PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA said in the coming months, it'll be offering riders more reliable information about when the next bus or train will arrive.
Commuters have long lamented the lack of accurate real-time information on how long they'll have to wait. Transit advocate Jon Geeting said as much to the SEPTA board this month.
"Displaying more real-time information about the existing schedules, I think, is one of the easier ways to improve riders' experience and rebuild ridership and to give transit-curious people more information about when the bus comes and where it goes,” he said.
SEPTA's Chief Technology Officer, Elisa Cuningham, said the challenge has been delivering consistent information across the website, its app, and station signs.
"Within the next 3 to 6 months, we will be looking at potentially rolling out additional signage. But you should start seeing incremental improvements to real-time data that you see actually displayed on the signs,” Cunningham said.
She said earlier this year, SEPTA formed a data team to tackle the complex task of aggregating information from a variety of vehicles to generate reliable arrival times.