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  MyBus Image 2   MyBus Image 1  MyBus is used by Seattle Washington's King County Metro. The system was developed by the Intelligent Transportation Systems Research Program at the University of Washington. MyBus' slogan is "providing travelers with real-time transit information and making transit cool". The MyBus system is quite similar to Portland's Transit Tracker in that it's primary interface uses stop numbers. There is another interface of scrolling lists of bus stops hidden under the Help menu. MyBus' results page conveys quite a bit of information using very little screen real estate. This is visible in the last image. The title "5S, JAXN, 36" means 5th Ave. South at Jackson, Line 36. That's a little cryptic for my taste but I suspect that regular users find it understandable. The rest of the screen lists bus arrivals at that stop by final destination (BeacnHil, Downtown...) and time. The "d" instead of a colon in two of the times indicates that the bus has departed. I can see where if you miss a bus it's useful to know how much you missed it by. This feature would be even more useful if the screen showed the time when MyBus updated the screen. The screen shot doesn't show it but MyBus indicates express buses with an "e" in front of the destination name. If MyBus doesn't have location information for a particular bus, the colon in that trip's times is replaced by an asterisk indicating an estimate. I like MyBus, it is a powerful interface that is quick to use but has a slightly geeky aspect to it that may put off non-technical users. Nowhere is this more evident than if you enter a non existent line or stop number, MyBus responds with a generic 404 error screen, hardly user friendly error reporting. Still I have to give Metro Kings Country and the University of Washington credit for implementing a powerful real-time information system on all lines of this large urban system. Incidentally, MyBus was recently renamed Tracker - although the mobile pages still refer to it as MyBus.
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