PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA on Tuesday started making it easier for riders to plan for bus route detours. Instead of text descriptions detailing a left turn on this street and a right turn on that, SEPTA.org now includes a map showing each bus route’s detour.
“You can see where your detour is going on the various places on the web site that have a map, including both the route of the detour and which stops are skipped,” said SEPTA project manager Katie Monroe.
It’s a feature riders have long wanted.
“This is a common concern that we heard from riders, that it wasn’t the easiest way to understand the detours – to see those left, right, turn-by-turn directions,” she said.
“You know, not everyone has a mental map of all of Philadelphia’s streets in their head.”
She says it’s being tested on the website for now, and should appear on the SEPTA app and third-party apps in the coming months.
The maps are a beta feature being tested on the website for now and aren’t available on the SEPTA app or third-party apps yet, says SEPTA director of information design Lex Powers.
“Right now since it is in testing, it makes the most sense for it to be on our tool, so that we can monitor and control how it’s doing before going live more widely,” Powers said.
Powers says SEPTA is one of the first transit agencies in the country to provide visual representations of bus detours.
Last month, the SEPTA website and app added real-time information to eliminate “ghost buses” — those that are canceled but are not quickly removed from the “next to arrive” feature.
“Where your app is saying that a bus might come and then it doesn’t. You’ve been ghosted by your bus,” Powers said.
He says it’s part of a larger SEPTA effort to improve communication.