T to test real-time alert system

Text-messages, e-mails to warn riders about delays

At South Station yesterday, some riders said the real-time alert system is preferable to the way they usually learn about delays. (Justine Hunt/Globe Staff)

It may not reduce the number of delays along a rider's MBTA route, but a new text-message and e-mail alert system should at least make the commute more predictable for some commuters, transit officials say.

The real-time alert system will send riders who subscribe to the service a text message or e-mail as soon as a schedule change or delay is reported along their commute.

Subway riders at South Station yesterday said the system, which is set to launch this week for a test run among 3,000 riders, is preferable to the way they usually learn about delays - showing up at their stop and seeing no train.

"There were many times when I took the T and was late for midterms," said Jennifer Edmonds, a 21-year-old Boston University student. Receiving an alert on her cellphone would give her time to plan her commute better, she said.

The initiative is a customizable version of the service alerts that appear on the authority's website, said Daniel A. Grabauskas, general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

"We heard from our customers that that's great, but if you really want to accommodate the lifestyle of the average person these days, you've got to go mobile," Grabauskas said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Commuters can go to the "rider tools" tab on mbta.com and sign up by entering an e-mail address and choosing the subway, train, bus or commuter boat routes they use (While personal digital assistants - PDAs - and many cellphones accept regular e-mail, most modern cellphones also can accept text messages sent by e-mail). Riders also can choose whether they want service alerts affecting the morning, midday, evening, or late-night commuting hours and whether they want alerts when elevators and escalators are out of service.

"We don't want to overburden people with more information than they need," Grabauskas said.

While the MBTA will not charge for the service, users would face text-message or data charges from their cellular service providers.

"They have a lot of delays, so that's a lot of text messages," said Esohe Osazuwa, an 18-year-old student at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, who travels to South Station from Providence as part of her commute.

She said she might consider signing up for e-mail alerts, which she would check from her computer before leaving home.

"Maybe if they said they would pay our text bill," said Asia Smith, a 19-year-old Pine Manor College student who also commutes from Providence. "Text messages aren't free."

MIS Sciences Corp., the Burbank, Calif., company that won the contract to provide the service, also has set up alert services for transit systems in Washington D.C., Toronto, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The MBTA paid the Burbank firm $86,500 for the first two years of service.

Grabauskas said the authority has no projections for how many riders may use the service. In Washington, D.C., more than 180,000 people have signed up.

Only the first 3,000 people who sign up on the T's website, beginning Wednesday afternoon, will begin receiving alerts right away, Grabauskas said. Using feedback from those users, the authority hopes to open the system in January to all interested riders, he said.

Officials have been testing the system among T employees to work out logistical kinks, and they have tried to make sure the alerts are written without acronyms or transit jargon, Grabauskas said.

Users of PDA's and cellphones with web browsers already can call up the authority's website to see system-wide service alerts.

Grabauskas acknowledged that some T stations do not have cell service, meaning a person waiting at one without cellular service would have to find out the old-fashioned ways, by peering down the tunnel or listening for track announcements.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.