Wheels LAVTA
Content: 
Usability: 
69.33.224.6/WebWatch/ada.aspx (HTML5)
WebWatch is part of a product called TransitMaster (TM) from Siemens VDO. I have the opportunity to test WebWatch at the other end of my commute where I ride a bus operated by a suburban transit agency, the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) - better known as Wheels. TransitMaster is a an on board computerized system which provides real-time location information that is used to make automated announcements of upcoming stops and update a bus dispatching system as well as feeding the WebWatch online system. Wheels has implemented WebWatch on all 35 of its routes. The WebWatch map-based interface requires Adobe's free SVG viewer which only seems to work on Internet Explorer and the ancient Netscape 4. There is also a text-based desktop version which should work on most browsers although it's not mobile friendly and requires Javascript. Siemens's site claims that WebWatch supports mobile browsers, but I could not find a true mobile version for either Wheels or another WebWatch system at Chicago's PACE suburban bus system. However both PACE and Wheels have a text-only "ADA" version of WebWatch which works reasonably well on html capable phones as well as on WAP1 phones using the YesWap transcoder. I don't have any experience with the PACE system, but I've been disappointed with Wheels' WebWatch. Frequently it claims "No stops found with upcoming crossings" for all stops on all lines even though there are buses running, and in fact the little bus images still move around on the map. Of course the map isn't available on the ADA/mobile site - only on PC's running IE. Another problem with the system is that the times it shows are sometimes inaccurate. I was waiting at a stop last week and WebWatch claimed the bus was there five minutes before it actually arrived. I don't understand why the text arrival information is wrong as the automated announcements on the buses occur just before the stop as they should and are controlled by the same system. As near as I can tell the moving buses on the map are in the right places too, it's just the text based arrival information that's off - strange. Another issue with Wheels is that while it shows the current time on the screen, the time shown is consistently five minutes fast. In the case where my bus was late, WebWatch said the bus would arrive at 5:54 PM. The bus arrived at 5:59 by my watch which I had set to a NIST time service earlier the same day. By the time the bus arrived, WebWatch claimed it was 6:04
Both Wheels and PACE seem to have implemented WebWatch on all their lines so it has the potential to be really useful if the reliability issues with Wheels at least were resolved.
Usability: 69.33.224.6/WebWatch/ada.aspx (HTML5)
WebWatch is part of a product called TransitMaster (TM) from Siemens VDO. I have the opportunity to test WebWatch at the other end of my commute where I ride a bus operated by a suburban transit agency, the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority (LAVTA) - better known as Wheels. TransitMaster is a an on board computerized system which provides real-time location information that is used to make automated announcements of upcoming stops and update a bus dispatching system as well as feeding the WebWatch online system. Wheels has implemented WebWatch on all 35 of its routes. The WebWatch map-based interface requires Adobe's free SVG viewer which only seems to work on Internet Explorer and the ancient Netscape 4. There is also a text-based desktop version which should work on most browsers although it's not mobile friendly and requires Javascript. Siemens's site claims that WebWatch supports mobile browsers, but I could not find a true mobile version for either Wheels or another WebWatch system at Chicago's PACE suburban bus system. However both PACE and Wheels have a text-only "ADA" version of WebWatch which works reasonably well on html capable phones as well as on WAP1 phones using the YesWap transcoder. I don't have any experience with the PACE system, but I've been disappointed with Wheels' WebWatch. Frequently it claims "No stops found with upcoming crossings" for all stops on all lines even though there are buses running, and in fact the little bus images still move around on the map. Of course the map isn't available on the ADA/mobile site - only on PC's running IE. Another problem with the system is that the times it shows are sometimes inaccurate. I was waiting at a stop last week and WebWatch claimed the bus was there five minutes before it actually arrived. I don't understand why the text arrival information is wrong as the automated announcements on the buses occur just before the stop as they should and are controlled by the same system. As near as I can tell the moving buses on the map are in the right places too, it's just the text based arrival information that's off - strange. Another issue with Wheels is that while it shows the current time on the screen, the time shown is consistently five minutes fast. In the case where my bus was late, WebWatch said the bus would arrive at 5:54 PM. The bus arrived at 5:59 by my watch which I had set to a NIST time service earlier the same day. By the time the bus arrived, WebWatch claimed it was 6:04
Both Wheels and PACE seem to have implemented WebWatch on all their lines so it has the potential to be really useful if the reliability issues with Wheels at least were resolved.
