San Francisco’s top transportation official apologized for the NextBus outage that inconvenienced Muni riders who rely on the system for arrival times of Muni buses and trains.
San Francisco’s top transportation official apologized for the NextBus outage that inconvenienced Muni riders who rely on the system for arrival times of Muni buses and trains.
During last Tuesday’s San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors meeting, Ed Reiskin, directior of transportation, said of the outage:
“I recognize that it was very significant and inconvenience for a lot of folks and so I want to apologize to our riders and anyone else impacted… and fully take responsibility for that outage.”
Reiskin added:
“We don’t expect anything like that to recur in the future.”
The outage began during the first week of January when predictions on the NextBus mobile app, displays at transit shelters and inside the Muni Metro became wildly inaccurate.
Officials at the transit agency said the problem stemmed from AT&T shutting off its 2G wireless cellular network, which the NextBus system relies on to transmit data.
According to AT&T’s website, the company turned off its 2G network on Dec. 31. SFMTA officials said they thought they had more time to upgrade Muni vehicles to AT&T’s 3G network.
Staff from the transit agency and NextBus worked on upgrading Muni vehicles with new modems as vehicles pulled in at the end of the night, the transit agency said.
Most of the Muni’s light rail vehicle predictions were back up on Jan. 10. Last week, the transit agency said 90 percent of predictions for all Muni vehicles also returned online.
SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told SFBay the transit agency expects 100 percent coverage this week.
Rose said the transit agency is working on updating its radio communications system called the Computer Aided Dispatch and Automated Vehicle Location (CAD/AVL), which the NextBus uses.
In a presentation last year with the transit advocacy group Save Muni, staff said the transit agency is looking to replace the prediction system and signage with an implementation start date targeted for the summer of 2018.
Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.
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seems to me that the contractor (nexbus) should be the one apologizing. They didn’t forsee everything that has happened with technology when they conceived of the system! No this is SF, here we give MOAR MONEY to well connected contractors! MOAR MONEY FOR ED LEE AND WILLIES BOYZ
Well they picked NextBus