A rant on "real-time" transit scheduling

I'm mad as hell...

at the love of my life

and I'm not going to take this anymore.

 My feelings toward...

the love of my life

__________________________

Picture this: You break your neck to take the 6:00PM bus from your work in Monterey Park to Downtown LA, to connect to a 6:20 bus that (Google Maps' transit directions say) will get you to your grandparents house right on time for a 7:05 dinner. The first bus arrives a few minutes behind schedule (given by Google Maps), but still gets you to Downtown with 5 minutes to spare. You run up the gently-sloping hill to the stop where you catch the second bus (1 minute). Then you wait 10 minutes: no bus comes.

Its 6:26 now. You take out your smartphone and ping GoogleMaps. From "your location" to my grandparents' address, the app now shows a bus that leaves at 6:38. "You couldn't have missed the 6:20!" your conscience yells. There were two other guys here who say they waited for 5 minutes before (though, did they actually keep track?). Still, its only another 10 minutes, the brain reasons: you take a deep inhale, sigh and return to playing free computer chess.

You lose yourself in plotting some crafty chess moves, eventually taking down a queen and a knight. At some point during the game, you press the home button on your phone by mistake and see that it is 6:50. Suddenly remembering that you are en route to dinner, and not a pawn in a game, you open up Google Maps again. This time, the transit directions instruct you to walk 1 mile to the south to catch a bus that will take 12 minutes longer to deliver you to your grandparents. You are stunned to see that you will not arrive until 8pm. You would miss dinner.

The new calculation throws you into a frenzy. You can order a Lyft Line or Uber Pool and maybe get to your grandparents only 30 minutes late. And yet, you are at a bus stop: what if the bus due at 6:38 miraculously appears a minute after you make your request, which you can't cancel without incurring a $5 penalty. Is a 50 percent or lower chance of saving time worth $11 extra? Your family is more forgiving of delay than, say, your boss, so you continue to wait...

After another 4 minutes, give or take, two buses show up. You board the latter one. Riding in light traffic, the bus drops you off 2 blocks from your grandparent's door at 7:30.

______________________________

I experienced this saga twice last Friday, first on the evening commute from work (as narrated) and later on a trip to the bar (the latter trip did not involve a transfer).

Although the delay was longer than usual, this was not the first time that a Google Maps transit schedule has deceived me. On most of my transit journeys in the Los Angeles region, in fact, Google's transit departure and arrival times seem to follow the official schedules, with buses arriving a few minutes before or after the time given on the application.

Even if such variability does not always cause excessive delay, it forces transit riders to leave extra time for contingencies (e.g. arriving at the bus stop 10 minutes ahead of Google's scheduled times) and diminishes their perceived agency over their trip schedule. By contrast, drivers benefit from real-time traffic information and point-to-point travel. Thus, driving (already privileged by roadway engineering, subsidized infrastructure, etc.) gains even more of an advantage over transit in Los Angeles, and transit riders ditch their straps for steering wheels once they acquire the resources.

Given that automobiles are the greatest source of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the state of California, transit's inability to offer riders the accurate, real-time information offered to drivers fails not only transit enterprises, but society. 

Why does Google Maps' transit planner (the most comprehensive transit planning application in terms of regional and national coverage) fail so miserably at providing accurate schedules for LA-area agencies? Is there a structural flaw in the GTFS specification? Does blame lie with the agencies or with Google (or both?)? I am interested in learning more about this problem and engaging with potential solutions.
 

   

I'm back

Now that I've graduated from planning school, I will be writing on a more regular basis.

The last two weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for me. I graduated and celebrated for a couple days before beginning a full-time job at a planning consulting firm. In the ten days I have worked there as an employee, I have already completed several major assignments. I feel somewhat accomplished for landing a salaried job, and yet it exhausts me. I don't know how people can put up with this rigid schedule for four decades or more. Maybe I'll get used to it. Or maybe, I've been hooked on the gig economy.

Receiving my master's degree felt like less of a milestone than I anticipated. I don't feel as if I have grown too terribly much over the past few years. I have learned a lot in my program but I still hold many of the same beliefs and preferences (and the same bad habits) that I had two years, or even four years ago (when I graduated from college).

One revelation of my professional program and job networking is that people skills (and communication, more generally) matter more than technical skills for the success of one's career. I can't say I have advanced tangibly in this regard but I have become more discerning of my behavior in social settings.

Anyhow, enough of my life and on to the world. I will try to post at least once a week. Keep me to it!

A train trip across California

On Wednesday, I traveled 442 miles across the state of California, from Oakland to Van Nuys (just north of Los Angeles). Lasting 10.5 hours, the trip is the longest single train voyage I have taken in my life. Paralleling the California Coast Line, the trip provided stunning scenery as well as moments of deep reflection.

Route of train from the Bay Area to Los Angeles

First, the trip provided some amazing vantage points. Near Monterey, the track ran right alongside the Elkhorn Slough salt marsh.

Elkhorn Slough 

Further south, the train hugged the banks of the Salinas River, and later, the Pacific Coastline.

Along the Salinas River, near Bradley California

Beach near Gaviota, about 32 miles west of Santa Barbara

In San Luis Obispo county, the verdant hillside appeared particularly alluring.

The numerous beaches the train passed that lacked a trace of human activity, the hilly pastures teeming with cattle reminded me just how rugged California is beyond the primary urban cores.

Empty Beaches

Finally, the trip exposed me to the state's underbelly. The derricks of the San Ardo Oil Field (the 8th-largest in the state) had a haunting, monstrous aesthetic, a testament to our society's continued dependency on fossil fuel extraction (even in a "progressive" state).

The California Men's Colony, north of San Luis Obispo, paired authoritarian, rectangular geometry with a suprising openness to the outside world. I could see persons (prisoners?) wandering through the courtyard from the train.

San Ardo Oil Field in operation

California Men's Colony

I stepped onto the platform in Van Nuys with sensations of perplexment and awe.

16th-century Spanish conquistadores conceived of California as a physical island. I believe this metaphor to be quite fitting, when taken in the plural: not a singular island but an archipelago.