Trip Planner and Next Bus issues. The past few months I've used them to transit from Silver Spring to Shady Grove. The J2 can cut twenty minutes of the trip timed correctly. This past Sunday I attempted to use and Next Bus said 38 minutes, Trip Planner said take the train and the bus schedule said five minutes. Five minutes later...the bus.

Two weeks ago, same situation, Next Bus said twenty minutes, schedule said 25 minutes, and Trip Planner said take the bus. It was raining so I took the train, only to see the bus pull up from the train platform.

by Redline SOS on Jan 4, 2010 3:07 pm  

I'll bite. My constant frustration is the NextBus phone-in system. I find that the voice system is overly sensitive to external noise. Anytime a large vehicle drives by, the system switches to "I didn't understand what you said" and it starts over. if they can't improve voice recognition, the simplest solution would be a button press only option (i.e. "press 1 for yes" instead of "say yes"). That way noise would not be mistaken for commands.

There's also a lot of wasted time with the auto-voice unnecessarily talking in full sentences.

Another thing I haven't completely confirmed is that the telephone system sometimes repeats some bus times twice and skips every other bus. I'm fairly sure this happens because I see the busses on the online system at my desk, but they disappear when I'm using the phone while waiting for the bus.

I've directly contact wmata about the first complaint with no serious response.

by dh on Jan 4, 2010 3:07 pm  

In response to Redline SOS, I have similar issues with the same routes so I always hope to catch a J1 instead of J2 or J3. The usual cause of this problem is that a bus driver doesn't turn the transponder on so it doesn't appear on nextbus. Based on no hard evidence, I sense this is happening more often. Better procedures to make sure the drivers remember to turn on whatever device has them appear on nextbus would be a very useful thing to address. Perhaps follow-up and pointed reminders to drivers who regularly forget might be a good approach.

by dh on Jan 4, 2010 3:12 pm  

Have the trip planner give you the nextbus ID of the stops it's directing you to. That way you can call in to see if it's on time.

by Michael Perkins on Jan 4, 2010 3:15 pm  

@dh - likely the issue and would be nice to ensure that all buses have it on and working. its not the only spot I've had issues with Nextbus at. At the medical complex near Montgomery Mall (J2 or Rideon 47) same or similar issues.

@Michael Perkins - the trip planner and nextbus are not the easiest or fastest ways to navigate on a blackberry. not all of the features work, so i tend to switch between BB OS and Opera mini to get as much info as possible.

by Redline SOS on Jan 4, 2010 3:19 pm  

re: NextBus - I wish that they told you where the next bus is located instead of telling you how long until the next bus is coming - traffic times are always approximate, and in my experience, usually wrong. It might not be feasible on the phone system, but on the website version why not produce a map with the current locations of the buses on the route?

re: TripPlanner - I wish that they would provide you with a search tool like kayak or farecast have for airfare so that you can easily hide certain results, specify which routes/transport methods you are interested in using, etc.

by grumpy on Jan 4, 2010 3:41 pm  

I got an erroneous result from Trip Planner several weeks ago (something about riding the red line from Dupont Circle to Farragut North to catch a bus which also stops at P & 20th!) and wanted to point out the error to someone at WMATA - because they always say if you don't tell us about a problem, we can't fix it. The only problem was there doesn't seem to be any accepted way to report these errors, and the Customer Contact lacks a "website" or "trip planner" category.

To that end, I suggested in my submission that Trip Planner should have a small link or button at the bottom of each itinerary it returns which would allow users to flag it as incorrect, or even some sort of rating system like Amazon's comments or Yelp's reviews. The more data WMATA can aggregate about where trip planner is making mistakes the more easily it (or its contractor) can tweak the algorithms to account for them.

by Erik W on Jan 4, 2010 3:46 pm  

how about some online bus maps that aren't enormous PDF's. just about every time I try to get one it times out or fails. google overlay anyone? am I missing something here?

basically, what I'm reading here is that WMATA needs to get the info into people's hands easily and efficiently. that and safety are really two areas that WMATA could improve with little to no cost, just a change in culture. here's hoping....

by dano on Jan 4, 2010 3:54 pm  

Trip Planner. its disconnected from reality.

• i put in u street the other day, and i got a list of locations in south africa, NE, CA, WA - and none in DC. email me and i'm happy to send the image.
  
• how about putting address tips in on the home page - especially the fact that intersections need to use an "&" not "and"
  
• can we link trip planner results with next bus and the train arrival systems so i check my entire trip from one spot?

by bryandc on Jan 4, 2010 3:56 pm  

Perhaps this is not "low hanging fruit" but I'd like the ability to send a text-message to get the next train arrivals at a given station. That way, if I am near a metro station late at night, I can send a text to see if a train is coming soon. The data is already online, it is just a matter of getting it in text-message format.

by Pat O on Jan 4, 2010 3:58 pm  

sorry - not trip planner, its "Find a Station" that's disconnected from the DC area:

http://www.wmata.com/rail/maps/find_station.cfm

so, is Trip Planner and Find A Station running on completely sets of data?

by bryandc on Jan 4, 2010 4:00 pm  

re: @grumpy.

Real-time and (almost real time) Google maps are available, you just have to get away from the WMATA website to find them. Change your bookmarks to use the NextBus website instead.

E.g. Here is the NextBus page for the S2 at 16th & U.
http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/prediction.shtml?a=wmata&r=S2&d=S2_S2_0&s=6867&ts=11820

Live Map (Java): http://www.nextbus.com/predictor/publicMap.shtml?a=wmata&r=S2

Google Map:
http://www.nextbus.com/googleMap/googleMap.jsp?a=wmata&r=S1&d=S1_S1v1_0&s=6867

I'm not sure why metro dumbed down the abilities of NextBus on their website, but they did.

Chris

by Chris on Jan 4, 2010 4:06 pm  

A way to contact WMATA from their mobile site. If you're accessing via Blackberry, there's no way to contact customer service. While you're waiting for or on WMATA vehicles is the perfect time to report vehicle and station problems, rather than remembering to do it when you get to a full computer.

by Adam F on Jan 4, 2010 4:29 pm  

The most annoying thing that I regularly encounter is that the trip planner fields do not retain your data. If it doesn't like the format I have to go back and retype everything from scratch. If I just want to change one of my endpoints, they're gone. I have to retype both from the beginning.

There has also got to be a way to allow browsers to auto-complete the fields with previously-used entries. Firefox can do this with many website fields, but not the trip planner. I'm guessing this has to do with the field properties in the page.

WMATA releasing the schedule data to Google would be the simplest way to solve the majority of these problems.

by Matthias on Jan 4, 2010 5:04 pm  

@Matthias, I agree that retaining the data would be great. I'm pretty sure the old trip planner did this.

by Pat O on Jan 4, 2010 5:06 pm  

trip planner should add a field for city and a state. in can ignore these fields for all I care, but when most people enter address they are use to entering the entire address including city and zip code. When you do that in trip planner it completly messes everything up.

by nathaniel rein on Jan 4, 2010 5:12 pm  

How about starting with removing that "do not enter city, state, or zip" and replacing it with something helpful, like "nearest intersection or neighborhood"?

I just dead stop at that every time trying to think about what it DOES want from me.

by jane on Jan 4, 2010 5:47 pm  

Increase the spacing between bus stops to increase flow through, and increase the cost of fares not paid with metropass. This should speed transport.

by SJE on Jan 4, 2010 8:06 pm  

Two things: Bus Bunching and NextBus. We keep hearing from Metro that theyÂ’re working on fixing both, but nothing seems to be happening. NextBus is a great tool when it works. When the busses start to bunch up (meaning that a bus never showed up at sometime earlier) NextBus seems to get confused, and it canÂ’t handle it (NextBus also doesnÂ’t seem to handle the first stop in a route well ever, it just reports the next scheduled departure). This makes using NextBus a guessing game. Do I trust that itÂ’s accurate, or do I just go with the schedule and experience? When itÂ’s accurate it saves me a lot of time, when itÂ’s wrong it costs me a lot.

by James on Jan 4, 2010 8:30 pm  

The B30 bus to BWI:

a) it should cost more for people without smarttrip cards (and maybe for people who do have them)

b) all fares should be in single-dollar increments: have you ever watched a group of tourists try to assemble $3.10 per person? Especially if they are unfamiliar with American currency? When the bus is already late and you have a plane to catch? I am one of the more committed transit-users I know and it makes me want to take a cab.

c) it needs to run more frequently. charging non smarttrip card users $5 a ride could help fund this. 40 minute headways are insane.

d) more luggage space would rock. Not much (transporting people has to come first) but a little.

e) the bus should pick up new riders at BWI when it drops folks off, allowing them to ride to the rail terminal and back around on the way to Greenbelt. The current way means that you have to stand there and freeze while the bus pulls away and picks you up a few minutes later.

by Stacy on Jan 4, 2010 10:53 pm  

I like the idea of being able to receive a text on a regular ol' cell phone about the next arriving train. When you're on the platform, this information exists just on the one overhead sign, and if you're at the far end (which you may be, since the trains pull all the way into the station now) you really can't see this sign at all.

by Dan on Jan 4, 2010 10:54 pm  

Next Bus -- The phone version seems to work about 50% of the time. As another complainer mentioned, it doesn't hear well.

Also, in Next Bus 2.0, the system should know that on Saturday and Sunday only the L2 bus runs on Connecticut Ave. so it should be smart enough not to ask for which bus.

by Steve Strauss on Jan 4, 2010 10:57 pm  

AWESOME suggestions, fellow riders! You got me motivated to follow up on helping to honor Metro's slogan of being the best ride in the nation. Want to assist? Let me know.

For now, I'm briefly responding to the above comments -- sorry for the long submission here!

@PatO and Dan -- Regarding text message-based trip planning, contact me at Dennis@GGWash.org?

@dh re: NextBus. The button option sounds real good. Anyone else's reaction? Thanks for mentioning NextBus' dependence on the transponder being set. DH, email me offline? Dennis@GGWash.org Steve Strauss, thanks for reinforcing the noise interference issue and mentioning weekend schedules.

@Michael Perkins: You're 100% on about importance of providing riders with StopID via trip planner and elsewhere, too, I'd add.

@Grumpy: You can select bus, rail or both. Any happier? ;-)

@Erik W: Contact me at Dennis@GGWash.org? I like the idea of adding a trip planner trouble button. How many riders "walk" away from their PCs irritated over a trip planner problem and they didn't see a convenient way to report it so Metro can keep its customers -- and potential supporters for more funding, eh? -- happy?

I'm obliged to point out: the customer service webform does indeed have a category for the website. It's the FOURTH drop-down menu! It's under, uh, "incident type." I don't quite understand the logic there. Internet... incident?

@Dano: Thanks for raising WMATA.com PDFs freezing up. Me too. Anyone else? Related to browser or ADOBE version?

@bryandc: If Metro does take you to South Africa, let me know -- even for four and a half bucks. Seriously -- The rail station finder isn't intended to provide you with the *address of a station. It's intended to provide you with the *name of a station **near an address ***you submit. I'll suggest that they change the wording to either "Find station nearby" or "Find station near this address."

To get the *address **of a station, go here:
http://wmata.com/rail/stations.cfm

@Adam F -- Right ON about adding Customer Service contact on website's mobile version! Sounds like an EZ fix to me.

@Mathias etal. -- Does anyone using trip planner experience it keeping starting/end points? I think different settings on privacy may allow -- or disallow this. For me, the front-page trip planner never remembers any data. The main trip planner page does -- on my roommate's computer. But on mine, using the same network, it remembers data only during the same browser session, until I exit and re-open.

A few years ago, I asked Metro to fix its default check box to remember your preferred maximum distance from a station/stop. It wasn't working after they gave us options for distance. They wound up eliminating the check box.

@Jane: Good point. I would propose these two changes: 1) Replace "Travel from location" with simply "From" and 2) Move to a more prominent place above the Address boxes in bold font, the text they do have lower on the page in almost greyed out text: "Enter address, intersection or landmark. Do not include city, state, zip code or any commas."

Chris, thanks for the mapology to help grumpy and all of us feel less grumpy!

@Stacy: Thanks for raising BWI bus frequency. Contact me offline? Dennis@GGWash.org

I think Metro is a great system -- sometimes. It sure can be greater. I want to see a Metro whose staff -- from top management through the rank-and-file -- *really honors its (semi-retired) slogan, "Metro Opens Doors." When Metro closes its doors to meaningful public involvement in its decisions, it frustrates riders to no end. That converts a naturally supportive constituency of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of riders into being disinterested in working to strengthen Metro.

by Dennis Jaffe on Jan 5, 2010 2:44 am  

Trip planner does not have all addresses in its service area. When trying to go somewhere in Fairfax that's only 100 yards from a bus stop, the system could not find the address--This is a common problem for me. If I'm going to the Mall or Gallery Place, I don't need trip planner. I need it to help me with buses to obscure places I don't frequently visit.

by D on Jan 5, 2010 10:37 am  

I have continuous problems with NextBus related to drivers who fail to turn on their transponder. Interestingly these are often the same drivers who pull up to the stop 10+ minutes late while their colleagues manage to run on time..

by Phil on Jan 5, 2010 12:01 pm  

I wanted to chime in on the problems Blackberrys have communicating with the NextBus system. you can't call the phone number and plug in the bus stop ID because NextBus is geared to old-fashioned cell phone keypads.

I finally bookmarked the NextBus web address in my Blackberry. But there again, it doesn't recognize a blackberry keypad. I have to scroll down the list of buses to get to mine (which is near the end of the list)

I love the service and use it regularly, especially on these very cold evenings. It's just an improvement Metro could make. After all, in DC, don't a lot of federal employees have Blackberrys?

by lou on Jan 5, 2010 1:00 pm  

Another problem for Nextbus is the stop id's

I have used it many times and after typing or saying the id I get info for the bus going the other way, while im at the correct stop.

by Kk on Jan 5, 2010 3:04 pm  

@lou: I donÂ’t understand what problem you are having when calling the NextBus phone number, it works fine on my BlackBerry, can you be more specific? I agree with your comment about this portion of their mobile web site. Not only are they not real BlackBerry friendly, theyÂ’re not friendly for any smartphone. Yet other parts of their mobile site are fine (e.x., the mobile Next Arrival tool will let you type the route number rather than select from a very long list), and some are much worse (look up a schedule from the mobile site and you need to enter the route number twice and load a page that does nothing). Metro needs to add some logic to their site to differentiate between smartphones and regular phones to make the pages easier to use when possible.

by James on Jan 5, 2010 9:11 pm  

Trip planner: Works great most of the time for what I need. Next bus works great on line and bookmarked on my Blackberry. It works about 95% of time for me on the 11Y. Both features enhance my interest in using Metro rail and bus. These incentives along with bus reliability, access, and speed contribute to the 11Y being filled to standing-room only capacity. On this bus line, the main thing Metro can do is to increase rider capacity to meet a growing need. Overcrowding is diminishing the experience and incentive for some to take public transportation. For me, it's not about improving trip planner or next bus - give us more seating capacity before we start losing ridership. Invest in what's working well - The 11Y! We'll work with Metro to make it even better.

by Joe Carbone on Jan 5, 2010 9:27 pm  

I attended the WMATA chat with Nat Bottigheimer a month or so ago to gripe about NextBus accuracy. For the route that I use most frequently (D6), there are many, many ghost-buses over the course of the day. This is especially galling during off-peak hours when the frequency is down. If I see buses coming at 2,22 and 98 minutes, clearly there's a missing bus. Most often, I can consult the schedule and actually catch a bus.

Nat's response was that it's a driver training issue (transponder comments above) and that they're aiming for the 95% predictability mark.

My only reaction to this is that it's all very well to aim for 95% on-time arrivals, but NextBus is for the 5% (likely more) occasions when the bus isn't on schedule.

Further, if I could easily pull the data, I could write a script in an hour that'd show them all the missing buses during a day. This is a simple data tracking and analysis issue that they should be able to manage.

I thought NextBus was in 'beta' for years while they worked out the kinks. A non-trivial percentage of missing buses didn't show up on the 'must-fix' list.

As for what they can do, how about a 'report missing bus' button in the NextBus app? How about a button of some kind on the bus that I can hit if I know I'm on a bus not showing up on the system? Should I just inform the driver? Even a listing of scheduled v/s actual bus arrivals would easily show the ones that are off-line.

by HM on Jan 6, 2010 10:52 am  

@Dennis: What do you know, the main trip planner page does indeed retain data, no matter how many searches I do. I had always used the widget on the home page. No more!

by Matthias on Jan 6, 2010 11:05 am  

@James,
When I punch in the ID number for the bus stop, it says it doesn't recognize the ID number. My husband, who has a regular cell phone, doesn't have that problem.

by lou on Jan 6, 2010 11:16 am  

It would be great to have a press-button option for NextBus. For me, it's not a hearing issue, I just LOATHE voice-response systems. I feel like an idiot intoning "NextBus" aloud to a computer.

Also, the system is confusing to first time users. The NextBus number listed on the bus stop is not identified as Metro's main number. So when you call and the voice says "say the service you need," my natural response was to say the name of the bus line. I had to go online to figure out what I was doing wrong.

by Erica on Jan 6, 2010 12:29 pm  

@All - Suzanne Peck, Metro's Assistant General Manager for Information Technology contacted me, in response to this post and its comments. She offered to meet with me and two other riders next week. I will continue to engage readers and to keep readers updated.

@HM - Contact me at Dennis@GGWash.org? Thanks for your comments. Perhaps we may make an inquiry with the union -- where there is indeed an awareness that the more riders appreciate Metro's rank-and-file workforce, the more supportive the public will be of investing in transit.

@Mathias - Glad to hear! I have to learn whether adjusting one's browser's "privacy settings" has an impact here. I believe the trip planner retains info for me only until I exit the browser.

@Kk and Others - Anybody else have Kk's experience of receiving NextBus results for a bus going in the opposite direction?

@All re: NextBus and capability of submitting request via cell phone button. Um, I'm from Jersey. NextBus thinks I'm speaking some foreign language. Yeah, I like the button idea :-).

by Dennis Jaffe on Jan 6, 2010 1:17 pm  

+1 to Erica's comment -- I hate the voice system for NextBus as well, and half the time it can't hear me correctly or gets "interrupted" by traffic noise and asks me to repeat myself when I have said nothing.
+1 to Stacy's suggestions for the B30 bus, I took it the day after Christmas and plan on avoiding it if possible in the future because of the overcrowded conditions.
@Chris - thanks for the tip - the maps are great!
@Kk - I've had that happen to me once but I can't remember the circumstances, does it mean that the sign was installed incorrectly? (switched with the one across the street it perhaps?)

by grumpy on Jan 6, 2010 6:18 pm  

@lou: I tried calling NextBus from several stops today from my BlackBerry and I didn’t have any problems. The stop ID is just a series of numbers, so this has nothing to do with NextBus “geared to old-fashioned cell phone keypads.” I’ve heard people claim that the BlackBerrys pick up more noise than other phones, have you tried muting the phone before trying to punch in the stop ID?

@ Erica: Metro fixed the confusion when you call for NextBus many months ago. Now one of the first things you hear is: “Say NextBus”

@Dennis: I was on the 2B this morning in Merrifield and the bus driver just pulled over and stopped for ten minutes without explanation. One of the riders asked several times what they delay was and he ignored her. By the time we go to Vienna Station, the train had just left. IÂ’ve seen this a few times lately and it irks me, because the busses are usually already late. IÂ’ve also noticed that more and more bus drivers seem to be intentionally driving slowly. The driver this morning was probably doing no more than 25 mile per hour on a long stretch of road where the speed limit is 40. This was in the middle of the day, so traffic was very light. More than once IÂ’ve missed a connection recently because of this. And it also causes problems for traffic behind the bus, because even when the bus is moving, everyone needs to go around it.

by James on Jan 6, 2010 8:34 pm  

Another annoying thing I've noticed is that Next Bus is often incorrect, specifically regarding the L2 line.

The L2 is great during rush hours, but seems to run on its own special schedule, irrelevant of what the timetables and NextBus say. At least 4 times in the past month, I've waited for a midday or evening L2. NextBus says the bus is coming in 10 or so minutes... I wait, and wait, and wait. Next Bus says the bus is 1 minute away, yet it never shows. Then it resets and says it's coming in another 40 minutes... or whenever the next scheduled bus is.

If the information WMATA displayed in the timetables and NextBus was actually accurate, this would make traveling much easier at no cost.

by Chris on Jan 7, 2010 12:25 pm  

How about Metro starts enforcing parking and standing regulations in the Kiss and Ride lot? I tried to pick up a friend this morning at Dunn Loring, and almost no one used the 15 minute waiting spaces (there were more than enough available). Instead they just parked in the isles between spaces preventing me from getting out once I had picked up my friend. ItÂ’s not as if itÂ’s an inconvenience to use the spaces either. This one should be a no brainer. WeÂ’re in a budget crisis here and people are being selfish by trying to save themselves 15 seconds whiles costing other several minutes. Metro should start handing out $200 tickets for parking or standing in an isle. Same for people who park or stand in bus bays.

by James on Jan 7, 2010 7:52 pm  

Why oh why oh why does Metro insist on continuing to use the Trip Planner when Google Transit is ultimately a superior solution? Metro is out of money, I understand. Save the money on keeping this troubled and error-ridden system running, turn the data over to Google, and let them make it sing.
Make the data public, and let clever people create apps for Blackberrys and i-phones and etc.
I never, ever trust the Trip Planner for anything requiring a transfer (I'll usually trust it for a straight shot). Often I can find a better solution by slogging through the schedules and figuring it out on my own.

One of the beautiful things about Google Transit is that you can see the map to go along with the routing. Zoom in; zoom out; satellite view; street view; etc. That is very helpful, and a feature that I don't imagine is likely to be included in the Trip Planner anytime soon. Even if it were, Metro would have to spend money that would be better spent on other things than duplicating (inferiorly, if that's a word) what is already available through Google.

Re: NextBus. I've only used a few times, but in every case the printed schedule turned out to be more accurate. Once it cost me a missed bus (NextBus claimed it was running late, but it turned up on time while I was still 1/2 block away.)

by Steve O on Jan 8, 2010 11:37 pm  

@steve o: data's already out there. Go here and start hacking away at it:

http://wmata.com/rider_tools/developer_resources.cfm

There are plenty of apps for iphone using GTFS, people should start making some android apps.

by Michael Perkins on Jan 8, 2010 11:47 pm  

first of all i agree with Steve O wmata should cooperate with google transit. trip planner is sad. but also why don't they include circulator info? they are the most reliable buses in the city (perhaps b/c wmata doesn't run them!)

by jen k on Jan 19, 2010 3:36 pm  

A couple of things - the Interactive Voice Response system used by WMATA is not, as I understand it, part of or owned by NextBus - NextBus only integrates with it and provides the predictions. I think the company that supplies the IVR system is Logic Tree. So any complaints should be pointed at them. Also, NextBus has a neat new GPS enable website that works on Android/iPhone any GPS phone - shows you the nearest stops to your phone, the predictions, a map showing the route of that stop and a map showing the phone and stop so you can get to it.

by Transit Happy on Jan 22, 2010 12:25 pm