The Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART) kicks off the work week by officially launching another time-saving feature for HART customers; the new dynamic trip planner option on OneBusAway Tampa will truly enhance the rider's experience. With this new feature, OneBusAway Tampa becomes a one-stop shop for HART travel information. HART is the first U. S. transit agency to launch the trip planner feature of OneBusAway.
The trip planner is particularly helpful for everyday transit riders, and will make it much easier for visitors and tourists to navigate the transit system. By receiving a graphic display with up-to-the-minute bus time information right in the palm of one's hand, OneBusAway totally eliminates the need for maps and schedules, saving patrons time, while relieving the stress of wondering when the bus will arrive.
"We're excited to offer tools that our riders and the community can benefit from and this is just another example of our great tech focus," said HART Intelligent Transit Systems Coordinator Shannon Haney. "We hope the added ease will attract new riders."
How to use the OneBusAway Trip Planner
To use the new feature, riders must do the following:
1 - Click the menu bar in the upper left-hand corner
2 - Select the option to "Plan A Trip"
3 - Type in the departing location (From:), the arriving location (To:), also the time and date. Then, your trip will be planned.
The OneBusAway Trip Planner will display 3 bus route options, with each option giving the next departure time closest to the intended time you wish to travel, along with the travel time. The trip planner will notify you if the end time of your selected trip has changed by at least 2 minutes, or if your selected trip plan is no longer recommended.
Since it was originally launched, the number of hits on OneBusAway Tampa has skyrocketed. HART has achieved quite an impressive 208 Million hits in a 12 month period, or 800,000 hits per weekday. That robust level of user activity shattered first-year expectations. Thanks to OneBusAway, riders save time, effort, and stress and can be reassured regarding the arrival time of their bus.
"We are very pleased by the positive response that OneBusAway Tampa has received by our riders since its launch almost 3 years ago," said HART Chief Executive Officer Katharine Eagan. "We're looking forward to getting feedback from our riders to see if the new feature helps improve their ability to use transit to reach their destinations."
HART is leading the way in terms of customer service technology as the first transit agency in the country to offer this OneBusAway app-enabled trip planning capability. In addition, HART was the third in the country to launch OneBusAway, real-time departure information and native OneBusAway apps. Meanwhile, this dynamic technology helps to reduce call volume at the HART customer service center, which makes the whole system run more efficiently. Instead of having to call HART to find out the location of their bus, customers can find that information instantly and directly, using their OneBusAway app.
