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Ever Waited Forever for a Bus Only to Have 3 Show Up? CTA Hopes to Fix That

By Ted Cox | May 11, 2015 2:46pm
 A CTA bus driver demonstrates how he receives messages through the new Bus Transit Management System.
A CTA bus driver demonstrates how he receives messages through the new Bus Transit Management System.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

WEST LOOP — A new Chicago Transit Authority system aims to solve the aggravating problem of buses that don't show up for long periods of time ... then arrive in groups.

The federally funded $8.8 million Bus Management Transit System will connect all of the CTA's 1,800 buses to its Control and Power Center and enable supervisors to act directly to alleviate gaps and spread out buses that have become bunched up.

In announcing the system Monday at CTA Headquarters, President Forrest Claypool said it was designed to address the irritating experience of waiting a half-hour for a bus only to have three pull up, one right behind the other, which no doubt contributed to bus ridership declining last year even as train rides hit record levels.

 CTA President Forrest Claypool will be returning to City Hall as Mayor Emanuel's chief of staff next week.
CTA President Forrest Claypool will be returning to City Hall as Mayor Emanuel's chief of staff next week.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

Ted Cox explains how the city plans to limit bus bunching:

Referring to what he called "bus bunching" and "bus gapping," Claypool said, "We don't like either one of them, and neither do our customers."

The system has been operating on a trial basis out of the CTA's 77th Street and 103rd Street garages since January, and three months of data have shown that "big gaps," defined as longer-than-scheduled wait times, dropped 40 percent on the busiest South Side bus routes, including the 79th Street bus and the 3 King Drive route.

CTA spokesman Brian Steele said it had produced "significant, consistent reductions in big gaps."

Claypool said he expected that reduction to be expanded citywide once all buses are equipped with the system by late summer.

Michael Haynes, manager of the CTA's transit-system support and and project manager of the new system, said it provided a "real-time, two-way communication system with our buses." The Control Center can track each bus on a line and determine the estimated number of passengers on each, and respond immediately to traffic problems, such as crashes, delays and closings due to fire.

"We're able to more accurately and quickly respond to incidents that occur on the street," Haynes said. The Control Center can then ask a bus to leave a garage earlier than scheduled, or have a relatively empty bus run express and leapfrog others on the route.

Claypool called it a "game changer" in that it replaces an antiquated system in which supervisors in CTA cars had to rush out and "intercept" buses on their routes to provide updates. By that time, he added, "it's too late to address the service issues."

Claypool said it would not cause any immediate layoffs, but might produce "efficiencies" over time that would allow for employee reductions or reassignments.

Claypool leaves the CTA at the end of the week to become Mayor Rahm Emanuel's chief of staff as he begins his second term with Monday's inauguration.

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