Comments on: Connectivity http://www.masstransitmag.com/interactive/2008/02/21/connectivity/ Mass Transit's editor, Fred Jandt, speaks weekly on critical issues facing the public transportation industry. Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:20:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Rodney Rutherford http://www.masstransitmag.com/interactive/2008/02/21/connectivity/#comment-2946 Rodney Rutherford Fri, 22 Feb 2008 21:26:11 +0000 http://www.masstransitmag.com/interactive/2008/02/21/connectivity/#comment-2946 Seattle's Metro Transit has http://mybus.org which was developed a number of years ago, and tracks the real-time position of your bus and estimated arrival time. It has great data, but the presentation is very web 1.0, somewhat difficult to navigate on handheld devices, etc. It seems to have been dormant for several years, and its a shame that it hasn't evolved since then. Seattle’s Metro Transit has http://mybus.org which was developed a number of years ago, and tracks the real-time position of your bus and estimated arrival time. It has great data, but the presentation is very web 1.0, somewhat difficult to navigate on handheld devices, etc. It seems to have been dormant for several years, and its a shame that it hasn’t evolved since then.

]]> By: Nate Jones http://www.masstransitmag.com/interactive/2008/02/21/connectivity/#comment-2944 Nate Jones Fri, 22 Feb 2008 14:31:51 +0000 http://www.masstransitmag.com/interactive/2008/02/21/connectivity/#comment-2944 ITS is great! The problem that most often occurs is when softare is selected by IT people (god forbid), a commitee consisting of non-departmental or administration who don't understand the concept of transit, paratransit or capability of the people who use it. We were forced to change from a simple scheduling/dispatching software that never never gave us a problem to an overpriced,convoluted,archaic in it's functionality system that is not the worst system I've ever seen but the very worst I have used in over 18 years of software. Our system has spent over 1/4 million dollars on a software our department literally hates and despises using everyday because it is not user friendly, the manufactuer will not listen. They think operations are suppose to conform to software not software conform to the needed operations. And of course if a problem occurs this company is famious for blaming the end-user however a few months later they almost always send out a "patch" to fix the problem. It takes a reservationist approximately 60% longer to take a reservation and I would estimate our customer service attitude has diminished at least 40% because it is just too burdensome to look for that little trip opening that use to take 30 seconds and now takes 5 - 10 minutes. Moral is at an all time low and after almost 4 years it is growing worse. I even had an FTA staff member say "I don't know why systems are still using that "thing"! Of couse the ITS geeks love what is going on inside the computer but I have never talked to another end-user who likes it. There is always some type of problem with it because it is too complex and it does not need to be. Lesson to be learned. You would not let a mechanic pick out accounting software - don't let anyone else (especially ITS) pick out paratransit scheduling/dispatching software. Any ITS system is best when it performs the function needed not 80% of what is not needed. Nate ITS is great! The problem that most often occurs is when softare is selected by IT people (god forbid), a commitee consisting of non-departmental or administration who don’t understand the concept of transit, paratransit or capability of the people who use it.

We were forced to change from a simple scheduling/dispatching software that never never gave us a problem to an overpriced,convoluted,archaic in it’s functionality system that is not the worst system I’ve ever seen but the very worst I have used in over 18 years of software. Our system has spent over 1/4 million dollars on a software our department literally hates and despises using everyday because it is not user friendly, the manufactuer will not listen. They think operations are suppose to conform to software not software conform to the needed operations. And of course if a problem occurs this company is famious for blaming the end-user however a few months later they almost always send out a “patch” to fix the problem. It takes a reservationist approximately 60% longer to take a reservation and I would estimate our customer service attitude has diminished at least 40% because it is just too burdensome to look for that little trip opening that use to take 30 seconds and now takes 5 - 10 minutes. Moral is at an all time low and after almost 4 years it is growing worse. I even had an FTA staff member say “I don’t know why systems are still using that “thing”! Of couse the ITS geeks love what is going on inside the computer but I have never talked to another end-user who likes it. There is always some type of problem with it because it is too complex and it does not need to be. Lesson to be learned. You would not let a mechanic pick out accounting software - don’t let anyone else (especially ITS) pick out paratransit scheduling/dispatching software. Any ITS system is best when it performs the function needed not 80% of what is not needed.

Nate

]]>