Carole Brown explains why the 22 and 36 buses aren't on Bus Tracker yet
I found it interesting that on the same day that the CTA board heard from the riding public their thoughts on the 2009 budget, the board chair posted an explanation on her blog about why more buses weren't connected to the Bus Tracker system.
Carole Brown explains how new buses must be outfitted with the GPS eqiuipment needed for Bus Tracker to track.
Then she tells us how a small number of routes don't pass "prediction accuracy testing," including the No. 22 Clark bus. It's actually a very interesting argument about various agorithms involved, including the "prediction algorithm."
Finally, she explains the "black back holes" in data created where more than 150 buses put in service in 1991 and 1995 are still operating.
CTA preps for Obama rally. The CTA is treating Election Night like July 3 -- extended train and bus service on all lines, later into the evening, and no bikes allowed on the rail ssytem after 4 pm.
Bob S.: If bus tracker works on the 157 which runs in almost all high rise canyons, then it should easily work on the 22 & 36 which only have that problem downtown.
And the 62 also has bus tracking & it runs on the same Dearborn St. as the 22 & 36 in the Loop.
No, the problems aren't with the bus tracker system for 22 & 36, it's with the routes themselves.
And it's plainly obvious that the CTA has no idea what to do.
Posted by: Unindicted Co-Conspirator | November 04, 2008 at 12:20 PM
The #22 is definitely unpredictable. Supposed to run every 30 minutes through the night. I was waiting for one at North & Clark to take me to the Loop on a Saturday night. I waited at the bus stop for 30 minutes before starting to walk. I got to the riverfront 45 minutes later after stopping at each bus stop to see if one was coming. So in an hour and 15 minutes, not a single #22 bus, and still none in site when I got to the riverfront.
Posted by: Charles M | November 06, 2008 at 01:01 AM
"And it's plainly obvious that the CTA has no idea what to do."
Fine. If you wish to complain about that then I assume you have some clear and comprehensive ideas about how to improve the reliability of the #22. What are they?
Posted by: MK | November 06, 2008 at 04:12 AM
MK:
There have been several good suggestions discussed before including splitting the route, but basically it gets down to actually managing the route better.
They already defacto split the route by paring off buses at clark/foster. It's not fun to get on a bus and then have that bus stop halfway through its Northside path.
I've personally seen supervisors sitting at clark/foster and when approached by several people complaining about service in one direction, just ignored the problem, when the "rocket science" solution would be to turn one of the opposite direction buses which were coming with way more frequency than the other direction.
Also, if they actually used internally the information that bus tracker they'd again see that there was horrendous bunching, big service gaps and since they can contact the buses directly, you'd again think that they might see what's going on and do something (like turning around buses) or inserting additional stock if available.
Like it's also been mentioned before, why in the heck do the customers have to offer what are obvious solutions (discipline drivers not doing their job, etc.). If I wanted to solve all the CTAs problems, I'd expect a 200K a year consulting gig for pretty well stating the obvious. It's not like the problems are unique by any stretch of the imagination.
Cheers,
KevinB
Posted by: KevinB | November 06, 2008 at 05:29 AM