CHAPEL HILL, NC – Bus tracking has returned for some Chapel Hill Transit buses.
Chapel Hill Transit buses are tracked with cellular devices called modems. Live tracking shows where buses are in real time in apps like NextBus and Transloc. This feature was unavailable for a little over a year when 3G service was discontinued by carriers, as the modems ran on 3G.
Chapel Hill Transit Director Brian Litchfield said that COVID-related supply chain issues delayed the installation of new 4G modems, but the equipment is starting to arrive.
“We’ve actually received 25 units so far and installed all 25 of those,” he said. “Another 69 of them just arrived yesterday, and we’re starting to install those.”
Litchfield said it takes around four hours to install each modem and that the goal is to have live tracking for all Chapel Hill Transit buses active by March.
However, an entirely new real time system has been in the works.
“The irony of all of this is we have been planning to replace NextBus for some time,” Litchfield said. “Certainly this last year has been very frustrating. It has certainly added to why we were already headed down that road of replacing it.”
He said that by this summer, the equipment for the new system will be installed. The new real time system will provide similar services in addition to new information, such as how many people are on board a particular bus.
“For example, if a customer is looking at it and they see a bus has got 50 people on it, then maybe they can decide, ‘well, maybe I’ll wait for the next one,’” he said. “Or if they have to get the class, they’ll still jump on board. But it’ll give them that information to be able to make that decision.”
He said that the new system will not use the proprietary technology the current system uses. This means that if a part breaks or needs to be changed, the replacement can easily be ordered from places like Amazon or BestBuy instead of from a specific vendor.
Litchfield said that he is looking forward to restoring the live bus tracking system.
“We know it’s been a long year for our customers and for us, and we know how frustrating it is,” he said. “Many of our customers had real time information for almost 15 years. We had it long before many others did, so we have many customers that have never utilized transit without the use of real time. So adapting to that has been a challenge, and we certainly understand that that’s been frustrating to folks.”