About half a year ago, the County Connection introduced “Bus Tracker,” the latest upgrade to County Connection’s on-board computer system that provides real time arrival predictions for any bus stop in the system. Since the upgrade, the agency has received nothing but positive feedback from transit riders. Take, for example, this comment from Gabe Griffith, president of the Contra Costa Chapter of the California Council of the Blind:
“Thank you for introducing Bus Tracker. It works great with the VoiceOver speech output on the iPhone. I’ve used it several times and it’s always been accurate. When I get my message that the bus is due to arrive at my stop, the bus shows up within a minute. I like that if a bus is running a little late, Bus Tracker will give actual arrival times, rather than scheduled arrival times. Two thumbs up!”
Real-time data that allows riders to track buses is the kind of improvement that truly makes transit more accessible, and convenient to the public– two thumbs up, indeed!
For a refresher of what exactly Bus Tracker is and how you can take advantage of it, see the below video
Video credit: h2MediaLabs
(Note: Passengers only need access to the Internet to see where buses are on-route, and to see when the next bus is predicted to arrive at any given stop. Riders are encouraged to set up a personalized account to receive arrival alerts via text or email messages. Simply visit www.countyconnection.com and click the Bus Tracker button to get started.
County Connection is currently in the process of creating a downloadable application to make using Bus Tracker even more convenient on mobile devices.)
