Results tagged “nextbus”

WMATA now says that NextBus, e-alerts, debit card transactions, SmartBenefits and all other remaining electronic systems that were affected by today's outage were back online by 3:30 p.m. this afternoon. NextBus was indeed working when we tested it just before 5 p.m. Be sure to let us know if you run into any continuing problems on your commute home this evening.

We've been following the massive systems outages at WMATA all day, and now Metro says that its public address system is again up and running. Debit card transactions, credit card purchases of more than $20, NextBus, SmartBenefits and the e-alert system are all still not functioning, however. We'll be keeping an eye on the situation as the evening commute rapidly approaches.

• Metrobus fareboxes are functioning, although some bus operators had difficulty logging onto them earlier this morning. If that was the case, customers were allowed to ride without paying.
• The Bus Operations Control Center had early difficulty communicating with buses on the streets, however bus radios came back into service at about 10 a.m.
• All reservation and dispatch systems for MetroAccess returned to use at about 10 a.m.

WMATA's NextBus tool has been officially back up and running for just a little over a month now, and last week the developers at NextBus launched their own iPhone application (now $2.99 from the iTunes store). For iPhone users, the application is well worth the purchase price, thanks to enhanced GPS and mapping features.

In light of the deadly accident that killed nine people on Metro's Red Line on June 22, there's been plenty of talk about what's wrong with Metro -- and rightfully so; the agency is now at a obvious turning point in its history, where it suddenly needs to navigate a calamitous disaster and forge some sort of path regarding its future.

One day into to the official relaunch of WMATA's Next Bus service, and we've heard a lot positive feedback from bus riders about the usefulness of the system. But some problems with the real-time Metrobus arrival tool are already apparent.

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.

Fairly exciting news from WMATA: the transit agency let the world know this morning that they are planning to relaunch the much-clamored-for Next Bus service on July 1. In preparation, your bus stop du jour will be getting new signage anyday now. The Next Bus system, which uses GPS technology to accurately estimate the real-time arrivals of buses, should really assist those of us -- all of us, I should say -- who know the frustration of waiting forty minutes in the rain for a Metrobus, only to find three bunched buses, arriving at the same time.

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.

The other day we were sent a link to a live website for NextBus, the previously suspended service that tracked where Metrobuses are and when they'll be at different stops. The site looked pretty good— you could enter your location and destination for any bus line and see when the next three buses will show up, or you could look at a live map that showed the location and direction of buses in real time so you could plan your trip.

A typical weekday morning for yours truly involves catching the next train out of Van Ness-UDC to Dupont Circle. And more often than not, there's a train waiting for me at the station when I get there. No problems, right?