Each day before he leaves his Santa Barbara office for his home in Camarillo, Michael Collie checks to see if his bus is coming.
He doesn't peer out the window or down the street. Rather, he glances at his computer to see exactly where his bus is on its route and whether it will be on time.
The Ventura Intercity Service Transit Authority has given bus riders a way to monitor a vehicle's moment-by-moment progress on maps and schedules, using a global positioning system called NextBus.
"There's a lot of anxiety standing out there looking down the street and not knowing when the bus is really going to come," Collie said. "Having a chance to check NextBus to get a handle on that really helps."
About 95 buses in Ventura County, operated by six agencies, carry a NextBus rooftop satellite locator and radio transmitter. The equipment feeds information to a central computer in Northern California that calculates how long it should take each bus to reach its next few stops based on current speed, anticipated travel time and performance history.
Riders can access this real-time information on a computer, on a cellphone equipped with a web browser, on a personal digital assistant or from three dozen monitors at stops throughout the county. The service can be viewed at www.goventura.org and www.nextbus.com.
The data is recalculated every 90 seconds or 600 feet to make the schedule estimates 98% accurate within one minute, said Kenneth J. Schmier, founder and chief executive of Emeryville-based NextBus Information Systems Inc.
"It makes a big difference whether you're there a minute before a bus arrives or one minute after it leaves," Schmier said.
NextBus is used by 32 transit agencies in 10 states, including the Glendale Beeline. The system also tracks water taxis in New York City, streetcars in Portland, Ore., and trains and trolleys in San Francisco.
"What's happened to me is that I don't want to wait for the train anymore because I don't have to," said Marc Caposino, marketing director for San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency. "If it's cold or if it's raining, I don't want to wait, and that's when [the service is] perfect. I look to see when it says the train is coming in one minute, and then I run."
Glendale's system has been a success, said Jano Baghdanian, the city's traffic and transportation administrator. Glendale plans to increase the number of outdoor NextBus monitors by installing them in half of 30 new shelters to be built next year.
