/California
* #125 Water Tower Express
* #126 Jackson
* #129 West Loop/South Loop
* #146 Inner Drive/Michigan Express
* #147 Outer Drive Express
* #148 Clarendon/Michigan Express
* #156 LaSalle

Other new features include:

* Bus Icon Roll-Over Information Boxes – displays the route name and number; direction of travel; final destination; and the next four estimated bus arrivals for that particular bus selected. Separate links also will be provided allowing customers to access a route’s schedule and the progress of all buses operating along that particular route via the Street View function.
* Routes Selection – customers can select up to five routes that can be simultaneously displayed and tracked on the Bus Tracker map. For easier identification, each route is color coded on the bus location map and also listed in the map legend at the bottom of the features.
* Find Stop – allows customers to locate a stop along any CTA bus route activated on Bus Tracker.
* “Stops” and “Buses” Checkboxes – by selecting either of these options, customers can hide or display all bus stops and buses in operation for their selected route(s). If a customer chooses to display the bus stops along their selected routes, each location will be represented by red dots. By clicking on the red dots, customers will be informed as to when the next bus is predicted to arrive at that particular bus stop.

Actually, scout, I'm afraid I know they were posted very soon after June 6 -- friends and I saw the signs posted on bus stop sign poles that day on the way back from the blues fest, and while I know the CTA hadn't posted the info on either site at that point (I checked as soon as I got home), it was only a few days later, probably Monday or Tuesday (June 9 or 10).

That said, I feel silly debating it. If this were source code and I was setting the value of variables, FWIW would be set very low.

The 146, 147, 148 & 156 are all out of the North Park garage, but the other routes I think are out of Chicago Ave..
Previously we were told that an entire garage's buses must be upgraded to have Bus Tracker.
Since as recently as three weeks ago I was on a 147 that was an old 4400 series Flxible, does this mean that these won't be assigned to the 147 anymore?
If however they still put the Flxibles on the 147, that pretty much blows the CTA's previous statements on how routes are added to the system to smithereens.