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Riders welcome T's real-time arrival services

Print | Comments () Posted by Martin Finucane September 13, 2010 01:48 PM

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By L. Finch, Globe Correspondent

Twice a week, David Foucher of Boston is a gambler.

What every bus rider wants to see

Waiting at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street this morning to catch the MBTA's Route 1 bus, which takes him to his job across the river in Cambridge, Foucher, 42, said he never checks the bus schedule because he considers it disconnected from reality.

So he has waited, gambling that a bus will come soon, with no way to know whether his stay in public transportation limbo will last three minutes or 30.

Until now.

Hub commuters at two busy Boston bus stops this morning were pleased to hear that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority announced last week that it had released real-time bus location and arrival information last week for all 187 routes, and that private software developers had made the information available through several websites, smartphone applications, and cellphone services.

“It sounds like a great idea,” Foucher said, as he pulled out his smartphone to check out one of the apps. His bus pulled up a few minutes later at 10:01 a.m., just as predicted. “I would use it probably.”

Another T rider, however, was more downbeat. Though it would be nice to know when the bus will arrive, it doesn’t change the inconvenience of a bus route that runs infrequently, said Mark Landis, 35, who was waiting at the same stop.

He said sometimes he gives up and just walks to his job in Cambridge. “I know I’ll get there if I walk the 20 minutes,” Landis said. “I don’t know that I’ll get there if I wait," he said.

Landis, who does not have a smartphone, allowed, however, that he might use the Web-based product to help plan his commute. At least the service takes away the uncertainty, he said, as the route CT1 bus pulled up at 10:15 a.m., as the service had forecast, after a 6-minute wait.

Marissa Walsh, 24, sipped the last of her morning coffee as she waited for the Route 1 bus at the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street to go to work. A reporter using one of the services told her that she had only two more minutes before the bus arrived.

Walsh, who said she already uses the MBTA’s Trip Planner service everyday to find out scheduled bus arrival times, said the service sounded like something she would use. On the whole, arrival times in real-time seem like a step in the right direction, she said.

Sure enough, the Route 1 bus pulled up at 10:28 a.m., just as the service had predicted. With no more time to talk, Walsh dumped her coffee in a trashcan and hopped on board.

To learn more about the new real-time arrival products, several of which are free, go to mbta.com/apps.