As much as I would love to have all the transit perks that bigger, denser cities enjoy, I know it is simply not to be.
St. Petersburg doesn’t have the transit budget – or the commitment to transit use – that cities like Portland or San Francisco have. We don’t have real-time displays at bus stops, telling us how long we can expect to wait for the next bus.
But just because we can’t actively push transit information to customers, that doesn’t mean we can’t passively make it available to them in real time. This sign – spotted at a stop on 4th Street South – gives the rider plenty of options for finding out exactly how many more interminable minutes he or she will have to stand in the oppressive afternoon sun waiting for the next bus. A phone number, a website, a textback service – hey, we even use QR codes, which I think is great.
What would be even better is if we actually wrote in the stop number – which seems to be required information if you don’t have a QR reader on your phone – on the sign itself, instead of putting it on a sticker that can (and inevitably will) be ripped off.
Great idea, PSTA. The execution, not so much …
Place is everything.
Paul
May 4, 2012
Here in the Puget Sound region, we have a system called OneBusAway. It’s not always accurate (it requires several transit agencies to provide their schedules on a timely basis) but it does a pretty good job.
The thing that irks me about it, though, is that it’s not well publicized. There is rarely any information about how to call to get information – or even that OneBusAway exists at all – even at the larger stops. Sometimes, a stop number is displayed as a stop number. Typically, though, you have to look for three sets of numbers separated by dashes. The central series of numbers is the stop number. Someone who hasn’t done a lot of research ahead of time is out of luck.
So, you’re lucky to have signs like these. Ours don’t even have QR codes.
Spencer
May 4, 2012
Really? That surprises me (the bit about the QR codes, I mean – I guess sometimes I don’t give St. Pete enough credit).
I often think about how much transit ridership could be improved if agencies just did a competent job getting route and schedule information out there. To me, that’s an essential part of marketing those services. If you make it hard for people to figure out how to use your services, they just won’t bother.