City Suggests Tracking Buses With GPS

While waiting impatiently at the bus stop, or lost somewhere in town, residents and visitors could turn on their cell phones and check the exact location of a nearby bus—if only Beach Cities Transit had a GPS tracking system.

The City Council sent a recommendation to the bus line this week to consider installing GPS tracking devices on its vehicles.

Hermosa resident Michelle Keegan suggested the idea in a letter to the council that was read at Tuesday's meeting. 

"I have been trying to take the bus for convenience and for environmental reasons, but it is frequently running late," she wrote. "I'm convinced that once people are aware that they can track the buses and don't have to wait for an unknown period of time for one, they will be much more likely to want to use public transport." 

The council unanimously supported Keegan's recommendation. A couple of days later, City Manager Steve Burrell forwarded the proposed idea to the transit company.

"One of the greatest problems with the system is that people don't know when it's coming so if they can check it on their smart phone… it would be really cool," Burrell said.

City Councilman Jeff Duclos told Patch that he has not yet seen a response from Beach Cities Transit. "I'm sure we'll have an update by next week," he said.

Within the county's metro bus line, Los Angeles transit officials recently launched a "Go Metro" iPhone application that uses the device's GPS tracking to locate nearby stations and bus lines, but not in real time.

Now the Metro board is planning whether to use the GPS tracking devices that are already installed in county buses to send out real-time tracking information to riders. It would be accessible on the iPhone as well as other devices.

The proposed contract to implement this real-time GPS tracking program in Los Angeles would cost $1.65 million. 

If Beach Cities Transit considers a similar real-time GPS program here in the South Bay, the cost would depend on subsequent contract bids to install the devices and the program's mobile communications pricing.