# Real time bus updates



## BCL (Nov 7, 2022)

For years I've seen NextBus phone numbers of San Francisco MUNI posts, but I rarely called them. Seemed a bit cumbersome having to call in (or was it text?). They have these displays at some bus shelters with the next bus times, but increasing they seem to not work any more, or can be covered with graffiti or even where the display is no longer visible (some look like vandals sanded them down).

But I guess the system is still in place and can be patched into assorted systems. I was in LA recently and it was great that I could use Apple Maps to map out a transit route, and it would give a real time location of where the bus was. I'd see an icon of the bus and a little number indicating the last time it gave a location update. It was usually never more than 30 seconds. In particular, there was one twice and hour bus where I would otherwise had been guessing if I needed to walk to Union Station, take another bus, or get on that one to save a bunch of time. When I could see that I hadn't missed the bus, it made things a lot easier.

I've also used ART (Anaheim Resort/Regional Transportation) where they now have an on-demand system for rides during most of the day - close to a taxi with designated points. But that was great when I could get a real time update of where my assigned bus was. And they had these for the scheduled routes, although it got tricky since there was a separate map for each route. Sometimes I had multiple options to get to a certain point, and I could check multiple maps to get an idea of which bus I should take.


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