During months of chronic delays on Boston's suburban trains, commuters have complained that official announcements about late trains are often incomplete, late, or nonexistent.
A New Jersey commuter is trying to change that by taking the MBTA and its operator out of the equation. The idea is simple: harness the collective knowledge of each commuter and share it on cellphones and Blackberries.
"What started as maybe a handshake agreement with a couple of my buddies" now involves thousands of riders who use New Jersey Transit, New York's Metro-North rail system, and the Long Island Rail Road, said Joshua Crandall, who founded Clever Commute two years ago.
Crandall, who still has a day job as an information technology strategist, has begun expanding the free service to Boston, London, San Francisco, and elsewhere.
Crandall's efforts coincide with the launching of a similar MBTA pilot project, which sends e-mails and text messages to 3,000 riders and is expected to be available to all riders early next year.
The major difference, according to Crandall and several riders: Official knowledge often lags behind the real-life experiences of riders on the tracks and platforms. T officials say the difference is accuracy, which depends on verifying the delays.
"I stand there some mornings, we're all standing there and the train is 15 minutes late," said David B. Weden III, 49, a financial analyst from Dover who usually takes the Needham line. "And we have no idea how late the train is, why it's late, or anything like that."
Crandall says transit officials are often more concerned about making excuses for the delays than informing riders, who just want to know how late the schedules are and whether they should adjust their plans. During the Dec. 13 snowstorm that snarled Boston commuters for hours, he adjusted his trip home to Montclair, N.J., after learning from fellow travelers that it was better to take the PATH train to Hoboken. When the storm hit Boston, the MBTA website's service alerts were unavailable for long stretches.
Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Trans portation Authority, said the T's new service does not have a lag time.
"We verify [the information] before we put it out, but it's pretty quick," he said. "Anything that comes from an unofficial source may have errors in it that we try to screen out."
One rider who began using the MBTA's pilot service earlier this month said she feels more comfortable hearing from an official source. "It's very informative and timely," said Laurie Petrovick, a database manager from Beverly.
Crandall's alternative service, which he hopes to patent, works like this: Riders sign up for free with an e-mail address or a cellphone number on the Clever Commute website, indicating what train line they use. When a rider sees a problem on the tracks, he or she sends an e-mail to Clever Commute, which sends an instant e-mail or text message to every member on that line.
The effectiveness of the system relies on the number of people who send messages and the accuracy of their information. Currently, there are only a handful of users in Boston and not many e-mails going out.
It is to commuting what websites like Wikipedia are to more generalized topics, a mostly reliable source put together by the people who use it. But Crandall asks his users to stick with short and simple commuting messages so fellow users will not be bombarded with diatribes on current events or advertisements.
Jeff Larson, general manager of Boston's SmartRoute Systems, is intrigued with Clever Commute and has signed up to see if he can depend on the information for his 511 update service, which monitors car traffic as well as public transportation.
"It's people power," said Larson, who depends on drivers to call in information about highway tie-ups for his service.
Tom Prior, 56, a commuter from Westwood, said he already depends on "an informal gang on the platform" to learn of delays. Like a lot of business commuters, he keeps a Blackberry with him and hopes to get more frequent updates from a larger group.
"I would probably find something not related to the T probably more accurate," Prior said.
Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.
