When GPS equipment on buses is functioning properly, the system delivers accurate results 96 percent of the time. But field testing by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found a continuing problem with GPS units not being turned on, malfunctioning or not available.
That reduced the overall accuracy of the system, known as TrueTime, to about 72 percent.
The Post-Gazette conducted 200 separate tests of the system at bus stops in Downtown Pittsburgh, Oakland and East Liberty. When equipment was functioning properly, 145 of 151 tests produced an accurate arrival time (no more than two minutes early or five minutes late).
But 39 bus arrivals, or nearly 20 percent, did not show up on the TrueTime system because the GPS units on the buses were turned off, weren’t working properly or weren’t on the bus at all. Ten of those instances involved older buses that haven’t been equipped with GPS because they are scheduled to be taken out of service this year.
In five cases, buses showed up on the display only when they were at or near a stop. The system is supposed to track buses for 30 minutes prior to arrival.
Three buses arrived at stops at the time shown on the system but were garage-bound and did not pick up riders.
The busy inbound stop on Liberty Avenue in Gateway Center had the wrong reference number on its sign, and entering it into TrueTime produced a result saying no service was scheduled there, even as bus after bus rolled by.
In the 151 tests where equipment was working properly, only two buses arrived early, both three minutes before the displayed arrival time. Four buses were more than five minutes late.
One bus arrived 30 minutes after the displayed arrival time because its GPS unit was left on while the bus had a layover at Penn Station. At Liberty Avenue and Seventh Street, the bus was shown as being five minutes away for nearly a half-hour before it returned to service and arrived at the stop.
TrueTime “has been successful and is a very accurate tool to help riders determine when their bus will arrive,” Port Authority spokesman Jim Ritchie said.
“There are a few known issues with the system that we continue to address, including making sure all buses are logged in to the system and replacing older GPS equipment when it stops working,” he said. “We have made good progress on both fronts.”
The authority’s TrueTime website,www.truetime.portauthority.org, allows riders to see when buses are expected to arrive at individual stops or to view all buses on a given route depicted by icons on a map. Several independently produced apps also use the authority’s technology to track buses in real time.
The authority began implementing the tracking system last year and in December announced that the system was virtually complete, with 92 of 98 routes on the system. Six routes are served by the older buses that do not have GPS. The transit agency plans to extend tracking to Light Rail Transit service this year.
Riders surveyed on social media gave the system mixed reviews.
“I track the P13 (Mt. Royal express) in the morning for my wife. Quite often, the P13 is not showing up on the tracker. Other times it appears when it is about two minutes from my wife’s stop,” wrote Jim Tremel of Shaler.
“There were several days when it was raining or bitterly cold out and my wife had to go out and stand on the corner in that weather not knowing when or if the bus would appear,” he said. “We don’t know if the drivers have to flip a switch to get the tracking on or not. Whatever it is, it isn’t working like it should. There are times when it works like a charm but more often than not it doesn’t. It’s a guessing game.”
“Not every bus is fitted with the tracking equipment yet, but on the ones that are, the system and apps work fine,” Raleigh Pierre Wheaton wrote in a Facebook post.
“I discovered a major flaw today when the 71C was temporarily rerouted around some construction and skipped a couple of stops on Penn Avenue. The app should have said ‘THIS BUS IS NOT COMING’ but instead it just kept giving times because it was close to its route, but not exactly on it,” Katy Frey wrote.
©2015 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
