This service has been extremely useful to me over the past month and since I hear no one talking about it, I want to pass the word along. Have you ever been standing at the bus stop and wondered how long before your bus arrives? If anyone has ever travelled to other major cities you may have seen this information available on a ticker LED display right on the bus stop shelter.
Metro may be a little behind in offering these lighted signs to Seattle bus riders, but believe it or not, the technology is there. You now have access to accurate real-time bus arrival information for ANY stop in King County on multiple platforms. From your phone, call 206-456-0609 and select from the menu to locate your stop number. You will then hear the next few busses that are scheduled to arrive at your stop. You can also access this info via web for an easy to read timetable that is updated every minute. It’s great for having on your screen while you’re getting ready before you leave your house. SMS and iPhone-optimized webpage is also available. I love this service, check it out! And best of all, it’s free.
…by making this info unmissable at their bus stops. I mean… they’ve gone to the trouble to number each stop, and create the phone number to call… why not close the loop and put the easy-to-follow instructions at every stop, too?
Anyhoo, the iPhone-enabled website is in my phone, now. Thanks, Swift Alberto!
Just to clarify, this service is NOT brought to us by Metro. Brian Ferris is a grad student at the University of Washington who came up with the idea and built the infrastructure for this service.
Read about Brian here
I’ve been using this as well, and have for the most part loved it. It’s been incredibly accurate and quick, except during the snowpocalypse… when the info stream from Metro was utterly useless and rendered this website as feeble as Metro. All in all though, it works very well. I love that it tracks delays and as Albero suggested, I never leave my apartment in the morning without first checking the site to determine the direction I head. Thanks Albero for getting the word out and many, many thanks to Mr Ferris for providing access to this information with such a simple interface.
I’ve used mybus.org (which seems largely unmaintained, but still functional) and metro tracker[1], but maddened by both because of a disconnect between the stop number required for the service an ANYTHING identifiable at a particular bus stop. This fills the gap!
[1] for example: http://trackerloc.kingcounty.gov/avl.jsp?id=1124
Brian made the data more accessible (via phone, iPhone, website, etc) but the data are still provided by KC Transit.