DART testing new mobile customer service tool

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) makes online trip planning easier than ever with the new Where’s My Bus?® application available at the agency’s mobile website, m.dart.org.

This addition to the site is in the beta testing stage. Where’s My Bus?® is designed to give customers a near-real time estimate when their bus will arrive. This new application lets customers follow the progress of their bus via a Google map as it approaches their stop. The screen initially gives the customer the published scheduled arrival time and then an estimated time when the bus is within 15 minutes of the stop. The page tells the customer the bus is “arriving soon” when it is estimated to be within 5 minutes of the stop.

Since most DART customers typically ride the same bus they will be able to bookmark the page for their particular route and stop and merely refresh it for current information. That means they will not have to go through the same steps or clicks to reach their desired route/schedule.

To generate the webpage DART captures GPS information from each operating bus approximately every 70 seconds. The information is fed into an algorithm created by DART staff that tells the customer the location of their bus.

DART’s mobile site launched in September 2007 giving customers access to route and schedule information via web-enabled cell phones and PDAs (i.e. iPhone and Blackberry). The Where’s My Bus?® tool can also be accessed from a desktop or laptop computer at m.dart.org.