GPS on the CTA

[al-in-chgo]

Has CTA's plan to eqiup its buses with GPS taken effect yet and if so, is there a noticeable improvement?  This was supposed to be the be-all and end-all of smoothing out wait times, so (for example), crowded routes like the no. 22 Clark Street will actually run seven to twelve minutes between buses, not in clumps of three 25 or so minutes apart as so unfortunately often happens(ed).   

Pardon my skepticism but expensive new technology has always been the solution going back at least the 25+ years I've lived here.  (What would really help would be to get away from the paradigm of using the green booths as division points, but if anything is mentioned along those lines it's always "Da Unionz, da Unionz").  But maybe that's a different subject. 

 

[al-in-chgo]

PS:  I should say that the CTA's problems on bunching I mentioned above concern buses, not L trains.  I hope you won't mind, though, since it's all part of the same system. 

 

 

[artpeterson]

Hi Al - if you go to the CTA website, there's an icon over on the upper right side of it for "Bus Tracker."  You can access a map and call up the routes (up to five can be displayed at one time) and it will show you where the buses are on a given route.  Zeroing in even further brings up the bus numbers, etc.  Are there still gaps in the service?  Seems like there are.  Occasionally, the system won't display a complete route at the fringe of the system (think 85A or 63W or the like) and then it won't be able to show all/any buses on that route.  As for the supervisors using that system to manage the service, I think its still in its infancy.  Hope this is of some help, Art