On the buses - making life easy

One of the biggest arguments for using the car is "It's so convenient"... or by corollary - public transport is so inconvenient.

One of my long term bugbears with public transport is the lack of information at bus-stops. You're standing at a bus-stop and the bus doesn't come. Is it cancelled - or just late. Do I have to wait a minute - or twenty. Having reliable information goes a long way to making the system attractive to use.

Here in Stockholm they have recently updated a lot of bus-stops with the sort of signs you see at train stations - giving due times for the next two or three buses due. A good step forward - but it is still only when the timetable says it should come... not when they will actually turn up.

So, I was interested to find a new service on SLs mobile page mobil.sl.se giving realtime information. It's great - particularly now I have bookmarks for searches on all my regular stops.   I can sit at home, or in the office and know that there is a bus - and I have four minutes to make the stop...  not three... and not fifteen.

Technorati on: public transport