Students Create Free Bus Tracker for Seattle

Photo: Brian Ferris uses his iPhone to check the status of a late bus with OneBusAway, a free service that lets bus riders use phones, computers or iPhones to get real-time updates on bus arrivals. (University of Washington)

It's a question heard at countless bus stops: "Have you seen the number 48 go by?"

Cold, impatient bus riders stamp their feet, check their watches, and wonder if that bus is ever going to come. But in Seattle, a cell phone and the ingenuity of two University of Washington students has come to the rescue.

Brian Ferris, a UW doctoral student in computer science, spent one too many rainy nights waiting for the bus before deciding to take action.

"I'm an avid bus rider," said Ferris. "If you ride the bus enough, you spend a lot of time waiting, because even on the best of days buses can still run late."

Over the past year Ferris and Kari Watkins, a UW doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, have created a tool, OneBusAway, that allows King County bus-riders to use a cell phone, iPhone or computer to keep tabs on their bus. OneBusAway has processed 20,000 automated phone calls since June, and the Web site gets an average of 1,000 hits a day. People have found out about the tool on blogs, from stickers posted at a few UW campus bus stops, from a mention in a Seattle magazine and by word-of-mouth.

To use OneBusAway in Seattle, just dial 206-456-0609 from any phone.
A robotic voice answers: "Where is your bus? Let's find out."

Users can then punch in their stop number, if they know it already, or follow the prompts to look it up. A computer checks a database of current bus locations, and the voice announces how long until your bus arrives. Users can also access the system online at www.OneBusAway.org or using an iPhone.

"To people who didn't even know this data was out there, they're like, 'This is amazing.' It really changes the way they use the bus," Ferris said.

Most bus stops have a timetable of when the bus is supposed to come, and digital screens at some central hubs show projected arrivals. But most lonely bus riders waiting by the curb, scanning the horizon for any sign of a bus, have no idea how long they have to wait.

Research shows that removing uncertainty cuts frustration dramatically, says Watkins, who works on transportation issues. She and Ferris met through a transit blog and combined their expertise to create OneBusAway, though neither receives academic credit for the work.

"When people have to wait, they think that twice as much time is passing. So if you're standing at a bus stop for five minutes, you perceive that time to be 10 minutes," Watkins said. Knowing the wait time changes the situation. "If I know ahead of time, I can grab that cup of coffee and be back out in time to catch my bus. And that kind of information makes taking public transit so much more livable."

OneBusAway is an offshoot of MyBus, an online service that Ferris calls "the great granddaddy" of bus-tracking tools. MyBus, created in mid-1990s by UW electrical engineering professor Daniel Dailey, allows people to type in a bus route and stop number to get anticipated arrival times. It combines odometer readings, which regularly get beamed back to dispatch, and route information to estimate each bus' current position. The MyBus system forms the basis for municipal bus-tracking services in Seattle and Chicago.

Ferris and Watkins set out to expand on MyBus