Cta text message bus tracker
CTA Bus Tracker SM can give you estimated arrival times by text message (works on most mobile phones*) with CTA Bus Tracker by Text. You can get. All Bus Stops Now Feature CTA Bus Tracker Texting Information necessary to receive the estimated arrival times of the next buses via text message. two-.
If your stop has multiple routes serving it, your results may not fit in one text message. In that case, you can also reply with "N" to see the next result for the stop you requested. To get just the routes you're interested and potentially reduce the number of texts you need to send or receive to get the information you want , you can also specify a route number in your request.
In addition to looking at the instructions on the bottom of a CTA Bus Stop sign or posted information at bus stations, such as on Loop Link downtown , there are two other ways to find bus stop IDs:. Getting information in advance It's easy as Find your stop ID. Receive estimated arrival times. Red Line Service Change.
Why can't they put the special routes to the sports arenas on here too? I don't care if there is a schedule, I just want to know when one will arrive at any given stop. I'm guessing they had to wait until all the buses were on Bus Tracker to enable these features. This won't affect me, but will be nice for everyone who doesn't have a "web-enabled device" as the CTA likes to call it. Jason May 13, at But it doesn't solve the problem created by the 'new and improved' Bustracker mobile as implemented at least via Sprint - now it is impossible to bookmark anything but the main page.
Every other level seems to be associated with session information in some way, so that navigating to either a bookmarked page or browser history - even within minutes of the marking - gets a Link Expired message. That blew out my set of frequently used route and stops bookmarks. CarolynA May 14, at Except for US Cellular, the text message variation works fine. At first is was exactly 10 minutes off but that was fixed. Now, it's accurate or a minute off either way. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. We first provide working definitions of key terms and present a brief review of relevant literature.
We then explain the proposed qualitative method and discuss its implementation. Then, we discuss the results of the qualitative analysis, followed by a discussion of design implications. We conclude the paper by describing the contributions, implications, limitations and future work. This section provides working definitions of key terms, including blind user, screen reader, bus tracker and help-seeking situation to contextualize the reader.
Subsequently, it summarizes relevant literature on help-seeking situations and blind Web users. The blind comprise an atypical user group that employs unique cognitive and interaction strategies in digital environments Babu, She relies on a screen reader SR to interact with computers and smart phones. The SR is a text-to-speech software that identifies text content on the screen and presents this aurally through a synthetic voice Di Blas, et al.
It offers specialized keyboard shortcuts for a range of operations. Such shortcuts, along with those offered by the operating system, enable the user to operate the computer non-visually Babu and Singh, For the blind, Web interaction is a listening activity. Arriving on a Web site, she typically hears three SR announcements Babu, She may choose to stop the SR from these continuous announcements by pressing the Control key, and instead listen to bits of information using navigational keys such as the Arrows and Tab. The Down Arrow moves focus to next line and prompts the SR to read its content e.
The Tab key moves focus to the next link or form control, and then announces its label Buzzi, et al. Interestingly, the SR presents a link or form control or e. Consequently, the user perceives a single line of text with hyperlinked words to be spread over multiple lines. Numerous other keyboard commands are available for a multitude of operations, the majority of which are rarely used Leuthold, et al. The above simplistic description of Web interaction experience with an SR is intended to help the reader gain a basic understanding of how a blind user may engage with a bus tracker.
A bus tracker is a Web-based application to conveniently and efficiently track buses operated by public transit agencies. The server processes this AVL data along with data from the routes and buses database to estimate real time bus locations and arrivals Biagioni, et al. A Web site or a mobile app furnishes this real-time information for riders. Real time transit information is considered one of the most important factors influencing transit ridership U. Riders who do not use bus trackers find public transit services unnecessarily difficult, spending extra time in travel Thiagarajan, et al.
On the other hand, riders who use these technologies experience shorter wait times and increased confidence on such services Biagioni, et al. Additionally, use of these real-time tools significantly increases perceived security of late-night rides, and boosts overall satisfaction with the service Zhang, et al. These positive perceptions of riders translates into increased ridership for the transit agency Tang and Thakuriah, Consequently, many metropolitan areas around the world have either deployed, or are in the process of deploying bus trackers for the benefit of transit riders Pu, et al.
To ensure such benefits are reaped effectively, it is imperative that these emergent and complex applications help users accomplish their tasks regardless of abilities and technical skills. Help in this context refers to assistance or clarification regarding the solution, workaround, or remedial measure to negotiate a problem Xie and Cool, Our long-term research objective is to develop help mechanisms to address the help-seeking situations blind users face in real-time bus tracking.
According to Xie and colleagues , a help-seeking situation involving a blind user may arise due to a difficulty, a confusion, or a failure to complete a task. Literature on non-visual Web interaction Babu, ; Babu, a informs that the sight-centered design of Web sites and Web applications presents roadblocks and hurdles for blind users in accomplishing their goals. A roadblock is a situation difficult or impossible to overcome without sight Babu, It is navigable primarily with sighted assistance Babu, a.
A hurdle is a situation navigable without sight but after spending extra time and effort Babu, It can be reduced or eliminated with proper training Babu, a. In this paper, a help-seeking situation arises when the user faces a difficulty, confusion, failure, roadblock or hurdle to interact seamlessly with the bus tracker to achieve a goal. It triggers a need for some form of help from the bus-tracker, as opposed to human help, to proceed further.
Understanding help-seeking situations in systems interaction explains the help needs of users Xie and Cool, It assists in discovering design errors that interfere with the proper access and use of content and controls Babu, b; Babu, et al. It helps designers create more effective help mechanisms for new and complex digital environments Xie and Cool, Consequently, the study of help-seeking situations assumes significance for the design of more helpful bus trackers. Prior research Xie, et al. Xie and Cool evaluated help features through structured interviews with sighted users.
They found that while participants recognized the importance of system help for effective interaction, they were skeptical of the effectiveness of existing help features. Xie and Cool observed the digital library interactions of sighted participants performing keyword, browse-category, and known-item search. They reported seven broad categories of situations characterized by difficulties in: Xie and colleagues reported the findings of a pilot study on blind users help-seeking situations in digital libraries.
They found that while blind users may face situations similar to their sighted counterparts, some unique situations may arise depending on the digital environment.
For instance, digital libraries may present situations characterized by cognitive overload, comprehension problems, and difficulty reasoning. While these findings represent the first step towards understanding the help needs of blind users, it does not explain what situations may arise in real time bus tracking. Our research aims to address this literature gap. Addressing the literature gap merits an in-depth investigation of the interaction experiences of blind users with bus tracking sites.
It will require close examination of their thoughts, perceptions and actions in performing common tasks. This is best achieved through qualitative methods such as field studies, direct observations and open-ended interviews. Babu b demonstrates the feasibility of field studies with blind users engaged with a travel site. A task-oriented approach allowed examination of tasks and goals of interaction for a contextually-situated understanding of problems in deriving intended systems utility.
User-centeredness afforded examination of the needs, abilities, and challenges of blind users in systems interaction, and explained experiences of navigating challenges in performing tasks. Their study demonstrates the feasibility of this approach in understanding their help-seeking situations. We believe a synthesis of these two research approaches will be necessary to study the help-seeking situations of blind users in real time bus tracking. The subsequent section demonstrates the feasibility of deriving intended results. We conducted an exploratory field study with blind users to examine their thoughts, perceptions and actions in interacting with a bus tracker.
It generated rich verbal evidence of their experiences in retrieving real-time bus arrival and location information for the Chicago metropolitan area. We employed a qualitative method to analyze this verbal evidence to understand what, where and how help-seeking situations arose. The following describes the participants, material, and procedure of our study. While three reported no light perception, the other four reported some light perception.
Two participants were reportedly above average, three were average, while one was below average. E-mailing, information gathering, and socializing reportedly were the top three reasons for Internet use. They had reportedly used a trip planner like Google Transit at least once to plan bus journeys. However, none had ever used a bus tracker for real-time information. Materials included a study laptop, an external keyboard, a bus tracking site, and the observation study protocol. The study laptop was operated by Windows 7 OS. The external keyboard was used to provide participants a standard key layout and clearly separated keys to work with.
CTA bus tracker is one of the oldest bus tracking sites, and is used as a case study by other transit agencies planning to offer real-time bus tracking services to their riders. The observation study protocol comprised a MS Word document available on the home screen of the study laptop. It included four sections. The first section described the study objective. The second section explained the think-aloud method. The third section included instruction to spend 30 minutes exploring the bus tracker interface thinking aloud.
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The purpose was to make participants familiar with the site, and have them practice the think-aloud method. Additionally, it provided us the opportunity to check the quality of the recorded verbalizations. The fourth section included instructions for completing four bus tracking activities:. We scheduled one-on-one study session with each participant at a place and time of her convenience. Each session commenced with the participant reviewing the consent form and consenting to participate.
She then logged on to the study laptop, examined the keyboard layout and the screen reader version to gain familiarity. She reviewed the Observation Study Protocol and understood the think-aloud method and the instructions. When she was ready to launch the bus tracker, we turned the Audacity recorder on to capture her verbalizations. While thinking aloud, she opened the browser of her choice, navigated to the bus tracker site, and explored its features for the next 30 minutes. At this point, we stopped the audio recording, and saved it with an appropriate name.
After ascertaining the quality of this audio recording, we resumed the Audacity recorder. The participant returned to the bus tracker site and followed the instruction to attempt the four activities with concurrent verbalization. At the conclusion, we stopped the Audacity recorder, and saved the audio recording with an appropriate name. The seven sets of audio recordings collected from participants were distributed among three transcriptionists. The transcripts were then distributed among three independent coders responsible for segmentation and coding.
Segmentation involved decomposing a transcript into segments that each captured a unit of thought, perception or action. Coding involved categorizing segments as per the coding scheme presented in Xie, et al. These five categories of segments comprised evidence of help-seeking situations. For reliability concerns, we considered only those segments similarly categorized by the three coders. By taking into account the adjoining segments, we reconstructed the help-seeking situation faced by the participant.
By grouping these situations by task, we presented a contextually-situated depiction of the situation. Analyzing these situations with respect to the goal, we identified the underlying help need.
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Synthesizing all the results, we tried to explain what, where, and how help-seeking situations arose for participants in interacting with the CTA Bus Tracker, as well as their help needs in real time bus tracking. Qualitative analysis of the verbal reports collected from participants yielded very interesting results.
It identified a host of help-seeking situations encountered, highlighted the experience endured, and revealed the help needs of blind riders in bus tracking. In Table 1 , we provide a snapshot of our results, followed by a detailed description of specific help-seeking situations, grouped by the activities being performed. Our analysis shows that blind users learning the bus tracker interface may not find it helpful enough. People typically explore a new site to get familiar with available features and functions.
Blind users may accomplish this objective either by reading every bit of information with the Arrow keys, or skimming the page using keyboard shortcuts such as H to find section headers, E to find edit boxes, and so on. We observed four help seeking situations as participants explored the CTA bus tracker.
How to: Use Bus Tracker by text
In the following, we elaborate on these help-seeking situations. The first situation is the confusion with last stop information. Presumably, the purpose here is to aid bus tracking from a regularly visited stop. However, our participants found this last stop information confusing.
The following quote captures evidence of this confusion. The above quote demonstrates the confusion of S2 on coming across the last stop link. At the core of this confusion was her failure to guess that it referred to the stop last looked up, not that last visited by a bus. Help evaluating relevance of routes listed. Help finding relevant route. Help locating ETA statements section. Help discerning ETA information in statements. Help evaluating relevance of ETA statements. Help interpreting ETA statement effectively.
Help agreeing with terms and conditions. Help selecting appropriate passwords. Help navigating out of error dialogue box. Help recognizing instruction to make request.
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Help understanding relevance to ETA query. Help effectively interpreting instruction. The second situation is the difficulty finding by stop number. Presumably, the purpose here is to facilitate tracking buses while waiting at a stop displaying its stop number. However, our participants had difficulty understanding and using this feature effectively. The following quotes capture evidence of this difficulty.
Well, I do not know what a stop number is. Does that mean route number? S2a and S6 demonstrate the difficulties participants faced in understanding what a stop number really meant, wondering if it was the route number. S1 and S2b demonstrate their difficulties in understanding the utility of this feature. S2c and S4 demonstrate their difficulty using this feature without having the stop number at their disposal. The third situation is difficulty finding adequate explanation of bus tracking. We observed that our participants found this explanation to be inadequate.
The following quote captures evidence of this problem. This remark demonstrates the failure of S7 to find an adequate description of a bus tracker — its features and functions.
The fourth situation is the confusion with a list of bulleted links. The CTA bus tracker includes bulleted links in the list of routes on Select Route page , directions on Select Direction page , and stops on Select Stop page , apparently to highlight the different selection options. However, we observed that our participants had difficulty recognizing the link in a bulleted list item.
The following quote captures evidence of this difficulty. These remarks demonstrates the difficulty of S5 in recognizing the embedded link in the bulleted list of directions. Blind users learning the bus tracker interface may face multiple help-seeking situations. They may have difficulty finding adequate explanation of bus tracking. They may also face difficulty recognizing a link in a bulleted list of items. Our analysis shows that blind users interacting with the bus tracker may run into roadblocks and hurdles.
We observed that participants faced one major roadblock and two major hurdles in interacting with the site. In the following, we elaborate on the roadblock and hurdles identified. The roadblock occurs in interacting with a page whose content and controls suddenly become inaudible.