Morning Roundup: Local Ties Edition
DCist Preview: Thao & Portland Cello Project
Overheard in D.C.: A Strange World
D.C. Cutting Back its H1N1 Vaccine Clinics
The Weekly Feed: Running from Pigs Edition
Metro is relaunching Next Bus on Wednesday, July 1. The service originally debuted about two years ago, but WMATA wasn't happy with its accuracy, which it said was only about 80 percent, so they shut down the pilot program in October 2007. After spending almost two years making upgrades, Next Bus is back, and we want to hear from bus riders as they try out the improved real-time Metrobus locating system.
There are three basic ways to access Next Bus information (much of which is already up and running, though the official release is tomorrow morning).
By Phone: When you're at any Metrobus stop, you can call 202-637-7000 to get location information for the bus you're waiting for. You have to say "Next Bus" when prompted, then enter the bus stop number that's listed on the Next Bus sign on the stop post, as well as the bus route number. You will then hear the estimated arrival time of the next bus at your stop.
Internet: From any web enabled mobile device (or from your home computer), go to http://wmata.nextbus.com and enter your bus stop number. You can also choose the route number, direction and stop location instead, by using the drop down menus. (Metro keeps insisting in their Next Bus press materials that you start at MetroOpensDoors.com to find the Next Bus link, but it's not on their homepage yet, and we'd rather send you straight to the tool anyway). Next Bus will then give the estimated arrival time of the next three buses at your stop.
LED Signs: Some popular Metrobus stops have been outfitted with LED signs that actually show you when the next bus is arriving, similar to the Metro system. If you are at a bus stop with an LED sign, all you have to do is look up. For the curious, there are currently only 38 such signs out of 12,000 bus stops, and they are mostly located at the Friendship Heights, Anacostia, and Pentagon bus transfer stations, as well as along the Ballston/Rosslyn corridor.
As you try out the system over the next couple of days, make sure to drop us a line at tips@dcist.com to share your experiences. Same goes for the recently launched Circulator tool that serves the same basic function, Where's My Bus?
UPDATE: We've updated this post with the url for the mobile app, which redirects to http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/nextbus/arrivals.cfm, the original link we published, in a regular browser.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Don't forget the mobile version, perhaps the most useful one of all! http://wmata.nextbus.com/wireless/miniRoute.shtml?a=wmata
Oops. Looking back I guess you did mention the mobile site; but when I pull it up by the URL you gave on my BlackBerry, I get the full HTML (desktop) version of the site. I have to use the one posted in my first comment to get the mobile version.
http://wmata.nextbus.com worked better for me than the full URL you posted...
Great thanks for the feedback, I've made a note of it above.
No one should use the link in the story on their mobile device, it won't work right.
Go to http://wmata.nextbus.com instead.
Keep up the great "reporting."
Dude, what's with the snarky scare quotes? This is useful information, totally appropriate for DCist.
Dude, what's with the snarky scare quotes? This is useful information, totally appropriate for DCist.
So far this looks pretty slick - well designed and usable, with a full list of stops for each route. Should be useful.
Christmas in July.
Used it earlier and it was dead on...
Played around and created some code to put my favorite route options from home to work and work to home on the same page. Loads perfect on iphone too and even updates while open in the iphone browser..
http://tinyurl.com/nmekhe
Feel free to grad the code from there and play around for yourself, just change the ?r=***** part to match that from the individual search pages. (That may or may not make sense) And resize as necessary.
Sweet -- thanks for this because I just got this working on my iGoogle page. Plus I wrote directions for how to do it yourself:
http://blog.evanwilder.com/2009/07/how-to-embed-nextbus-dc-in-igoogle
PS sorry about the duplicate comments last night. it must be a bug with posting comments on an iphone.
I tried it today while waiting for the L1 at the corner of Mass & 20th. WMATA's damn voice-activated system makes it nearly impossible to access Next Bus' services properly in any loud or well-trafficked area.
On top of that, it didn't recognize my bus route. No matter how many times I said "L1" and in what pronunciation or in what volume, Next Bus didn't understand me. It just kept telling me, "OK. I'll give you the whole schedule for the next hour." I listened through it a couple times only to discover that the L1 wasn't even listed, though it comes to that stop.
Ten minutes into my attempts, the L1 came.
Beta Bus? This sucks.
@heryandotus that persnalized multiple route page is a genius use of iframes. I'm going to make one for myself now. I'd also like to try and get something like that workng on my iGoogle page.
@heryandotus that persnalized multiple route page is a genius use of iframes. I'm going to make one for myself now. I'd also like to try and get something like that workng on my iGoogle page.
@heryandotus that persnalized multiple route page is a genius use of iframes. I'm going to make one for myself now. I'd also like to try and get something like that workng on my iGoogle page.