General MBTA Topics (Multi Modal, Budget, MassDOT)

Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

"A private sector firm faced with this mountain of red ink would likely fold or seek bankruptcy."
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

...which is why it's a public sector agency in the first place. I don't get the idea that government services should be profitable. Their mandate should be service, first and foremost.

Now if the T could actually provide service that justified its debt...
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

czsz said:
...which is why it's a public sector agency in the first place. I don't get the idea that government services should be profitable. Their mandate should be service, first and foremost.

Now if the T could actually provide service that justified its debt...
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That post needed to be in huge bold letters.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Boston.com - November 7, 2009
Behind the barriers at State Street T

By Christina Pazzanese, Globe Correspondent | November 7, 2009

With new questions arising this week about the overall safety and service conditions on the MBTA, reader John Kyper asks GlobeWatch about a lingering problem at the State Street station that he says ?bedevils?? him and countless other subway commuters.

?As you are doubtless aware, the northbound and southbound Orange Line platforms at the State Street station are located on different levels, separated by a long passageway. Since I work in City Hall, I often walk practically the entire length of the station, from the City Hall Plaza entrance to the southbound platform, when I am going home. When taking this route, I must descend two levels to the usually congested northbound platform, then walk along the narrow platform to one of three stairways (and an escalator) up to the passageway leading to the southbound platform.??

?Early in the summer, however, this stairway was closed to the public, presumably because it had deteriorated to the point where it had to be repaired or replaced. This stairway was blocked off by bulky plywood partitions that have narrowed both the adjacent platform and passageway, creating a bottleneck for the many riders traveling through this station. There is no notice why it was closed or when we might expect the stairway to be open again.??

A Globe reporter visited the State Street station earlier this week and found the wooden barriers did indeed create a troublesome bottleneck between the Forest Hills-bound platform and the rest of the station. Further complicating things, the station elevator is located at the edge of the narrowed walkway, making access quite difficult. The barriers appear to cordon off the rest of the walkway and a stairwell and now serve as a storage area and informal break area for workers. The station itself looked run down, with puddles of standing water, graffiti, and many missing wall tiles.

?For years, we?ve had to put up with the shabby appearance of the Blue Line platforms at State and its connection to the Orange Line - now this,?? Kyper wrote. ?? Those of us who ride the T every day - its ?captive audience,? so to speak - deserve better!??

The MBTA responds
State Street station is undergoing renovations right now as part of the Blue Line modernization program, said Lydia Rivera, a T spokeswoman. The wooden barriers are being used to conceal workers who are making the lobbies of 53 State and 60 State St. handicapped accessible, she said. When the project is complete, there will be two new elevator entrances connecting to the station lobbies; ramps between the Orange and Blue line concourses; and new finishes, lighting, communications equipment and historic graphic panels on the walls, she said. The T is hoping work on the outbound platform will be done by next summer, with the entire project slated to be complete by fall 2010. Rivera said the T will place some signs on the wooden panels to better inform riders about the project.
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Good ole T PR BS. They probably have a template email they just send out with the names of the projects changed.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

The escalator between the South Station T concourse and the main waiting hall has been "under repair" for over a year now. Every time I pass, though, they do seem to have added a new warning sign.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

From Today's Boston Globe:

Just a reminder about our Developers Conference coming up this weekend.

iPhone app has public transit down ?To-A-T?
By Dave Copeland, Globe Correspondent | November 9, 2009
To-A-T is an application that uses an iPhone?s GPS feature to locate the closest MBTA subway or bus stop, and tell users when next train or bus will arrive.

But state transportation officials also like it for another reason: To-A-T did not cost them any money. Wonderland Development, based in Cambridge, developed the app using publicly available scheduling data the T posted on its website last spring.

?The beauty of releasing the data is it frees us from having to develop the applications ourselves,?? said Chris Dempsey, an assistant secretary in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Transportation. ?That?s expensive and something that we?re not very good at.??

Transportation officials are promoting a contest they hope will result in even more data-based apps for commuters. The best ideas will be dis cussed at an all-day conference on transportation and technology Saturday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The winners receive Charlie Cards good for a year?s worth of free rides on the T.

The conference is aimed at bringing together app developers, T riders, and transportation officials to figure out what types of applications would be useful and which ones they could live without. In addition to more sophisticated apps tailored to the iPhone, transportation officials want developers to create more basic functions, like an application that would provide schedule information via standard text messaging.

Dempsey and Joshua Robin, the transportation office?s manager of performance reporting, borrowed the idea of posting data online from transportation authorities in San Francisco and Portland, Ore. Other apps have been developed using state data, including one that estimates wait times at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Atticus Gifford and Lara Allard formed Sparkfish Creative in Cambridge this year specifically to invent iPhone applications. They have been working on Sparkfish full time since the summer and recently released an updated version of MassTransit, an iPhone application that gives users schedule information for nearby T stops. Before forming the company, Gifford worked at MIT and was a regular on the MBTA?s 47 bus. On a good day, the bus would save him 20 minutes of commuting time, Gifford said, but he was never certain when the next one was coming, which was frustrating.

?Once the [iPhone App Store was] announced last year, I waited for the MBTA to announce an app,?? he said. ?After a couple of months, I decided to just start working on a simple app for myself to track the 47. After a while it expanded into all buses, and then all MBTA transit.??

Today, MassTransit is consuming most all of the Sparkfish creators? time. Gifford said he originally expected resistance from the state when he requested data, only to learn the MBTA was putting all of its schedule information online.

?We?ve received lots of positive e-mails from our users, which has encouraged us to keep working on MassTransit full time instead of pursuing other projects and working for clients,?? Gifford said. ?We?re not going to get rich doing this, but it?s very satisfying to work on something that is making riders? commutes a little better.??
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

OMG that was terrifying to watch. I've heard train drivers can get PTSD after they hit someone.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Wow. Good on Ms. Lewis.

I wonder if this was a failed suicide attempt. If not, I wonder how rare it is for someone to actually accidentally fall on the tracks.

It's unfortunate that adding track barriers is so cost prohibitive.

Anyone have a link to the video?
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Beton Brut said:
The old analog map with the moving lights representing moving trains is long gone. They gutted Maverick during the renovation.

They're trying something similar with 46" LCDs, They installed one at Orient Heights a couple of months ago. So far as I can tell, it doesn't really work.
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According to "travel new england" Maverick will be getting the screen this month.

Also, Homeland security has given the MBTA money to put cameras on the green line. Currently, only one test car has them.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

I was at Maverick recently and saw the new screen there - in the same spot as the old analog one, and similar looking. Not yet operational, though.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Great work by the operator. Her quick reflexes definitely saved the passenger's life. Fortunately, the fallen passenger did not touch the third rail (though I think she nearly did), otherwise she would have been electrocuted. Kudos for the worker and the other passengers.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Let me guess. Theyre planning an iphone ap that shows time until bus arrives, to be released in 2013.
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

So cynical!

..but I'm not taking that bet. :(
 
Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

Boston.com - November 11, 2009
New iPhone apps offer help for MBTA riders
By Hannah McBride, Globe Staff

An iPhone application that shows MBTA riders a map of all transit routes and the scheduled times for the next train, bus, or boat has won a prize in a contest organized by the state, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation announced today.

Cambridge-based Sparkfish Creative won the competition with their application, MassTransit. Most features are available without an Internet connection. Two additional features that find the closest stop and display T service alerts are available with a connection. The application can be downloaded to any iPhone or iPod Touch for $3.99.

The second-place winner, OpenMBTA, an open source application, offers users detailed route maps and scheduled arrival times and can be downloaded for free.

The new applications are bound to be a boon to MBTA riders who find themselves at the station, bus stop, or dock wondering when the next train, boat, or bus will come. And it could help them to make decisions about whether sometimes they should just get out of the subway and walk, which is the wisest move in some situations.

Chris Dempsey, assistant transportation secretary, estimated that the state saved tens of thousands of dollars by not having to pay an outside developer for the applications.

James Kebinger won the best data visualization portion of the 2009 MassDOT Developers Challenge with his animated rendering of the web of subway and commuter rail routes. Small dots representing trains crawl like ants along the lines, depicting MBTA rail activity over the course of 24 hours in just 90 seconds.

The winners were announced at the first annual MassDOT Developers Conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They received a Charlie Card good for free MBTA travel for a year. They can also sell their apps on the Internet if they want.

Even more help may be on the way for MBTA riders waiting for buses. While the Sparkfish application tells users when the next bus is slated to arrive, a new application may soon be in the works that will tell riders when it will actually arrive.

Transportation officials said they were releasing a feed of real-time data for the T's busiest bus routes: Route 39, which serves Jamaica Plain, the Longwood Medical Area, and Back Bay in Boston; and Routes 111, 114, 116, and 117, which serve Haymarket Station, East Boston, Chelsea, and Revere.

Developers will be able to access the feed and incorporate real-time information into mobile phone and Web-based applications that help MBTA customers know the actual location and estimated arrival of their bus, state officials said.

The year-long trial program with the selected bus routes may be extended to a system-wide program in the future, Dempsey said.
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Re: Driven By Customer 'Service' Parte Dos

jass said:
Let me guess. Theyre planning an iphone ap that shows time until bus arrives, to be released in 2013.
Click to expand...

"Transportation officials said they were releasing a feed of real-time data for the T's busiest bus routes: Route 39, which serves Jamaica Plain, the Longwood Medical Area, and Back Bay in Boston; and Routes 111, 114, 116, and 117, which serve Haymarket Station, East Boston, Chelsea, and Revere.

Developers will be able to access the feed and incorporate real-time information into mobile phone and Web-based applications that help MBTA customers know the actual location and estimated arrival of their bus, state officials said.

The year-long trial program with the selected bus routes may be extended to a system-wide program in the future, Dempsey said. "


Caaaaaaalled it
 
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