Getting onto Google is among a host of changes Heinle is hoping to roll out in the next few months, including an expanded passenger etiquette campaign and recycling program. He’s also working to get real-time schedule info online.
PHILADELPHIA. If you try to use Google Transit to plan a trip through the city now, expect a lot of walking and riding buses from New Jersey.
Unlike New Jersey Transit and more than 250 transit agencies from around North America, SEPTA has yet to join the popular travel-planning site. That’s apparently about to change.
SEPTA is set to start testing new rail schedules next week with the site and hopes its train schedules will be on Google next month, officials said, although bus routes won't be included until later this year.
Partnering with Google is among a host of initiatives to get more information to tech-savvy riders, including a redesigned Web site with better train and real-time bus information.
“We’re seeing an interesting change in the demographic of our customer base, a lot more interest in transit ridership by younger people,” said Kim Scott Heinle, SEPTA’s assistant general manager for customer service. “We have to make sure we’re crafting a program that is diverse, that recognizes our customer base is diverse, their interests are diverse. That’s the direction we’re trying to head.”
The transit agency has frustrated many trying to find schedules online without having to dive into tables of small type and scan their finger from one side of the screen to the other. Some developers have gone so far as to create their own programs to put out SEPTA info.
“I don’t know how they’ve really dealt with [technology], besides not much,” said Randy Schmidt, who helped develop iSEPTA.org, which gets Regional Rail riders info with the push of a few buttons. “They are kind of scared to do anything besides put out just this form that is technically correct.”
Schmidt applauded SEPTA’s plans to get on Google Transit and said it will make it easier for riders to find out how to get around. His hope that SEPTA would release the data streams it sends to Google to the public doesn't look likely to happen, however.
“Customers need to understand, in some cases, [SEPTA’s not supplying the data],” he said of third parties releasing info. “In that case we can’t attest to the accuracy of the information. ... The Google process will be much more reliable. It will be easier to share information with others.”
Getting onto Google is among a host of changes Heinle is hoping to roll out in the next few months, including an expanded passenger etiquette campaign and recycling program.
Google Transit to plan a trip through the city now, expect a lot of walking and riding buses from New Jersey.