Predicting the arrival of Detroit Department of Transportation buses is about to get easier.
Detroit City Council approved a three-year, $1.2 million contract for a vehicle tracking system that DDOT’s Director Robert Cramer says should reduce the often frustrating wait times for city buses.
The approval comes a day after Cramer told the council’s Public Health and Safety committee that the effort stems from long-running concerns and complaints about the inaccuracy of real-time bus predictions.
“That was brought to a finer point when we had a couple of meetings with high school students. The most influential to me was with students at Cody High School,” he said Monday.
“The biggest frustration more so than the schedule was that they were using the DDOT app,” said Cramer, noting that the app was telling students to go to the bus stop, the bus was coming and the virtual icon was moving along the route, but the bus never showed up.
Cramer said that it “severely impacted not only their ability to use the system, but to rely on it and trust it.”
The software, from San Francisco-based Swiftly, Inc., was formerly implemented for SMART and the Detroit People Mover under Cramer’s tenure, and is expected to roll out for DDOT in 30 days or less, he said.
“I think people will see an immediate improvement to our ability to communicate accurately about this service on the street,” Cramer said.
Detroit bus riders have long complained about the unreliability of city buses and long waits for rides to their destinations. In March, there were 1,037,728 DDOT riders, according to city data.
District 6 Council Member Gabriela Santiago-Romero thanked Cramer for meeting and listening to Detroit’s young people.
“I join their chorus of frustration,” Santiago-Romero said Monday, adding that she had messaged Cramer about inaccuracies, after experiencing two instances of being alerted by DDOT’s existing system that a bus would be arriving, yet it never showed.
“Thankfully, I had my bike, so I biked home,” after waiting about an hour and a half, she told him during the committee meeting. “This (tracking system) is really great. It really does help people plan their days and plan their transit around that.”
Cramer said while working for SMART and the Detroit People Mover, Swiftly helped reduce wait times, and it improved the speed of turnaround for customer service calls for bus status updates. It’s an easy way, he said, to input rider alerts tied to specific routes and stops. At SMART and with the People Mover, he said, the accuracy of real-time arrival predictions are up by more than 30% as a result.
Cramer said DDOT officials continue to encourage users to download and use the Detroit Transit App.
“You’ll be able to see a different symbol to see that it is actually tracking that bus,” he said.
Detroit City Council Member Mary Waters said she’s excited about the changes and wanted more details on whether the app will notify riders of an extremely late bus or a no-show.
“Too often, I’m driving down the street, seeing people standing out in the street, looking and looking and looking,” Waters told Cramer. “Sometimes, when I come back that way an hour later, I see the same person.”
He said that the Swiftly system makes it easier for the department to “get a pulse for what’s going on on the street.” It ensures that updates going out via the app are more accurate and that there will be more tools for rider feedback on the punctuality and cleanliness of buses.
Cramer said DDOT has funding carved out for an upcoming pilot on Jefferson Avenue, which will feature interactive tablet-sized screens at bus stops that will allow information to be fed directly into Swiftly on whether buses are behind or on time, as well as details on how to contact customer service.
