(Source: Washington Post)

Metro: ‘Next Bus’ System to Return in July

Metro General Manager John B. Catoe Jr. started off his online discussiontoday with an update on the late, lamented Next Bus system, intended to provide real time information about bus arrivals.

Catoe said the system that was taken down in October 2007 for lengthy repairs should be back in July. He ordered it taken down because the information wasn’t accurate enough often enough.

Recently, some bus riders discovered an online test site and began using it.

Dear Dr. Gridlock:
I have kind of a mystery for you about the NextBus system. I write a blog about Columbia Heights called New Columbia Heights and also for DCist.

One of the DCist writers found that NextBus seemed to be working for WMATA, so I wrote about it on my blog — a NextBus staffer then commented on the post and said it’s a test version, but WMATA gave them a green light, and please use it. When Sommer from DCist asked WMATA about it, they said it wasn’t ready and shut it down.

Suddenly, I’m the bad guy, because apparently I unearthed some secret and people claim WMATA had never wanted NextBus to work anyway, and used this as an excuse to shut it down (again). WMATA said it’ll be awhile before the site is up. It seems like NextBus and WMATA aren’t on the same page about the site, maybe you could look into that and why it’s not up and running at all – it’s been a few years.

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