Bloglanta

Recently, Mark McClain, who is the Director of Systems and Development for SignPost Network, gave a rundown of how the system works on MARTA, some of it’s flaws and what to expect in the coming days.  Informative stuff!  The reporting on this was done for the CFpT Yahoo Group by a Member who goes by Amazing Racer.  Bloglanta has edited, but every effort has been made to keep the editorial thrust of the piece in place.

[The System] works with MARTA simply feeding SignPost raw data saying where the trains are. [According to McClain] Much of SignPost problems stem from MARTA’s end. MARTA’s tracking system is largely from the 70s. Direction (Doraville, N Springs, Airport) is captured by receivers that read radio tags from the cabs. Some times they read from the front of the train, some times they read from the back of the train.   The back of the train is normally not coded the same as the front (MARTA’s issue).  Also, the receivers may simply miss because of interference.

MARTA knows where its trains are at all times, but it does not know what they are at all times. This makes SignPost have problems because sometimes all the data is faulty, and they can’t really do anything with the bad data. The result is errors or Ghost Trains. Also it takes 6 trains to produce an accurate forecast. So when condition change (wet/dry etc) it takes six passes to get the timing the right.

MARTA feeds the data to SignPost that converts into the info we see,  so that if a train is not listed, it’s because the system doesn’t know what the train is. The system knows the train is there, but the sign post won’t guess as to what train it is. They are working to make it default to Airport when this happens on the Southbound side because those trains only go one destination.

Full screen ads are required because, unfortunately, the signs do not support scrolling text. So to tell us the next train, they trick the system into moving the next screen.  When the sign goes into a full screen ad, it’s resetting itself to keep everything moving.  They are looking at shortening the ‘next train’ sentence.  Now each message is  nearly two and a half lines when fully typed out.

SignPost has looked at static messages which would just say, “N Springs 4 min”. Then show “Doraville 5 min.” instead of scrolling. SignPost prefers it because it would make the machines run more accurately.  MARTA, however, requires 3 inch text for ADA reasons. and 3 inch text only gives 24 characters. So they are looking to shorten the messages and keep it under 24 characters.

Marta is upgrading its train tracking system over the next 5 years so the times will get better.  MARTA is also revamping signage and announcements in all stations.

SignPost is also currently working on a web interface/application that would allow you to use your cellphone or computer to see when the next train would be at your stop. They have a working rudimentary version working right now.  It shows what time every train arrives at a certain station. They want to make it look better and be a little more user friendly than it now is. Expect that in the next few months.

Being in the ad business, they wanted to discuss their business model.  McCain discussed content, ads, targeting ads to stops (e.g. ‘Did you know there is a Starbucks at Peachtree Center?’).

McCain said Signpost has run into the same problems that MARTA has.  Companies still attach a negative stigma to public transportation and don’t see riders as good potential customers. They are hoping that MARTA’s negative image will improve.  Survey data from riders they have accumulated is quite shocking.  It trends right along with Atlanta in general. For example, the greatest growth in riders are those with an income level of $75,000+ level.  They hope to combine this with additional data from MARTA to make their case to advertisers more persuasive.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 am and is filed under Looking Toward the Future, Stupid Development Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.