BEST PRACTICES
T WAS ONLY EIGHT YEARS AGO THAT
Amtran installed GPS on our buses and
began pushing out real-time bus departures
from every stop to customers through our
website. We named the project myStop and
worked with our tech partners, Avail Technologies,
from nearby State College. We were
very excited to be so “cutting edge.” Altoona
was one of few small urban systems to off er
this to their customers back then.
But of course, eight years is a long time
in the technology fi eld, so we’ve had to work
hard to keep up. Th e fi rst addition began in
2008 before the project was even completed.
I was at an American Public Transportation
Association conference in Santa Monica. I
wanted to catch a bus and waited 30 minutes
at the wrong bus stop before I realized my
mistake. (Yeah, I’m a public transportation
professional alright.)
LED Displays
for Bus and Rail
42 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | JUNE 2017
Apple introduced the fi rst iPhone in
2007, and I didn’t own one in 2008. So I
couldn’t check the website for a map. But I
had my cell phone so it seemed like there
should be some solution. Working with
Avail, we added an automated phone number
so that a customer could call a local
number, punch in their bus stop number,
and get the same real-time bus departure
that would be displayed on the website.
Mobile phones were not as ubiquitous as
today, but even then we knew a lot of our
customers owned one because they would
call from the bus to lodge a complaint. Of
course, the system also worked with a landline,
so a customer could call from home
or work before going out to the bus stop.
Most of the project cost was installing
the GPS on the buses, communicating locations
to the myStop computer, and working
out the predictions for bus departures.
Adding one more channel to push out the
information that we already had was a minor
cost. (Th is was a recurring theme.) We
Ridership
technology
continues to
evolve with
the times.
started with an average of 300 calls per month
which shortly zoomed up to 1,200.
Th e second addition occurred in 2009 just
as the project was wrapping up. We posted QR
codes to every bus stop sign so that a smartphone
customer could scan the code with a
free app from their app store. Again, the cost
was low, which was a good thing because QR
codes have never taken off in the United States
like they have in Europe and Asia.
Next we added texting, which was included
for free in an Avail upgrade. So it didn’t matter
if you owned a fl ip phone or a smartphone.
If you could text, you could get your bus departures.
Th e fi nal addition was two years ago when
Avail developed the myStop app, fi rst for iOS
devices and shortly thereaft er for Androids.
Using the phone’s GPS, the myStop app can
tell you the closest route, the closest bus stop
and plan your trip through Google, as well as
providing real-time bus departures.
In the beginning, we started with real-time
bus departures only on our website. Over time,
we added four more channels for our customers
— cell phones and landlines, QR codes, texting,
and fi nally the myStop app, which would appear
to be the be-all, end-all.
But we know better. We are working with
Avail on the next step in providing useful information
to our customers to make it easier
than ever to ride Amtran.
Altoona, Penn.
Eric Wolf
General Manager
Altoona Metro
Transit (Amtran)
I
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