In response to widespread customer complaints during last year’s snowstorm—when it was basically impossible to find out if or when your bus was coming—King County Metro just redesigned its web site to be more user-friendly. Among other changes, they’ve made the route timetables more prominent, put the previously elusive trip finder right on the front page, and added a more prominent link to information about ORCA, the new regional transit smartcard. “The poor navigation concept of our [old] web site really did not serve us well,” says Metro general manager Kevin Desmond. “Either people would have to make too many clicks to get information, or it was counterintuitive.”

But the biggest change is the addition of a staff-run blog called Eye on Your Metro Commute, which, in theory, will contain the latest information about delays throughout the Metro system. (It just went live yesterday). “Basically, it’s a traffic update,” Desmond says. The site is based in part on similar web sites in Chicago, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C..

Riders can get updates via web, email, or RSS. What they can’t do is get information via text message (important if you don’t have a smartphone), or let Metro know if they encounter problems on the ground (there’s a feedback email, but no comments, and all posts are generated from a central console at Metro’s operations headquarters). “A lot of people have suggested a Twitter-type [interface], but the problem with that is that creates a very significant burden on our side and we don’t have people to do that,” Desmond says. “Putting out one way information is one thing. But if we have to start monitoring information with the expectation that we will verify it and report back—that’s a huge explosion of contacts that we would have to start making.” The centralized staff-generated blog system also doesn’t solve the biggest problem Metro staffers reported encountering during the snowstorm: A lack of radio channels to report backups, which Desmond acknowledges is “still a problem.” However, he says Metro expects its new radio system—an expansion of the current antiquated system, which only has four channels—to come online in 2010, which should solve some of the communications problem.

15 replies on “Metro’s Redesign”

  7. Remember when ECB was defending the city’s use of sand to deal with the snowstorm? Well, it turns out, sand is fucking up the entire sewage system and causing enormous environmental problems for the city, while not solving any of the problems of mobility during the snowstorm. What say ye, ECB?

  13. Seems like you could figure out a way to crowdsource info about where transit system bottlenecks and disruptions were occuring in real time.

    Just promote a number people can call, in addition to texting and web addresses. Ask each reporter to include the basic information of location and route number and a brief description of the issue. Then flag the reports on a map, providing each with a little pop up with the details.

    Make sure everyone understands the reports aren’t individually verified. Simple search routines involving route numbers and locations would display all pertinate reports, chronologically ranked.

    Reading enough of the individual pop ups would provide at least a general idea of the problem. With time, riders could become skilled at posting the information most useful to other riders trying to figure out if and when their bus was coming.

  15. How about an API, or some programmatic, machine-parsable way to access the timetables? I’m sure Metro’s realized that they aren’t the only ones who want to do interesting things with route data.

    Metro, if you’re listening: REST Web service API access to retrieve timetables by route or stop #.

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