MTA hopes to have trip planner restored soon
The out-of-order trip planner on the Maryland Transit Administration web site will be back in operation soon, MTA spokeswoman Angela White says.
White said the service stopped working because of a snow-related lapse in recertifying the schedule information used to generate the trip plans. Google Transit, which provides the platform for the service, requires participating transit agencies to periodically certify that their information is correct.
White said the MTA was in the process of recertifying the data when the first of two snowstorms hit Feb. 5. She noted work at the agency was disrupted for about a week when state government was shut down and when many employees couldn't make it to work. She initally said it would be restored by late this week or early next week, but later said the service could be fixed even sooner.
The spokeswoman said she did not know why the MTA initially failed to post on its web site the fact that the trip planner was out of order. Before late Monday, when the MTA put up a notice in response to a call from Getting There, users of the service did not learn it wasn't working until they had filled out their address information.
It's a sad commentary on the state of the MTA that the first thought upon learning the system was out of order was not: How can we alert our customers? The MTA might also want to reconsider the policy of cutting it so close on deadlines that a surprise event like a snowstorm in winter can shut down a valuable service.
UPDATE: White told me the MTA initially did not post a notice on the web site that the service was down because they expected they might be able to have it restored by late Monday. In a way, that's an even sadder commentary because it means someone in its web operation figured it was OK to mislead and inconvenience a few customers for a little while rather than write a few lines of code. Here's hoping the new administrator, Ralign Wells, sets a fire under whoever takes such a nonchalant view of treating even one customer that way.
By the way, even with the notice that's been added, it is still easy for a user of the web site to miss it and simply click on the trip planner -- leading to an exercise in futility. Why not have the button for the trip planner direct people to the notice? Somebody at MTA isn't thinking like a customer using the system. (UPDATE: This problem, though not the trip planner itself, has been fixed as of Tuesday morning.)
Comments
It's online - why couldn't they have done it from home during the storm?
Posted by: Jeff Q. | March 1, 2010 9:35 PM
Many of MTA's customer service personel apparrently can't even navigate their own site so how can we expext them to know that a feature isn't working.
Beyond that however, the trip planner is useless UNLESS Mr. Walls gets his employess to understand that sevice and schedule are not four letter words. It's tough to make connections when the busses you need run early, run late or don't show at all.
I ride the 14 line seven days a week. The 7 AM bus from Annapolis runs at least 7-10 minutes late Monday-Wednesday every week by the time it reaches Americana Circle. The 1:30 PM bus from Patapsco Station tends to run at least 5 minutes early by the time it reaches MVA headquarters (today it was either at least 8 minutes early or didn't run at all). Because of these issues passengers miss connections with the light rail, other busses or have to wait for an hour for the next bus is they are traveling south past Jumpers Hole Rd.
I've complained on nearly a weekly basis about this and other issues and never seem to get a response other than that we'll investigate. Perhaps the Sun can investigate why the MTA is incapable of actually responding to passenger complaints.
Posted by: Charles Rosenberg | March 1, 2010 10:36 PM
The MTA could solve a lot of its late/early bus/light rail issues if they would add NextBus like the Charm City Circulator has done and like DC has done with metroBus as well as many other bus systems.
Every light rail station should have one of these and the major bus stops should ahve them as well (the Circulator just added them at some stops this weekend).
Posted by: Richard | March 2, 2010 10:01 AM
Charles Rosenberg is lucky. At least he gets a response to his inquiries about MTA service delays -- I've sent multiple emails to the MTA about the 36 bus route, and have never once received the courtesy of a "we're investigating", or any other response.
Posted by: Carol Ott | March 2, 2010 1:47 PM