Jasmine Hamada is becoming increasingly frustrated with her New Jersey Department of Transportation bus commute.
It’s not because of common complaints like buses being delayed or canceled. Instead, the app she used to track whether her bus was arriving on time stopped working.
“You have to sit at the bus stop without any information. It’s like being transported back to the 90s,” said a New Brunswick man who frequently uses the 810, 815 and 818 buses. Ta. “This has added a whole new level of stress to bus travel, which I think is completely unnecessary.”
This issue is not a bug in the app. Rather, the problem is the data feed from New Jersey Transit, Stephen Miller, a spokesperson for Montreal-based app company Transit, said in response to an inquiry from NorthJersey.com.
Many transit agencies provide real-time data feeds to the public using a format called GTFS Real-time. This allows third-party transit app companies such as Google Maps, Transit, Moovit, and Citymapper to display real-time departure information from various transit agencies. .
New Jersey Transit has been using a custom data format for years, but the transit app team was eventually able to translate it and use the feed in the app, Miller said. I am.
However, in July, the New Jersey Department of Transportation switched to the GTFS real-time format.
“This new data source contains so many technical errors that it is essentially unusable,” Miller said. “We contacted NJ Transit in July about an error in their feed. Throughout the summer and fall, we had numerous meetings and email discussions with NJ Transit technical staff. .After months of back and forth, little progress was made.”
A validation program that checks data feeds for errors found several 789 errors in the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s current data feed.
A spokesperson for NJ Transit did not provide on-the-record responses to questions about the issues raised by NorthJersey.com.
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Based on NorthJersey.com reviews of several apps, including Moovit, Citymapper, Google Maps, and Apple Maps, since the July change, third-party navigation apps are providing customers with real-time information about NJ Transit bus services. I have not.
NJ Transit’s app has a “MyBus” feature that includes real-time departure data and maps, and while it currently works, customers have been complaining for years that NJ Transit’s app information is inaccurate and trackers show buses I was having a complaint that “appears and disappears” on its own.
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Hamada said he has been forced to use MyBus since July, but it is unreliable and too complicated.
“You’ll be late. You’ll crash. When the bus comes, it says it’s not coming,” she said. “NJT advertises itself as if it works. At first glance, it appears to work. But when you actually use it to ride the bus, it’s infuriating and unusable. You can see that there are a lot of them.”
hundreds of answers
This week, the transit app company put up a form in its app asking New Jersey Transit customers to share why real-time bus information for riders should be improved. Miller said Transit officials planned to send a response to NJ Transit executives in hopes of resolving the issue behind the scenes.
“We want to be a partner in helping the New Jersey Department of Transportation solve their problems and restore real-time information,” he said. “More than 350,000 New Jersey Transit bus riders open our app to track their rides each month. They rely on accurate, real-time arrival information about their buses.”
Miller said the company received hundreds of responses from users in English and Spanish in three days, including one from a Union City resident who uses New Jersey Transit’s 22, 85 and 87 bus routes. The answer was also included.
“It is very important for me to know exactly where the bus is and when it will come,” the passenger wrote. “Like most single mothers, I don’t have the luxury of waiting for a bus that might not arrive or leave on time. I waste five minutes just waiting for a bus that might not arrive or leave on time. That alone throws my entire time schedule off. Deadly! “
A Nutley resident who uses NJ Transit’s 199 bus said, “It’s stressful not knowing when your bus will arrive. If you miss your bus, you have to transfer to another bus route or another mode of transportation to get to your destination.” I need to know if I have to.” Get to work on time. ”
Kyle Papiri, a software engineer who takes buses from Weehawken to the city, said it would be easy for the New Jersey Department of Transportation to make this data available in a usable way.
“They really invested in this and [the data] Because then the community and all the other businesses do what’s best to bring a better transit experience to people who use these apps without New Jersey Transit having to worry about it,” Papiri said. I don’t want to be one of these naysayers, but I think it’s important that they need more support. ”
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“They just need to be careful.”
NJ Transit has made progress in updating its app, payment system, and other technology features, but maintaining functionality and responding to feedback when features don’t work requires time, money, and staff.
Passengers say their complaints often go unheeded by New Jersey Transit.
The customer advocacy position is one reason the 2018 New Jersey transportation reform bill mandated the department. However, the position has remained vacant for three years.
In 2020, passengers on New Jersey Transit bus lines operated by private operator Academy were accused by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office of defrauding the company of millions of dollars for missing thousands of bus trips. I was overjoyed when I heard the news. 6 years. He said straphangers had been complaining about this for years, but it had never been addressed. All private bus companies that contract with NJ Transit now have GPS tracking systems in place, so they can be held accountable if you miss your ride.
But for Hamada, this is yet another example of neglecting the customer.
“New York, Philadelphia, you see buses on the map. It’s only New Jersey Transit that can’t seem to accomplish this basic thing, and there’s no one to blame but them.” she said. “I know they can do better. All they need to do is look out for me and the other bus passengers and fix the live tracking.”