Waiting for the bus to arrive is sometimes a guessing game, but now two local transit districts are using new GPS systems to tell you exactly when your bus will arrive.
The San Diego Metropolitan Transit Service will launch the GO! Texting service on Wednesday. Bus passengers can text the bus stop ID, located on the bus stop sign, and receive a message telling them when their bus will arrive, MTS said.
The North County Transit District also launched their rapid bus system on Tuesday. The new and improve service also includes tracking buses in real-time using GPS. A digital sign on each bus stop sign will let riders know when their buses will arrive. The GPS will relay the information to the bus sign where it will be displayed.
"It is on a GPS," said Jerome Stocks, chairman of the San Diego Association of Governments. "The signs know exactly where the bus is."
The district also unveiled new modern bus benches and cue jumpers so buses don't have to wait in long lines of traffic, Stocks said.
Both transit systems say the hope is to eliminate many of the frustrations of traveling by public transit, by letting people know exactly when their bus is coming.
"We want to make it more appealing to use mass transit," Stocks said. "We want to make public transit more time competitive with the private automobile."
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