The Manhattan Project
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Increased Urban Walkability For The Win
DCist Preview: Bebel Gilberto @ 9:30 Club
Last week, DCist's Andrew Wiseman reported that a NextBus beta site that had been operational for a brief time was removed after inquiries from DCist as to its authenticity. A couple of weeks before, we had asked Metro whether the information we found on the NextBus beta was old or new, and they told us we were looking at old data. Andrew then posted about the site on his personal blog, and a NextBus official responded in comments, announcing that the site was in fact a beta site for the future WMATA NextBus site, expected to formally launch later this year.
At that point, DCist went back to Metro, to ask them whether what they had told us before was true, or whether the NextBus official was right. Metro then admitted the site we had seen was indeed a test site. A short time later, Metro ordered NextBus to take the beta site offline. Even more intriguingly, NextBus later asked Andrew to remove the comment their official had left on his blog. He declined to do so.
Since then, annoyed Metrobus passengers have been complaining. A lot. They've complained that they had been using the beta site for a while, and that Metro has ruined their lives by taking it down. They've complained that Andrew and/or DCist ruined their lives by doing our jobs as reporters and asking Metro to verify whether the site we had seen was authentic and/or accurate. They've railed against Metro's long history with NextBus, how they yanked the service back in the fall of 2007, and were now seemingly yanking it again.
In his weekly live chat today, Metro General Manager John Catoe responded to some of those complaints.
It's disappointing that Catoe feels he has to protect Metro's interests to the point that a beta test site can't remain online. Web sites are only improved by thorough testing and user feedback, and Catoe's lack of understanding of this process suggests he doesn't quite grasp the power of online tools to help improve the transit experience.There has been a lot of talk lately about Next Bus, which is a good thing because we expect Next Bus to be back up and running this July.
The return of NextBus is highly anticipated by many bus riders, and by many who were able to gain access to an internal test site over the last few months. We have restricted access to that test site, which has disappointed a number of people. Those people who were using the system have reported in blogs that the system was working well for them, and I’m pleased to hear that.
However, I have to take a much wider view of NextBus and the accuracy of its predictions. Launching a “beta” version may make sense for software developers, it doesn’t make sense for Metro. Before NextBus is fielded again, I have to be sure that it will work well for all of our bus riders. If we allow access to a test site, then we are in effect launching that site and service. That means we need to be ready to give anyone and everyone using that site our full attention if they have problems and complaints. All the disclaimers in the world won’t make any practical difference. If we were to allow access to the site, then, potentially, there would be hundreds of thousands trying to use something that just isn’t ready for prime time, yet. That means a flood of complaints, and we take every complaint seriously. If we allow the system to be used before we’re confident that its ready, then, although, it may be convenient for some, it just won’t work for everyone the way we envision it should. I would also take more resources, both financially and in terms of manpower that we aren't ready to commit yet.
When the system went off-line on October 31, 2007, we estimated that it would take up to 18 months to bring it back. That estimate was fairly accurate. Just be patient a few more months, and the service will be back up. There’s a saying “measure twice and cut once.” That’s what we are doing with NextBus to make sure we have everything in place to meet our goal of 95% accuracy on bus arrival times. This will be a significant improvement, and worth the wait.
Given Catoe's promise today that the site will return, fully operational in July, you can be sure DCist will be the first to ask on July 1 where the NextBus service is.
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Catoe can take his misunderstanding of what "beta" means and stick it. It's not as if hundreds of thousands of people didn't use Gmail when it was still "beta," or Flickr, or any number of other web sites and services. Twitter's not even an official beta anymore and it goes down all the time, and yet people still use it. Plus hasn't he ever heard of a soft launch?
WMATA needs a housecleaning, and whoever it is who thinks that transit information (1) has to be perfect first, and (2) is private and proprietary needs to be kicked to the curb. The NextBus beta should be public with a big ol' warning at the top ("This is a beta site. All information is believed reliable but use your best judgment."), and they need to get their routes into Google Transit already. This is ridiculous. If somebody wants to do the work -- or the testing -- for you, LET THEM!
clearly wmata's culture is diametrically opposed to technology culture.
ah, to be young and smarter than all the oldsters out there...
dcist might be the second to respond, if greater greater washington manages to get their message in first.
G-O-O-G-L-R
G-O-O-G-L-E even.
Metro fails again? Shocking!
And if the nextbus is anything like the repairs on escalators, expect the date to be pushed back 3 months, then 3 more months, then 3 more months, till hell freezes over.
Not that I am bitter about one of the exits in Columbia heights having an out of service escalator for 7 months+(and thus only one stationary escalator for people to walk both up and down)
What's really sad is that the unpublished beta wasn't hurting anyone, but was really helping the large number of people who knew about it. As this drama played out over the last 10 days, I was willing to HOPE that maybe this tempest could make an impact on WMATA, so others could share the beta. It's now clear, as I FEARED from the start, that our pleas fell on deaf ears, and no one will get to use NextBus before WMATA decides it's perfect enough to launch.
Hell yes, I was one of those users who complained. Maybe now the bloggers who not only wrote about the beta but also asked WMATA about it -- Dave, Andrew, and Sommer -- will understand why not everyone thought it was such a good idea.
As for Catoe's comments, I can barely restrain my contempt. At best, they underscore WMATA's basic failure to understand the development and deployment of technology: "We can't release anything until it is perfect, because one mis-reported data point is as important as 100,000 accurrate ones." Is it really more important to have no complaints on NextBus than myriad complaints about the bus schedule? (Which surely under-represents the public's view, because really who bothers?)
At worst, the proffered excuse is a smokescreen and WMATA is deliberately lying about the real reason -- probably budgets and contracts. I personally find it utterly mendacious to hold up the sanctity of their complaint-handling process as a reason for anything. As if the problems of individual, inconvenienced riders have ever had the "full and complete" attention of that organization!
As for the 18-month estimate, it's not "fairly accurrate" until we see the official launch. Here's a countdown clock to the end of July 2009: http://tinyurl.com/akm68w Shall we place bets on when NextBus will actually go-live?
I am so disappointed in Catoe, I can't even express it. He is stating such an incredibly dated and bureaucratic mindset that this problem truly goes beyond NextBus.
He is refusing to roll out a service for fear that somebody, somewhere might be disappointed by it. He does this knowing full well that there are hundreds if not thousands of people who are definitely disappointed right now by this decision. It is a decision reflecting fear of innovation.
While many of you may not ride buses, or not ride them enough to care about Nextbus, you still should be disappointed it this. Catoe and his leadership are afraid of innovation. Only once it has been tested, prodded, and vetted to death will he deign to let us do the same.
Catoe must go. He must go immediately. He has brought absolutely nothing to the job. For those few months we has Dan T., there was a spark of activity and a sense that Metro was turning the page into the 21st century. Catoe is a throwback to an old era. Where government's fear change and avoid taking a risk that an idea might not work out well enough to avoid making noise.
Catoe is a bureaucrat more nervous about his next job than he is about his current one.
He must go.
If you've ever managed a government project or a website project, you might have a little empathy for Metro's situation. Frequently the "beta" platforms put out by large service providers, such as Google, have been tested quite extensively to the tune of mountains of dollars and many man hours; they behave much closer to what Metro might consider to be a launch-worthy service.
Fair enough, but the fact is that I've been using this "beta" site for months and months and I was perfectly happy with it. It's only out of a fear that somebody else might stumble on it, fail to understand the nature of the site and complain about it that they shut down.
It's a bunker-down mentality and anyone making such a decision doesn't belong working for the public.
I'm one of those "beta" users who has been using the backdoor version of Nextbus for the past year or so, and when it's been online and active, it's been dead accurate for me, at least on the 96 route. I'm extremely disappointed with Catoe's position. I can't say I'm surprised, though. Metro disappoints predictably.
And speaking of disappointments, where are the SmarTrip upgrades we've been taunted with? A retard could set the system up so users could add fare and view usage statistics online.
This would never happen if we had a business, not a bureaucracy, running the bus system.
Yes, funfriends, because businesses always provide excellent customer service, as we all know from our experience with various phone, insurance, Internet, and other companies.
Catoe's response seems reasonable to me. I don't think it's fair to compare their handling of a beta version of the website to Goodgle's considering that a) Google has an army of programmers and b) Gmail is STILL in beta (whatever that means), so clearly Google's idea of "beta-testing" is different.
If the beta NextBus site was suddenly flooded with more users and complaints then they were prepared to handle, than that's a pretty good reason to take it down. Once you put it up for public consumption and publicize it, it's tricky to eliminate features. We only have to wait until July.
If the beta NextBus site was suddenly flooded with more users and complaints then they were prepared to handle, than that's a pretty good reason to take it down. Once you put it up for public consumption and publicize it, it's tricky to eliminate features. We only have to wait until July.
It's easy, they can just ignore the complaints. It's what they do best.
Plus, keep in mind that there have been hundreds if not thousands of people that have already used it, and guess what? No Fucking complaints! Otherwise in the serious manner that they supposedly take things, they would have already shut the test site down a while ago.
If they don't think it's ready for prime time, then just don't publicize it! Just simply allow those who want to use it to continue to use it. Or give people passwords to the test site after signing an agreement not to waste the precious time of Metro employees with complaints they weren't making in the first place.
For those of you who think this is no big deal, let me just ask you how you'd feel if they got rid of the next train arrival signs in the stations because they are occasionally inaccurate (which they are). Now imagine that to fix those few times that it's wrong, it will take more than a year and half to fix. So you have to wait a year and a half, denied the vast majority of the information which is completely correct because of the very small amount of information which is incorrect.
Now imagine that your train comes only every half hour to 45 minutes and that it's rarely on time (sometimes early, sometimes late).
Now imagine that after a year or so, you find out a way to get that information and that it's just as good as it was back when they said it wasn't. Then imagine that some worthless bureaucrat decides that you just can't be trusted with that information because you may become scared and confused when it's slightly off.
Now imagine how pissed you'd be when that worthless bureaucrat tells you to just be patient for another half a year.
This response is unacceptable and Catoe must be held accountable for it.
1) Catoe's a moron
2) Anyone who thinks that throwing a site up on the internet without even basic password protection is not the same thing as "allowing access" is a moron
On e-accessibility: I have a job, but not one makes affording a smart phone a top priority, nor does the job equip me with one. Think of the average person riding the bus. I can't say many of them have smartphones. What good is this service to me, really, when I'm determining how to get somewhere on the bus?
Isn't bus service, and thus knowing the bus arrival times (don't dare call it a schedule), supposed to be a lot more plebeian than this?
London has a phenomenal network of bus routes and bus shelters equipped with monitors indicating the next arrival. Has no one at Metro thought of doing a case study of successful systems in other cities? (I mean, they could justify a Simpson's Mayor Quimby-style factfinding mission to London...duh.)
Also -- I tried calling NextBus while waiting for an L2 the other night (forgot what date it was coming back, but a sign was up at the bus shelter). It took me over a minute to navigate the phone service...only to learn that it wasn't even working yet. (I had to hear a message about Ft. Totten, though, so maybe this is not typical.) Still, pretty typical Metro-style efficiency on the whole. (PS I walked home instead. Maybe Metro's intention is to get us into shape this way?)