The MAXX website, which is the “front-door” for many people’s experience with Auckland’s public transport system: working out when their next bus/train arrives, downloading timetables and finding out about service disruptions, is slowly dragging itself into the 21st century with some useful steps to make it easier and quicker to find out when your next bus is. Here’s the ARTA media release:
MAXX launches easy click online for bus arrivals
Auckland bus users can now click online to get the most-up-to-date information on when their bus is due to arrive, thanks to a new online function launched by MAXX this week.
The new bus arrivals function on the MAXX website will help customers find their nearest bus stop and then give them a list of bus arrival times for that stop.
Mark Lambert, General Manager, Customer Services for the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA), said: “This new tool will allow customers to access real time as well as scheduled time information for their bus and make people aware of their nearest stop number so they can use the function with ease, time and time again.
“The online system will enable our customers to track the arrival time of their bus, meaning they can spend less time waiting and more time doing the things they want to be doing. It should also mean they don’t need a timetable as they can track the bus times online.
“The function has been designed to make bus travel for our customers easier, less stressful, more fun and above all – to save time.
“A virtual presenter, Katie, will also appear on the MAXX website in order to help people. The character will explain how the function works in a simple and clear fashion to make sure new users can access the information they want without hassle.
“MAXX ambassadors will also be on hand at Britomart, Symonds Street and Queen Street, until Friday 18 June to hand out wallet sized ‘My Bus Stop’ cards to bus patrons. The cards will help people make a note of their main bus stops, so when they go to MAXX they already have details of their stop number.”
Mark Lambert said: “Buses are by far the most popular form of public transport in Auckland. They make up around 70% of all public transport trips. There have been 46.87 million passengers recorded using bus services across Auckland in the 12 months up to April 2010, an increase of 1.25% on the year before.
“This is a heartening recovery from the impact of the bus strike last year. We hope this new function on MAXX will provide one more step towards making it easier for customers to use public transport in Auckland”.
The new tool is the part of the MAXX main page that is outlined in red in the picture below:
What I think is the most promising is the mention that this is real-time information. While the available information for my local stop: bus stop 7117 is noted as “scheduled” times, hopefully that will change to real time information in the not too distant future. Given that public transport in Auckland quite often doesn’t stick to its scheduled times, real-time information is utterly essential in my opinion. Hopefully in the not too distant future we can hope to have something similar to what Christchurch has, in terms of how one can track its buses in real time.
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huh. I hate to sound like I’m never satisified but while Katie may be very pretty she means that the Maxx page takes about 1000 years to load on my crappy broadband. Also, on Saturday Maxx told me that the trains on the Western line were cancelled (good!). But then on Sunday it mysteriously told me they were running, even though a trip to the train station confirmed that they weren’t and I had to catch bus instead.
I remember a field trip to Nancy, a small city in northern France. we were shown around the PT central control room. All buses had computer chips in to show exactly where they were in the network. Through contact with the control centre, drivers were told to speed up or slow down, if they got out of line with the timetable by more than 30 seconds!
To aid the buses, particularly those that were slightly behind, traffic signals would be triggered as they approached intersections…lights would flip to green to allow buses through without stopping!
All this was back in 1992!
How long does it take technology to travel around the world?
LucyJH – I agree. It may be a useful feature, but if you click “low graphics”, she doesn’t only stay around, she actually reloads!!! It should be simplicity itself that gizmo’s like this get disabled on low setting. Probably should suggest it to them…
@al – in Switzerland all trams/buses have displays for the drover showing how much ahead or behind time they are. Helps keep everything to schedule I assume.
Al, Auckland already has a system that tracks buses and can control traffic lights… the only thing is it is limited to extending and existing green phase be a short period (30 sec I believe) or making it turn green 30 sec faster.
Its a shame they don’t have the balls to make it a proper bus priority system, it seems in Auckland bus ‘priority’ still must come second fiddle to car supremacy.
@Nick R – slowly but surely, however with people like Banks in power we’ll never see such changes though.
I feel a little lame in that I haven’t visited this website before now. What a great resource! It certainly makes me a bit nostalgic for Auckland with all its faults and successes.
I’d love to see MAXX implement something like Seattle’s “One Bus Away” for arrival information (http://www.onebusaway.org/). Created originally by university students, One Bus Away gives realtime arrival information via a number of means.
The SMS feature is where I think One Bus Away would really shine in Auckland. You simply send a text message containing your stop number to the One Bus Away phone number. One Bus Away texts you back with a list of the next several busses that will arrive along with an estimate of when they will arrive. Since nearly everyone in Auckland has a cell phone and texts continuously, it should be a natural fit.
It almost makes me want to explore how hard it would be to integrate the (license free) One Bus Away system with MAXX’s realtime web service.
Now, if I can just get Seattle to adopt Auckland’s realtime arrival marquees at major transportation stops…