Trimess

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Express bus service to Milwaukie area soon to be a thing of the past due to rail

Too bad that rail is such a fixation around here, people could be riding like this:

Swank new high-tech buses heading here | SILive.com

4 comments:

Jason McHuff said...

It seems like a lot of the article of about the tracking ability, which they've had here for years.

Erik H. said...

And which TriMet does not consistently use on its buses (as demonstrated by a bus that was over ten minutes late, and when the Operator called Dispatch the Dispatcher had no idea where the bus was.)

And...Transit Tracker is widely unavailable for many bus riders, and not everyone has access to a cell phone for using Transit Tracker at a bus stop. But why worry about those riders?

Jason McHuff said...

And which TriMet does not consistently use on its buses

No, it would be that it doesn't always consistently (as in 100% of the time) work. I'm pretty sure there's various parts of the system that can decide to not function, and at least some of the technology is from the mid 90's. However, replacement is underway.

As for access, many many people do in fact have cell phones, and moreover, lots of trips are started at home or work, where virtually everybody has some type of phone (or computer) available.

Max said...

As of 2 years ago, 91% of the US population had use of a cell phone. It has only grown since.

If they don't have access to a cell phone, they can always ask someone they're waiting with, check before they leave or (gasp) use the schedule.

I don't think it's worth TriMet's investment to install lots and lots of transit tracker signs everywhere.