It is the best of times and the worst of times for the launch of the Maryland Transit Administration's online, real-time bus-tracking system, now available on the MTA website via desktop computer and mobile phone.
On one hand, it's a technological blessing; nothing could be better for bus riders in the bitter February of 2015. Knowing almost exactly when a bus will arrive, down to the minute, means we can time our walks to the bus stop, eliminating long, stupid waits in face-numbing cold.
On the other hand, expectations have been raised. So when real-time tracking doesn't work — which is about half the time, in my experience — then you're left waiting in the freeze, sighing and cursing, cursing and sighing, regretting that you didn't invest in an Under Armour base layer.
So kudos to the MTA for finally getting MyBusTracker online. And I salute them for daring to launch in the middle of winter.
But there are issues with the system — some of them technical, some purely human — that prevent riders from getting real-time information on every bus.
Here's how it was explained to me:
The new system is integrated with an old system, called CAD-AVL, which stands for Computer Aided Dispatch and Automatic Vehicle Location system. It's what the MTA has used to track buses internally for a couple of decades; it's based on the Global Positioning System and radio hardware. It's supposed to be aboard all buses.
Because CAD-AVL uses a radio signal, some buses drop off the tracking system at times. But there's another problem: If a bus driver doesn't log into CAD-AVL, then the bus can't be tracked.
For the shivering rider in the street, that means no real-time information. And that means we're standing at square one again: waiting and sighing, waiting and cursing, not knowing for sure when our next bus arrives.
Note: Buses that are not being tracked in real time still appear in the online tracker when you search for them, but there's a bold-faced "s" in parenthesis next to their arrival times. That means you're getting the "scheduled" time, not reality. Reality is what bus riders want, and I can think of no innovation in public transportation that could do more to recruit new riders to the system.
Before I go on, pardon me while I have an interlude: To be fair, the MTA just launched this baby. It's a beta launch. The system is being tested. Every new system has issues. I understand and appreciate that. In time, hopefully, all of this will be worked out. Thanks to everyone at MTA for their efforts in adapting software that puts the CAD-AVL information at our fingertips, on our computers and smartphones. End of interlude.
With every technological innovation, we ask: What's it worth? Is it really necessary? Is this just a trend, or is it something that will make life better than it was last year or last week?
Real-time bus tracking might sound like a convenience, something that only affects Marylanders who have already chosen to get around regularly on public transportation and who can afford smartphones. But MTA riders deserve this. If anything, it's an overdue sign of respect to the system's customers.
Real-time tracking is also a great opportunity to attract new customers. And new customers for the MTA is a good thing for society generally — fewer cars on the roads, less consumption of fossil fuels, less carbon emission.
Can real-time tracking — and a fully developed app, as opposed to the current MyBusTracker software — bring new riders to MTA buses?
I think it will, and for a number of reasons, most of them connected: the migration of young adults to Baltimore, with the city increasingly seen as an attractive place to live, study, work and play; their love of touch-screen technology and their increasing dependence on it; their willingness to try modes of transportation other than the single-occupant automobile; the growing numbers of immigrants who are being invited to live in Baltimore or its immediate suburbs; concern about climate change reaching a tipping point and forever modifying human behavior.
So give those tech-savvy young and new Americans reliable bus service and a real-time arrival app, and the MTA will see new customers. A study of the Chicago Transit Authority's bus-tracker, published in 2012, found modest but steady gains in new riders within a few years after the system was introduced in phases, starting in 2006. The longer the system was online, the more riders were drawn to it, the study found.
As time goes by, the same thing could happen here — if the present system gets up to full speed, if there's a transition to a downloadable app in the near future and if the MTA markets this technology, targeting people who don't even look at bus schedules now because they believe the system will be unreliable, and leave them standing in the cold. Keep building it; they will come.
Dan Rodricks' column appears each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. He is the host of "Midday" on WYPR-FM.