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The changes on Towson's campus are continuing, this time focused on public transportation.
A contract has been finalized between the University and the transportation information company NextBus to improve the transit experience for students by having Global Positioning Systems and other transit service technologies installed.
Information has been published to the affect that Towson was looking for vendors to provide such a system. Various vendors submitted a bid and NextBus was selected based on their pricing and capabilities, according to NextBus director of engineering Michael Smith.
"People really hate waiting for the bus and all we're trying to do is make transit a viable alternative to driving automobiles," Smith said. "Instead of people waiting at their bus stop for the next available bus, they can be at work or at home or in classrooms and you can look up the information on your cell phone."
The system is currently being installed on the campus shuttles for the black and gold routes. According to Smith, the trackers for the vehicles have been installed and have configured the routes. They are currently testing the system, he said.
With the new system installed, each bus will be able to communicate back to the NextBus' central system using a cell phone type modem, according to Smith. The buses send a report every two seconds to notify the NextBus system of their location.
"I think that generally, the bus provides a good service," sophomore business major Mike Pipitone said. "There are times when I'm waiting and waiting, and there's nothing, but as a whole I think it gets the job done for sure."
This new system will use the updated information from the bus routes to predict how long it takes to go between any two points.
"We generate the arrival predictions based on historical information by tracking the buses," Smith said. "That enables for us to actually predict when the buses will arrive at the passengers stop."
There will be a number of methods for students to use to determine the times of each stop made, the most popular being the Web page tools on the NextBus Web site. Students can access their system and see when the next available bus is going to arrive.
"I believe Towson is also receiving some electronic signs that will get installed at various bus stops that will actually tell passengers when the bus will come," Smith said.
Text messaging is yet another way for students to know the status of the buses en route to their nearest stop. A Short Message Service or SMS text messages can be used to get the information or they can call a phone number and get the information that way.
"We found it's a really popular system for universities because so many students have cell phones and use text messaging," Smith said.
NextBus was established in 1997, and currently has at least 50 customers, from universities and large cities.
"[The buses] sometimes are late coming to the stop locations, but there could be a number of factors that make them late," junior electronic media and film major Geoff Chandler said. "When it gets colder, I would certainly use the transportation services provided, even if they are a few minutes late. I don't mind waiting for five or ten minutes. However, a half hour late, and we have a problem."
The new system will allow students to text message which stop they are interested in to the NextBus system and the system will simply reply with another text message, according to Smith.
"[Now,] when the bus is just a few minutes away you can go out to the bus stop," Smith said. "So instead of waiting at the bus stops a random amount of time, you can put your time to more productive use."
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