TRACKING SUN TRAN

Computer-aided bus trips

Photos by A.E. Araiza / Staff
Lynx Strife and his friend Mary Mathein wait at the Roy Laos Transit Center for their Sun Tran bus, a wait that a software program might shorten.

UA professor seeks to supply route-time data

Dennis Olson Regular Sun Tran rider "A lot of problems I have are with buses leaving an area too early rather than staying there until the exact time." MaryAlice Lopez Frequent Sun Tran rider "Anything that would get you there on time better would be great."

Onlookers will think you're either clairvoyant or just plain lucky after watching you arrive at the bus stop just in time to catch the No. 6 headed Downtown.

You'll be neither.

Developers of a computer program under construction at the University of Arizona aim to take the hassle out of riding the bus by supplying some timely information.

Civil engineering professor Mark Hickman has spent two years developing a software program that would allow people to use a cell phone, Palm Pilot or a free computer kiosk at the bus stop to quickly find the best route from their point of origin to their destination.

The program would even tap into Global Positioning System units on buses, allowing riders to know exactly when their next bus would arrive.

"You don't want lack of information to be a barrier to people riding the bus," said Hickman, who is assisted on the project by two graduate students.

"I think it'll be helpful to people. Whether it will improve ridership, I don't know," Hickman said.

Tucson's bus company, Sun Tran, already has a phone line with operators who supply route information. The call-in service works fine for some people, but others might enjoy the features that a Web site available 24 hours a day would provide, Hickman said.

"One thing you can't get from a call center is a map you can look at, so they just have to try and describe things," said Chris Cherry, a civil engineering graduate student working on the project. "With the program, you've got a map you can use, and you don't even have to know exact addresses because you can click on it."

Another major advantage to the program lies in its ability to use historical data on when buses actually arrive, said Anirudh Garg, a computer science graduate and project member.

"The main thing with the program is, it's not static," Garg said. "It's based on real data of when the buses have been arriving, so it doesn't just go with the schedule."

That feature would make Dennis Olson's life a lot easier, he said.

"That would definitely be good for me, because a lot of problems I have are with buses leaving an area too early rather than staying there until the exact time," said Olson, 35.

Using a database supplied by Pima County that includes every land parcel in Tucson and a computer version of Sun Tran's bus schedule, Hickman developed an algorithm to compute all the possible routes from Point A to Point B and spit out the best one.

The Web site would give users three ways to identify origins and destinations: typing in an address, choosing from a set of landmarks such as Downtown and the Tucson Mall, or simply clicking on the map. The computer then finds all stops within a five-minute walk from that location.

All of Sun Tran's buses already use GPS units that transmit their locations every 40 seconds, Hickman said.

"The main motivation is to monitor where they're running according to schedule, but they also have a silent-alarm feature so that if an incident occurs on a bus, they can react very quickly," he said.

Tapping into those GPS units will allow the program to tell riders exactly where their next bus is, Garg said.

"That would make it a lot easier for me," said 19-year-old Mary Mathein, who rides the bus to Pima Community College. "It would be nice to know right when a bus is coming."

City Councilwoman Carol West said she's impressed with the UA project but fears that the city's current budget pinch might keep it from being implemented, at least in the short term.

"I really like the whole concept, but how expensive is it going to be at a time when our budget is very tight?" West asked. "At the same time, if we want to increase ridership, anything we can do to make ridership more efficient would really be appreciated."

Hickman said he hopes to have the program fine-tuned by the fall, with hopes that Sun Tran might make the program available as a demonstration project.

"Our idea at this point is to share the prototype with the people at Sun Tran, give them something to kick the tires a little bit and see what they think," he said.

MaryAlice Lopez hopes the program could find its way into touch-sensitive maps at bus stops.

"Anything that would get you there on time better would be great," said Lopez, 42. "That would really help a lot of people, especially people like me who depend on the bus so much."

* Contact reporter Thomas Stauffer at 573-4197 or at stauffer@azstarnet.com.

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