BUS - Random Thoughts Thread

[BM5 via Woodhaven]

Just now, GojiMet86 said:

Has anyone had any problems with MTA Tracker for Android today? I keep trying to select the routes or invididual buses, but it always stays on the "requesting vehicles" bar.

It's not just you. I had problems tracking my bus when I was going out the door early this morning (like around 6:30). Had to open up the actual bustime app (on desktop mode).

[Via Garibaldi 8]

17 minutes ago, GojiMet86 said:

Has anyone had any problems with MTA Tracker for Android today? I keep trying to select the routes or invididual buses, but it always stays on the "requesting vehicles" bar.

 

15 minutes ago, BM5 via Woodhaven said:

It's not just you. I had problems tracking my bus when I was going out the door early this morning (like around 6:30). Had to open up the actual bustime app (on desktop mode).

I have been telling people to use BusTime in desktop mode. The  asked me to tell passengers to use that in my meeting because it is the most accurate (according to them) and not the other apps.  I don't know how severe their BusTime issues are for the local fleet, but they are replacing some antennas on some of their express bus fleet and working with Verizon to address the problem.  Lots of ghost buses and buses not showing up.  I complained about a ghost bus I was waiting on for the BxM4 and since they were monitoring my group, towards the end of the line, the driver gets a call asking if he has signed up his correctly and if he had did his trip. I laughed and told him they called him because I posted complaining about my bus.  They are basically trying to isolate the ghost buses as they spot them and fix them.  Not so easy since the vendor has to come on-site to fix the buses, and if they are short on buses and need to make service, then BusTime takes a back seat of course.

Edited March 6, 2019 by Via Garibaldi 8

[GojiMet86]

Whatever was wrong with it seems to have been fixed with an upgrade.

[Orion6025]

4 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

 

I have been telling people to use BusTime in desktop mode. The  asked me to tell passengers to use that in my meeting because it is the most accurate (according to them) and not the other apps.  I don't know how severe their BusTime issues are for the local fleet, but they are replacing some antennas on some of their express bus fleet and working with Verizon to address the problem.  Lots of ghost buses and buses not showing up.  I complained about a ghost bus I was waiting on for the BxM4 and since they were monitoring my group, towards the end of the line, the driver gets a call asking if he has signed up his correctly and if he had did his trip. I laughed and told him they called him because I posted complaining about my bus.  They are basically trying to isolate the ghost buses as they spot them and fix them.  Not so easy since the vendor has to come on-site to fix the buses, and if they are short on buses and need to make service, then BusTime takes a back seat of course.

Please ask them to have a look at 2204's tracker... That thing's been down for months

[QM1to6Ave]

9 minutes ago, Orion6025 said:

Please ask them to have a look at 2204's tracker... That thing's been down for months

I don't think that bus even has an antenna or USB ports installed. I caught that bus a few weeks ago, it was like going back to 2002

[Via Garibaldi 8]

20 minutes ago, Orion6025 said:

Please ask them to have a look at 2204's tracker... That thing's been down for months

Yes it was on one of the QM lines tonight I believe. We didn’t get into how they were fixing them, but I can tell you that usually the vendor has to come to the depot and fix them like that. I tried to get info on how often they fix these issues, but I suspect that they don’t have a department or anything. Likely one person handles that whenever they can get around to it, and believe me, on the overall scale of making service vs BusTime, BusTime takes a back seat 9 times out of 10. I don’t think some of them realize how attached people are now to BusTime. The old stepping into the street and looking to see if the bus is coming is so 20th century. lol

Edited March 7, 2019 by Via Garibaldi 8

[Orion6025]

5 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

I don't think that bus even has an antenna or USB ports installed. I caught that bus a few weeks ago, it was like going back to 2002

It was trackable for sure, I used to be able to hunt it down back in 2017,18 but it hasn't reported its location since late June 2018.

2 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Yes it was on one of the QM lines tonight I believe.

Yeah it ran tonight (And seems to most days). That's the funny thing about that bus; you know it's out... but where??? Lmao

[QM1to6Ave]

5 minutes ago, Orion6025 said:

It was trackable for sure, I used to be able to hunt it down back in 2017,18 but it hasn't reported its location since late June 2018.

Yeah it ran tonight (And seems to most days). That's the funny thing about that bus; you know it's out... but where??? Lmao

Interesting. Maybe they actually removed the antenna because it broke or something, because when I took that bus, I looked and did not see the little white antenna on top of the bus. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

3 minutes ago, Orion6025 said:

It was trackable for sure, I used to be able to hunt it down back in 2017,18 but it hasn't reported its location since late June 2018.

Yeah it ran tonight (And seems to most days). That's the funny thing about that bus; you know it's out... but where??? Lmao

It’s usually out during rush hour, and it is definitely a ghost bus. I’ve had it confirmed a few times now by one of my contacts or someone in the group.The crazy thing is, they can actually see in their system which buses are ghost buses, as it tells them. The issue is on the individual depot, and how active they are in getting the vendor over to fix problems. Yonkers Depot is top of that stuff. College Point... Please... I’ve had drivers tell me flat out that they (College Point Depot) don’t care if they have the bus go out with duct tape (and I have plenty of photos that I have taken when monitoring service with the overhead areas hanging down or overhead lights with tissues stuffed in them to take them on their word), so yeah, that’s another problem. College Point is a big depot too, so I have to assume that they just have too much going on. Yonkers is a very small depot with fewer buses to maintain, so it’s easier.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

13 minutes ago, QM1to6Ave said:

Interesting. Maybe they actually removed the antenna because it broke or something, because when I took that bus, I looked and did not see the little white antenna on top of the bus. 

When I spoke to one of the big wigs about it in my meeting, I got the impression that it was more than just the antenna. I was told that they are replacing the antennas but it’s also a vendor problem too. The vendor is Verizon, and I suspect there are issues on their end as well. Even within the MTA’s internal system buses are disappearing and reappearing, and if they can’t see them, then we DEFINITELY won’t be able to see them. A few weekends I went out to take some trips after my meeting. My bus was off of BusTime. I posted about it in my group. Someone saw my post because as we were coming towards the end of the line, I hear the B/O called (I was sitting in the first row), and command is calling him asking if he had signed up his bus correctly and had done his trip and he confirmed that he had. They then told him to check a few things on the bus because his bus wasn’t coming up on BusTime, so clearly it’s more than the antenna. In my meeting, I told them that we get a litany of complaints about BusTime and the Wi-Fi and that’s when one of the big wigs Craig Cipriano admitted that they knew there were issues with BusTime and asked if I could tell folks to not use the other apps because they don’t have any control over those, and I told him I would.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Via Garibaldi 8

[QM1to6Ave]

7 hours ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

When I spoke to one of the big wigs about it in my meeting, I got the impression that it was more than just the antenna. I was told that they are replacing the antennas but it’s also a vendor problem too. The vendor is Verizon, and I suspect there are issues on their end as well. Even within the MTA’s internal system buses are disappearing and reappearing, and if they can’t see them, then we DEFINITELY won’t be able to see them. A few weekends I went out to take some trips after my meeting. My bus was off of BusTime. I posted about it in my group. Someone saw my post because as we were coming towards the end of the line, I hear the B/O called (I was sitting in the first row), and command is calling him asking if he had signed up his bus correctly and had done his trip and he confirmed that he had. They then told him to check a few things on the bus because his bus wasn’t coming up on BusTime, so clearly it’s more than the antenna. In my meeting, I told them that we get a litany of complaints about BusTime and the Wi-Fi and that’s when one of the big wigs Craig Cipriano admitted that they knew there were issues with BusTime and asked if I could tell folks to not use the other apps because they don’t have any control over those, and I told him I would.

I stick with the mobile version of Bustime website, it really is the best, even better than the MTA's Bustime app.

[B35 via Church]

On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 6:49 PM, Lawrence St said:

How come there's no layover point for M60 SBS drivers at LGA?

On ‎3‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 7:05 PM, IAlam said:

Because there isn’t an effective location for the buses to layover at LGA. A bus would have to go to every terminal to drop people off and then go back and go to every terminal again to pick people up. That would take too much time especially with LGA traffic. Additionally if they did have a layover point midway through the airport everyone would board at the earlier terminal to only be kicked off at the next stop for who know how long.

On the M60, some drivers actually do layover inside LGA.... It's usually done at Central Terminal, since the bathroom Is nearby..... Nobody already on the bus gets kicked off, but the b/o closes the door from the outside, so nobody can get in (until he/she comes back).... If they don't do it at Central Term., sometimes they'll do a 5-10 min. layover or whatever @ MAT (which I personally don't care for).....

What M60's don't do is terminate inside the airport.

[Lawrence St]

1 hour ago, B35 via Church said:

On the M60, some drivers actually do layover inside LGA.... It's usually done at Central Terminal, since the bathroom Is nearby..... Nobody already on the bus gets kicked off, but the b/o closes the door from the outside, so nobody can get in (until he/she comes back).... If they don't do it at Central Term., sometimes they'll do a 5-10 min. layover or whatever @ MAT (which I personally don't care for).....

What M60's don't do is terminate inside the airport.

So they leave the bus-with people inside?

[Orion6025]

0018's doing the driver training along 42nd again today

[QM1to6Ave]

42 minutes ago, Lawrence St said:

So they leave the bus-with people inside?

I believe B/Os are allowed to do that when they take comforts (or whatever bathroom breaks are caller). I've had it happen to me on express buses om occasion 

[MHV184]

I have a quick question. I don't know how 100 percent bustrek is on giving information but 4015 popped up as not in service on the M104 I don't know if it's a transfer or someone is just code breaking on that bus 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

14 minutes ago, MHV184 said:

I have a quick question. I don't know how 100 percent bustrek is on giving information but 4015 popped up as not in service on the M104 I don't know if it's a transfer or someone is just code breaking on that bus 

It isn't 100% accurate because a bus can show up as "non-revenue" if it goes off of the route, even when it technically is in service.  Then there are times when a bus may be showing on BusTime but not on BusTrek. 

[MHV184]

3 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

It isn't 100% accurate because a bus can show up as "non-revenue" if it goes off of the route, even when it technically is in service.  Then there are times when a bus may be showing on BusTime but not on BusTrek. 

Oh ok thanks 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

1 minute ago, MHV184 said:

Oh ok thanks 

Keep in mind that if the bus isn't coded per the paddle, it may not come up correctly on BusTrek if at all. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by Via Garibaldi 8

[MHV184]

2 minutes ago, Via Garibaldi 8 said:

Keep in mind that if the bus isn't coded per the paddle, it may not come up correctly on BusTrek if at all. 

Ok cool so does that mean 4015 is still at Yukon

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Just now, MHV184 said:

Ok cool so does that mean 4015 is still at Yukon

Quite frankly I don't know.

[MysteriousBtrain]

48 minutes ago, MHV184 said:

Ok cool so does that mean 4015 is still at Yukon

Depends on where you saw the bus. If it was on the island it's most likely still there. Then again MHV is supposed to get displaced NGs so some moves might be happening now. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by MysteriousBtrain

[MHV184]

4 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Depends on where you saw the bus. If it was on the island it's most likely still there. Then again MHV is supposed to get displaced NGs so some moves might be happening now. 

Just saw 4015 on the S57 so it's still at Yukon

Edited March 8, 2019 by MHV184
Correction

[Future ENY OP]

Random thought of the day. Gun Hill 4542 is training in Downtown Brooklyn today. Just seen it make the turn on Bond Street. 

[Future ENY OP]

6 minutes ago, MysteriousBtrain said:

Depends on where you saw the bus. If it was on the island it's most likely still there. Then again MHV is supposed to get displaced NGs so some moves might be happening now. 

Which other depot is supposed to get the displaced NG’s along with Manhattanville? 

Edited March 8, 2019 by Future ENY OP