Staten Island Buses Offer Time Tracking

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City announced last week that it has launched Bus Time, a way for travellers to know where their bus is with just a click. The authority said that Staten Island will be the first borough to get the service, which will be introduced for all its buses.

But Time is a service based on the internet that allows users to get real-time information on their mobile devices. When travellers visit the Bus Time website, they will see a window to enter the bus route, specific bus stop code or intersection they need. This will prompt a map to show where the buses on the route are and how far away the next one is.

Bus stop codes can be found at the bus stops or by visiting the Bus Time homepage and dragging the mouse over the bus stop on the map. Then travellers can test the code to “511123” on their mobiles to receive a text back from the MTA about how many stops away the next bus is. Commuters with smart phones will able to read Quick Response codes at each bus stop, which will tell the user how far away the next bus is.

MTA chairman Joseph Lhota said that the service is running for the entire borough of Staten Island. This means travellers can get real-time info for all buses and routes on the island on their mobile phones, smart phones and PCs, telling them exactly how far away the buses are from their location. They know how important the buses are to all of Staten Island’s citizens. Rather than wait in the cold for a bus or leave home early not knowing when it will arrive only to wait, Bus Time will allow travellers to know exactly where the bus is and when to be at the bus stop so they don’t have to wait long.

New York City Transit President Thomas Pendergast says that any computer with internet can take travellers to the Bus Time website. There, they will see a map with moving images that represent real-time locations of buses on the route they enter. During the year and next year, they will be upgrading over 6,000 buses and 14,000 bus stop systems to make the tool formally operational across the entire city by 2013.

Islanders who aren’t as tech-savvy haven’t been left out, as the MTA will be spending $3,000 per bus stop shelter to install electronic boards that will notify those waiting of where the next bus is, using the same system. This was made possible by Borough President Jim Molinaro, who has given the MTA $200,000 out of his office’s budget to begin installing the boards at 50 of the 60 most used shelters.