Markeshia Ricks Photo
A crew from the state Department of Transportation is heading to New Haven to ride the bus — and see how to make it easier to catch the bus.
The DOT team plans spend a day or two here either this week or next to follow up on complaints that a new CT Transit GPS app is failing just when riders need it most, according to agency spokesman Kevin Nursick.
DOT’s CT Transit this year equipped all New Haven buses with GPS linked to an app riders can download to track where buses are running: if they’re late, if they’re on time, where they are at the moment. At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.
City officials had clamored for years for the service. DOT originally promised it in 2015, then, thanks to delays and unforeseen promises, took a couple of years to put it in place. (You can now access it here.)
No one was more excited for the app than city transit chief Doug Hausladen, who had led the push for the app. Then he was disappointed the first time he tried to use it. He arrived at a bus stop early to catch a ride home to City Point. When the bus was late, he checked the app to see if it was on its way. Instead he got a blank screen; no sign of that bus. Yet the bus arrived, six or eight minutes later than scheduled.
It turned out that because of a quirk in the app, it stopped showing any information about any bus that was late. Even though a main purpose of the app was to let people know if they should continue waiting for a bus or not.
The Independent detailed the problem in this Sept. 22 article, and readers chimed in. The DOT promised to look into it.
The problem apparently remains, as this reporter discovered on the way home this Monday evening. The app was showing the westbound 246 bus (formerly known as the Q) running a minute or two late on Winthrop Avenue around 6:30 p.m. Then it showed it running three minutes late. Then five. Then, at the scheduled time of arrival, all information about the bus disappeared from the app. The app reported that the next bus would arrive in about an hour. Instead, the actual bus arrived around five minutes later.
Informed of the continued problem, DOT spokesman Nursick reposnded that the DOT team will come to New Haven to check it out. The crew will test the app and try to replicate the problem.
“We have not experienced these errors first hand, but don’t question the fact that some riders are experiencing problems,” Nursick said. “We think the best way to get to the bottom of this is to be out there in the field for an entire day or two, and to see what our results are.”
Nursick urged riders to continue letting DOT know of any such problems with the new system.
“Feedback is important,” he said. “We want it. You work out the bugs [that way]. Keep it coming!”