Arlington NextBus sign at Farragut North. Photo by Jenny F.

At last night’s meeting, the Metro Riders’ Advisory Council heard from the staff working on the NextBus real-time system, and passed resolutions on NextBus and on service cuts.

Rob Kramer, head of operations for the IT Division, spoke to the Council on the NextBus system. Currently, they plan to launch it in June or July.

In addition to the Web and phone system, the 2007 pilot included real-time displays at Anacostia, Pentagon, Friendship Heights, and Silver Spring. WMATA removed the Anacostia one due to conerns about vandalism. When the system comes online, they’ll reinstall the display at Anacostia. Silver Spring’s will reappear once the transit center rebuild is complete. There are also eight individual electronic displays in Arlington.

RAC Chair and DC member Diana Zinkl asked about using the digital PID signs in Metrorail stations to show bus information. That’s not an option they’re considering, Kramer said, but they’d like to make it a part of the future “Metro Channel” systems which will have larger LCD screens that can display more information.

At-large member Carl Seip asked if the trip planner would integrate with NextBus, to give riders trip information based on actual bus locations. Kramer explained that, at the moment, the trip planner would still calculate based on the published schedules only. He agreed that it’d be ideal for it to use the real-time systems. Knowing the difficulties involved in integrating various technical systems, I can understand why they don’t want to bite off that particular problem just yet.

Kramer also said WMATA has been considering text message access to NextBus, but the costs are high. Some small agencies offer the service, often through a provider that adds advertisements to text messages, but none operate the kind of volume WMATA would expect. Many tech writers have discussed the ridiculous costs of text messaging, where companies or nonprofits have to pay huge fees to get “short codes”, then high monthly fees and per-message rates around 5¢ per message. Meanwhile, text messaging really costs phone companies almost nothing. Anyone can get an email address for free, but text messages cost a bundle for essentially the same service. That’s because mobile carriers act as an oligopoly and see text messaging as a key profit center.

On to the elephant in the room: why did the existing, working NextBus system disappear? According to Kramer, they weren’t comfortable having it publicly accessible since the data had not gone through a QA process. WMATA did ask NextBus to take it down. According to Kramer, NextBus executives were also unaware of the publicly accessible beta, and the sales rep who posted that comment on New Columbia Heights hadn’t had complete buy-in from everyone at NextBus.

One reason both WMATA and NextBus might not want the site accessible involves cost. WMATA will pay NextBus a monthly fee. They don’t want to spend the money until the system is launched, and NextBus may not want to get in the habit of running services for free. At the same time, WMATA could very simply ask NextBus to open the system back up at no cost until the final launch. If NextBus says no, then it’s NextBus and not WMATA who is standing in the way of access to information.

DC member Kenneth DeGraff pointed out that making any changes to this or any other system almost always costs less early in the process. The earlier Metro receives feedback, he suggested, the easier it would be to fix any problems. For example, he lives in Adams Morgan and often takes the 90s buses. The cell phone system in the pilot required a rider to punch in the specific line they wanted. But if someone wanted any of the 90s, they’d have to go through the process several times, once per line. That’s the sort of feedback riders could provide before launch in a “beta test”.

Later, the RAC passed a resolution encouraging WMATA to launch NextBus as soon as possible, and to explore possibilities for beta testing with interested members of the public. The full text of the resolution is below.

We also discussed service cuts. The RAC passed the resolution that a working group devised earlier in the month. According to Michael Perkins, the WMATA board has adjourned their meeting where they were supposed to discuss service cuts, postponing any discussion probably until next Thursday.

Finally, the RAC discussed another important procedural topic. Right now, the RAC Web site doesn’t include any information about the members’ names or jurisdictions. There’s no way to contact them except by showing up at a monthly meeting. The names and jurisdictions do actually appear in the public minutes, but those are buried.

A few people expressed some reservations about being listed publicly, but some pointed out that the information is already online, while others said that as a public body, it’s really not right for members’ names to remain secret.

A bigger question is whether to have any contact information. We are definitely going to set up a single email address which reaches John Pasek, the WMATA staff member who handles the RAC, and which he will forward to the appropriate member(s) (for example, a question from a rider in Alexandria could go to the Alexandria member).

In addition, many of the members who use technology more frequently expressed interest in individual email addresses, perhaps @metrorac.com (a domain WMATA owns). Using a separate domain in that way would ensure that emails from RAC members don’t appear to be official statements of WMATA. Other members preferred to have email go through a central location instead of being contacted directly. I suggested that we give each member the choice of whether or not to have an individual address, while making the central email box the primary route to contact the RAC.

Here is the text of the resolutions: On NextBus:

Whereas, the NextBus system allows riders to access real-time information about bus arrivals on the Web and on mobile devices;

Whereas, real-time information is extremely valuable to riders, allowing them to better time their actions to catch a bus or make decisions about which bus to choose;

Whereas, according to a UK study, real-time information also improves riders’ perception of bus reliability and frequency;

Whereas, WMATA has been working with NextBus to set up a new and more accurate real-time information system for Metrobus;

Whereas, some Metrobus riders have been using NextBus at their own risk for several months, and finding useful despite its limitations, therefore be it

Resolved, the Riders’ Advisory Council urges WMATA to work with NextBus to complete and officially release the system as soon as practical, and

Resolved, the Riders’ Advisory Council requests that WMATA explore opportunities for RAC members and interested members of the public to start using the NextBus system in a “beta test” before it is officially launched, and as soon as possible, to receive feedback and benefit riders.

On service cuts:

Whereas, the Riders Advisory Council recognizes the need for WMATA to achieve a balanced budget,

Whereas the Authority, the Board and the member jurisdictions should search for additional cost savings and sources of revenue, work to improve efficiency, develop a better understanding of the quantitative and qualitative benefits of the system, strongly consider additional, targeted subsidy increases, and aggressively pursue alternative funding before reducing service; now, therefore be it

Whereas, the Advisory Council acknowledges that a balanced budget may require WMATA to achieve cost savings through service adjustments as well as non-service associated cost savings and additional jurisdictional subsidy;

Whereas the Advisory Council believes WMATA should preserve the quality of the rider experience and not sacrifice the goal of maintaining the best ride in the nation and a high level of civility and cleanliness;

Resolved, the Advisory Council adopts the following principles for service adjustments should guide any decisions made by the Board or the Authority:

  • maintaining basic transportation—recognition that Metro provides a critical service, 24 hours a day, seven days per week, enabling residents of the region to travel to work, school, personal appointments, entertainment and recreation at all hours of the day and all days of the week.
  • customer, employee and public safety—service adjustments should take into account direct effects on safety, such as operator training and work hours, and indirect effects on safety, such as availability, frequency and security of evening and late night service.
  • interjurisdictional and intermodal equity—service adjustments should be adopted in a manner than distributes service, adjustments and the burden of those adjustments throughout the region and among modes and types of services provided by the Authority, acknowledging that existing service in some areas may already limited under current scheduling.
  • valuing social equity—providing service based on community need as well as efficiency and demand. Recognize that for transit dependent individuals, even limited service provides opportunities to participate in basic community functions that might be out of reach otherwise.
  • maintaining alternatives within transit—seemingly overlapping services may provide needed options, prevent overcrowding and bottlenecks, minimize the impact of service disruptions and are not necessarily “duplicative.”
  • sensitivity to “day of week” and “time of day” changes in demand—Metro should consider broader use of targeted service adjustments that reflect time of day and day of week variation in demand and minimize the impact of service adjustments on customers (for example the weekend closure of the 17th street entrance to the Farragut West Metro is one example of a “targeted service adjustment”).
  • strong communication to the public on service adjustments—
    • transparency at all stages in the development of any and all service adjustments, including detailed information available to the public and open, public, noticed meetings for all discussions of service adjustments, except where directed to do so by the Board.
    • opportunity for public input into service adjustments through public hearings in affected areas for all service reductions.
    • any service adjustments need to be widely and unambiguously communicated to the public to prevent confusion, delay, and maintain strong relationships with the riding public, taking into account regular users, occasional users, tourists and special needs riders.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.