If you're following me on twitter, you know that I gave NextBus another shot last night. I had an intense workout with my trainer (and I weighed in quite a few pounds lighter than expected), so I was beat! Too tired for the 1.75 mile walk home, I opted to catch the bus.
I arrived at Largo around 8:27pm, eleven minutes before the scheduled arrival time of the C22. I made the call to NextBus to see if the bus was running on time. The number leads you through a series of automated prompts, one of which asks you to enter your bus stop location number one digit at a time. Excuse me, but how the hell can I enter any number on my phone other thant one at a time? Anyways, the auto voice informed me that my bus was scheduled to arrive at 8:43pm...five minutes late. That's really not bad in the world of metrobus. I was also glad to see that I was incorrect in my previous assesment on this system. I originally reported that NextBus just rattled off the schedule of the bus. But last night's experience proved that NextBus does indeed provide semi-accurate, [sorta] real time information. I waitined another five minutes or so, and gave Nextbus a call again. The ETA was still 8:43pm. I mastered the voice prompts, allowing me to complete my call in 52 seconds.
While waiting for the bus, I noticed only two cars parked in the bus lot. Usually in the past, a ton of metro employees would park their cars here, placing their bright neon green vests atop their dashboard...as if it were a parking permit. I guess management put a hault to this practice.
I also got a good laugh out of this:
At 8:38pm, the bus arrived. It was on-time according to the printed schedule, but five minutes early according to the NextBus estimation. After boarding, I called NextBus again to see what it had to say now, at 8:40pm. "There is no bus arriving at this stop for quite a while. Please stay on the line for further assistance."
This leads me to wonder...how often does NextBus update? Are reporting points located at certain stops along the bus' route? How far apart are these reporting points?
Either way, the system seems to work thus far.
4 comments:
supposedly there are GPS units on the actual buses, that is how its real time info. as long as the unit on teh bus is working its seems to be a good system. (also you can browse to wmata.com or nextbus.com and bookmark your stop #s then just refresh the pages when you want to know the status) :D
I had a really lousy experience with NextBus last week, where it said an L2 would be at the stop in 3 minutes and it turned out to be an hour and fifteen.
Anyway.
But then someone took down the NextBus marker at the northwest corner of 18th & K NW! Fortunately, last night, I only had to wait about ten minutes or so.
I really wish there was a NextBus iPhone app.
There is a NextBus iPhone app - http://nextbusdc.com/iphone
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