The First Rule of NextBus: There is no NextBus

Here's the facts: NextBus has a system that uses GPS trackers to monitor the location of busses in real time. It's reliable, it can be set up quickly, and it works. It took only six months to install NextBus for DC's transit network, which is 60 percent larger than Muni, with 60 percent more busses and three times as many routes. (Update! Work on DC's system isn't finished yet -- it started in January, and is scheduled to go live in June.) But before they could roll the system out in SF, they had to build a bunch of new features into the system; administrative-type tools that riders won't ever see, but Muni insisted on having.

Here's some more facts: the money for our NextBus system comes from a couple places. One of the most prominant sources of money comes from bridge tolls imposed by the Real-Time Transit Information Grant Program, which was approved by voters in 2004 as part of Regional Measure 2. NextBus worked with transit agencies to get Measure 2 on the ballot, and it paid off -- the MTC (that's the regional transit commission that runs the awful, user-unfriendly Transit.511.org site) allocated $20 million, of which the MTA (that's our local transit agency) gets just over half, for bus tracking.

Got all that? We know, it's complicated. Don't worry if it doesn't totally make sense, you can still express moral outrage even if you don't know what you're talking about.

Here's where it gets weird: the folks at Muni don't seem to know that NextBus is ready for showtime. When we spoke to the Passenger Services office (yes! Muni has an office in charge of customer service! We couldn't believe it, either) they said that none of the electric busses had NextBus trackers. "But didn't the MTA get a grant to install the trackers?" we asked, and the woman on the other end laughed, literally laughed at the question. "Everyone's getting laid off here," she said, "I don't think there's any extra money." And when we spoke to Maggie Lynch at Muni's press office, she too had heard nothing about NextBus' readiness.

We can't shake this feeling that Muni and NextBus aren't totally the best of friends. When we were talking to Maggie -- she's in charge of Muni's press relations -- before we even had a chance to ask any questions, she was all, "are they trying to sell NextBus to you?" And we were like, "um, what?" And she goes, "because they had said that NextBus was all ready, but then it turned out that the system had bugs that needed to be fixed."

But it DIDN'T have bugs, is the thing. That's how DC was able to get a NextBus system up and running in just under six months. (See update above.) NextBus didn't have as many administraive features as Muni wanted, but that ain't a bug. See what we mean about the NextBus/Muni sketchiness?

And there's more: until very recently, you COULD access that secret, hidden-from-public-view NextBus data for all the electric lines. You weren't supposed to be able to see it, but with a tricky switching of URL variables, you could tweak the NextBus site into providing data for every line except the diesel-powered ones.

And then that feature disappeared. The hack no longer worked. How long would it take to bring it back? "Two minutes," says Mike Smith: NextBus engineer, Muni rider (he doesn't own a car) and SFist reader. (Hi Mike!) When we called him to ask about all this silliness, he told us, "it would simply be a matter of un-hiding that information in the database."

This is a far cry from what Muni had to say. Long before we even planned on writing this thrilling exposé, we had written a bitter email to Muni about no longer being able to hack data for the 21 out of the NextBus site. They responded by telling us (wrongly, though not, we think, intending to deceive) that we never COULD get that data, that it was impossible, simply impossible. We knew that it WAS possible, since we'd been doing it since last November, so we wrote some more bitter emails and wound up in touch with Muni engineer Frank Lau.

Before we identified ourselves as "press," (yes, ethically, we're supposed to do that if we're gathering info for a post, even though we're just bloggers) Frank was, well, frank. "NextBus is addressing a deficiency list prior to the line activation to the public," he wrote to us in mid-April, "Schedule information will be available to you soon as Muni get the information from NextBus." At this point we ceased to be a mere disgruntled rider, and our citizen-journalist ears perked up. We revealed that we blogged, and that we wanted to blog about this "deficiency list," and could Frank elaborate on what those deficiencies are? He stopped replying at this point.

"I don't know what he could mean," said Mike, the NextBus engineer, when we asked him about that. We also asked what it would take to make NextBus data for the electric lines available to the public. There was a pause, and then he said, "it would take a commitment from Muni."

Not so fast, though: there's a few roadblocks to consider. "I don't know if all the vehicles are equipped yet," said Muni spokeswoman Maggie Lynch, explaining that Muni doesn't want to provide information that isn't complete. (How's your OMG WTF BBQ coming along? Those charcoals nice and toasty yet?) And that's not all; Muni's contract with its bus-shelter supplier is about to end, and they can't install arrival-predicting LED signs at the stops until they've got a new supplier. (One requirement of the new contract is that every new shelter have an LED sign.) And of course there's tons of paperwork to do for the MTC, which collects the bridge-toll money that makes it all possible. The paperwork needs signatures and the system needs more testing, she told us. How much longer could it be? "Perhaps eight months," she said. That's a lot longer than two minutes.

And to be sure, NextBus is not without its issues. For example, last week, the website told us that we'd have to wait 76 minutes for the next 33. When we went out to the stop, book in hand, ready to wait for an hour, we were relieved to see a 33, which was apparantly "invisible" to NextBus, pull up to the stop within 15 minutes. And for the next two days, the 33 route experienced periodic "outages," during which it looked like there weren't ANY 33s running, when in fact we know that there were because we were riding them.

But wait. The 33 isn't one of the "hidden" electic lines. It's been officially listed on the NextBus site for well over a year now. So apparantly Muni doesn't actually mind providing information to riders which may or may not be accurate. (We know, you're shocked.) If the 33 has periodic downtime, what's wrong with providing info for all the other electic lines? That's what software-people call a "beta period," when a new system gets test-driven by users. For example, Gmail has been in beta for twoish years. And people seem to be okay with that.

So we asked Maggie, why hide the NextBus data? If the public wants it (and judging from reader response to our articles on the topic, they overwhelmingly do) what's the harm in presenting the data to riders, warts and all? "I don't know what the harm would be," Maggie said, "unless it wasn't accurate." Er, right. Like the current system runs like Swiss freakin clockwork -- memorizing arrival times, hoping and praying that the driver didn't decide to take the day off, researching bus maps if you're taking a trip someplace you don't normally go, deciphering Muni shorthand on signs, and trying not to think about how Muni's on-time record is below what is legally mandated.

So, what can you do about all this? We're not really sure. There just seems to be a dead end where NextBus would love for the data to be publicised (and the public would love to have it) and Muni simply isn't aware that it's able to do so. You can try writing to the Customer Service Office; they actually do respond to messages. (Actually, they wait a couple days, sometimes weeks, and then only tell you that they'll look into it; they have a policy against revealing to you what the results of your complaint were, if any.)

Or you can try calling their trip-planner line -- 415-673-6864 -- that number works on weekdays from 9am to 8pm, and puts you in touch with a live person who has NextBus data and schedules readily available. And you can also try calling Passenger Services at 415-923-6164; if you can get Pablo Vigil on the line, he's a helpful fellow. (SFist Eve has declared a desire to name her nonexistant band after him.)

And of course, keep checking the NextBus site for the eventual day that Muni relents and allows us to see its arrival data, bringing us one step closer to convenient, dependable public transit. Ahhhhhhhh. It'll be a nice day, when it finally comes. We just wouldn't count on it being too soon.