The CTA hopes to reduce delays next month by getting bus supervisors out of their booths and into hybrid vehicles equipped with global positioning system phones and computers to more quickly untangle the head-scratching phenomenon where buses stack up along the same route.
Bus bunching won’t be eliminated, but the idea is to reduce the problem with a new program that CTA President Ron Huberman said is unique to Chicago.
Newly mobile supervisors will be able to head off a group of buses at the next stop and make timesaving changes, such as putting all passengers on a single bus and declaring it an express and directing subsequent buses either to make all-stop runs or turn around and head the other way, he said.
Right now, supervisors can take those actions only if the problem arrives at their booth. Supervisors will be able to dispatch more buses to stops they spot with long lines of commuters, Huberman said.
“The days of you seeing a CTA bus driver with a clipboard sitting there in a little wooden booth methodically counting buses are over,” Mayor Daley said Tuesday. “Even better, CTA riders will decreasingly have to endure the frustration of what feels like endless waiting only to see three buses arrive at the same time.”
The CTA plans to reduce the number of supervisors from 70 to 50. That will save about $1.2 million a year after the cost of maintaining new technology and vehicles is netted out, Huberman said.
The Bus Tracker, which provides commuters with real-time information on bus locations and estimated arrival times at ctabustracker.com, will track 67 routes — 15 more than it now does — starting July 21. The system also will provide Google-based mapping.
