Like A Bus Crash Waiting to Happen

The Montreal Gazette has an article in the newspaper today about an emerging technology designed to give people the ability to see when the next buses will arrive at a given stop in real time through GPS. The article fails to mention how there will be no chance in hell that this system is coming to Montreal.

As much as people complain about the train system here, the bus system has become much worse. It’s frustrating to take the bus in the city because I don’t know if it will actually show up. Even at the terminus, buses will sometimes never arrive. Or sometimes they do, late, and there will be two buses wanting to pick up passengers.

The worst bus I’ve ever seen is the 420 Express which will miss sometimes up to three rotations. A couple of years ago, the STM had said that due to bus shortages, some express buses would not arrive at the intended arrival time. The problem was that the STM never said which buses would be delayed/cancelled. It’s not so bad in the summer but in the coldest days of winter, it’s irresponsible. Starting last year, they actually added service to the bus so that it would depart at times other than rush hour but it was still plagued by the phantom bus syndrome. I would leave my house early to go to school and still end up being late because one or two buses decided not to show up.

The problem with this system, as I think the STM would see it, is that people would now have physical proof that the STM is not putting buses out. Outside of the random news report where a journalist stands at a bus station and counts the amount of buses that pass, this could actually more damning for the STM than the AMT train fiasco. People would be able to calculate how many times a bus doesn’t show up for it’s route and report it to the media.

I could also imagine how bad things would get for the bus drivers. It’s bad enough that they get yelled at by annoyed customers for buses not showing up (it’s not the driver’s fault, it’s whoever’s job it is at the depot to keep the buses on schedule). People seem not to realize that if the 4:00 bus does not arrive and the 4:30 bus does, the driver is not half-an-hour late. Now passengers will be able to see visually from blocks away that their bus is very late. The drivers are going to have to invest in their own Tylenol vending machine with all the headaches this new system would cause.

Instead of spending money to equip the bus fleet with GPS tracking technology and the other costs associated with rolling out such a large program, how about the money is spent on getting the buses out there when they’re supposed to be out there. Maybe that’s too much to ask for.

Canadian News

To further fan the flames of the fire that says that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Liberal Party are in bed together, Harper has agreed to drop the Cadman libel lawsuit and buy a house together.(the last part isn’t true…please don’t sue).

International News

More civil violence has broken out in Africa, this time in Madagascar where at least 23 people have been killed by police during a unarmed protest earlier today. There was a similar incident in January where over 12 people were killed. Problems could escalate further as both sides are becoming further agitated.

Sports News

Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds…now Alex Rodriguez. I hope that the next juicing scandal to hit baseball doesn’t involve Youppi. Although, baseball is starting to run out of innocent players at this point.