After eight years, it seems the TTC is finally entering the 21st century. On Wednesday, the transit authority will announce the launch of an email alert system that will communicate with riders about service disruptions. Spacing has learned that initially the e-alerts will be exclusively for subway system disruptions. After the bugs are worked out, alerts will be available for all streetcar and bus routes.
The e-alert service will go live at 1pm on Wednesday.
41 comments
I’m incredibly excited for this. It’s great to see the TTC exploring some online options for notifying users of service disruptions.
If anyone is interested in receiving alerts via Twitter, they should check out a little project of mine: http://ttcupdates.com and http://twitter.com/ttcupdates/.
Going to make a post about your project soon, Brian.
Apologies for the shameless self-promotion, Shawn 😉 I figured this might be a good spot to let people know about it.
Actually, if you look at the bottom of the TTC webpage, there’s an RSS link for Service Alerts – so it’s not that hard to keep up to date with alerts already. 🙂
@joe: By RSS sure, but very few “normal” people understand RSS. The same can be said for Twitter too, though 😉 In fact, TTCu makes full use of the RSS feed. E-mail is something almost everyone understands and “gets” these days.
To follow Brian’s comment, RSS is/can be passive in that you have to look to see if the feed has found anything new. While an email is pushed right at you.
For people using Blackberries and iPhones it is easier to either get an email or use a TTC-inspired app like Brian’s TTC Update or the Red Rocket.
@Matthew Blackett: That’s exactly it. I want the alert to go RIGHT to my BlackBerry. When it comes to the TTC, those who rely on transit need to know about major disruptions as quickly as possible.
Of course, Twitter, e-mail, and RSS feeds are all pretty much useless while you’re on the subway; except for those short bursts when the subway is traveling above ground subway users with iPhones (or any other smart phone) can’t get at this information.
Sure subway related alerts are announced in the trains, but not connecting bus information.
How about TTC really gets into the 21st century and extends cellular coverage as well (or at least allows the cellular companies to do so).
I tried using the MTA’s email service — it lets you pick exactly which subway and bus lines to be alerted about, and even which time periods. (For example, the A train, weekday rush hours only). It’s pretty neat, until you realize that there are dozens of minor disruptions during the day, 95% of which you don’t care about. In the end I turned it off and went back to checking the website before heading out the door.
RSS might be more effective and appropriate in this case than e-mail alerts. I am subscribed to a bunch of e-mail alerts and mailing lists that send me e-mails that I just end up ignoring, and they clutter up my inbox. GO is a little different because most GO riders have a specific train they regularly ride, and because the implications of service disruptions are greater (if I’m going to Oakville and a series of trains are cancelled, I have no other way home… if I find Yonge is closed, I can use University/Spadina).
The bigger issue is how to get timely information on surface route disruptions. It is still rare that they show up on the service alert page. If I had to guess at the problem, I’d say it’s because the service alert page is run by the transit control centre (which is more concerned with subway/RT operations) rather than the bus/streetcar operating divisions.
@ Charles: I meant to take a swipe at the TTC for its limited coverage underground but forgot to add that. I will say that at times I have been able to get 2 bars on my iPhone while in stations like King, Bloor, Spadina, and Dundas West. Maybe cuz its on a 3G network, but I’m not sure….
@ uSky and Brent: maybe the key is to allow for riders to select time periods of when an e-alert can be sent (morning and evening rush hours). It would be part of your profile. I suspect that is more capability than any transit authority wants to have on their server, but its not unrealistic.
@Matthew
You can get coverage in stations which are next to an outdoor tunnel segment – usually. Some stations seem to have weak access despite being nowhere near an above ground segment. I’m guessing there must be a cell tower near one of the surface grating/air vent above the station – the kind you walk over on the sidewalk.
Hmm,
I had the experience the other day of waiting for the Wellesley bus at Castlefrank Station. The bus never showed, 16 minutes later, no announcements, or notices, the Parliament bus shows up.
The driver of the Parliament bus knows there’s been an accident involving or impeding the Wellesley service.
But no one bothered to tell the passengers.
Never mind email; can’t transit control take the time to make an announcement or tell the station attendant to do so and/or post a note?
I’m just saying.
Pleeease – no cell coverage in the subway. Can’t there be one place in the city where nitwits cannot bark inanities through their phones into the back of my head? It’s already bad enough that some have to do so at any uncovered break.
@James: Along the same lines, it would be nice if the information on the site and the information provided by the RSS feed were the same. Sometimes an alert will appear on the site but not in the feed.
Matthew – As I said in my comment, the MTA site does actually allow for specific time periods, but it’s still just too much and ends up being ignored as clutter. It’s still a nice feature, I’m just saying that I did not find it terribly useful myself.
Seconded about cell phone coverage being undesirable on subways. Torontonians just aren’t mature enough to handle that kind of freedom, I’m afraid!
I sympathize with Boris. As much as I really want improved communications from the TTC regarding service and updates, I’m fearful of how unfettered mobile access on the subway might subject me to the chattering fracas of the masses. I know that sounds self-righteous or anti-social, but I bet we’ve all been stuck next to people who you wish would save their conversation for a more private venue.
Be afraid. Very afraid.
Mobile coverage can’t come soon enough in the tunnels. Sure there are some bad talkers, but there are also people who smell, people who keep their backpacks on, people who eat onion stink on the trains — there will always be problems with people, we can’t ban them, and cell coverage should not be banned because of a few bad ones either.
Give them the passive-aggressive Toronto eye, and if that doesn’t work, get earphones and some Bach MP3s.
Great logic, Shawn – there’s other bad stuff so one more bad thing is fine? Is that the “It’s all good” philosophy? Before you know it you have a system common to many U.S cities where no-one who has any kind of a choice would be caught using public transit.
Nobody said ban them but we don’t have to enable them either. My evil eye powers have their limits.
No Boris, it’s not “it’s all good” but rather “it’s a free country”. A few bad talkers are not enough to convince me the benefits of data coverage in the tunnels isn’t anything but great.
There may be benefits of data coverage. There are few, if any, benefits of voice coverage inside tunnels.
I never use voice, and avoid it whenever I can, but for many people, it’s how they communicate. Limiting it in a public space like the TTC is, in my mind, like saying we can’t hang out in parks, or sit and chat on park benches, or that somebody can’t play their guitar on a streetcorner. We’d be up in arms if such limitations were put on us in other public spaces (I often find the hippy dippy guitar songs on the street more annoying than loud cell talkers, but I’m not going to tell them to stop). For some reason it’s ok to hold the sentiment that we should limit communications on the TTC because some individuals are bad talkers.
This does not apply to everybody who holds this opinion (and certainly not specifically to this comment thread) but often when I hear this argument it is tinged with both a Luddite and misanthropic sensibility, which I suspect is behind much of the feeling.
Shawn, you are wrong to frame this as a limiting freedoms argument. It is about enabling invasive communication corporations (or preferably NOT enabling them). And if you want to throw in Luddite (look – I’m using a ‘puter!) and misanthropic i’ll see you with an antisocial and a techno-holic.
For some reason, I’m reminded of that blowhard Rex Murphy’s recent, twisted defense of Tim Ho’s drive-thrus. Give me actual, live guitar strumming, “hippy dippy” or otherwise over strangers mindless blatherings any day.
Your invasive communication corporation is my the-thing-that-lets-me-make-a-living.
Mobile technology has facilitated way more social engagement for me — engagement that would not have happened otherwise. Another essay I need to write….
Nevertheless, it doesn’t need to be everywhere, all the time.
Shawn, quit throwing around buzzwords. A confined tin can in a tunnel is not “public space†in any meaningful or relevant sense in this context and has nothing in common with a public park. And you already can’t play your guitar on the subway without one of the rare busker permits.
It is very much OK to hold the position that bad talkers ruin the experience of riding a subway car. They do and they will. The iPhone-wielding techno elite you lead is unrepresentative of the aggressive assholes who will be shouting into their $0 prepaid shoephones if this comes to pass.
Essentially, you believe your public-space argument trumps people’s right to enjoy a normal subway ride. While such rides involve face-to-face conversations, those are very different from having to listen to invariably overloud single-sided shoephone calls.
Now, if you read more carefully, you’d see the only thing I propose to limit is voice coverage inside tunnels. I have absolutely no qualms about quashing people’s alleged public-space rights in this exact context and neither should you.
I read your Twitter. All you do is bitch about the TTC, for fuck sakes. You have pretty much exempted yourself from using it save for battle conditions; you’re all about personal agency, riding your bike, taking taxis. You are, it seems, a classic limousine (or Bianchi or Brodie) liberal who wishes to impose his own laxity on the rest of us who just want to get from A to fucking B without being driven mad by assholes on cellphones. TTC drivers talking on phones are bad enough.
Pretty rich reading Joe Clark call someone else out on bitching about things when his entire career and web sites seem to entail doing the exact same thing, but arguing his points poorly.
Re: Joe Clark’s comment regarding “people’s right to enjoy a normal subway ride…” ENjoy? Did you my any chance mean to type in “ENdure?”
First, what is “normal”? And second, I think Joe Clark is pulling your legs because he’s behaving like a parody of a misanthrope. Has to be a parody, can’t believe he’s seriously like that.
It’s rich that we get class-analysis from a guy who writes highly detailed posts about fonts and saving old tiles. Could there be anything more bourgeoisie than that? You can’t claim to be part of “the rest of us” and then, you know, be into the aesthetic niche that you’re into.
That’s all fine, but embrace what you are, cuz it’s the pot and kettle, fella. Make an argument that makes sense, and that doesn’t pull all kinds of other (and ridiculously angry) stuff into play, because you contradict yourself.
Font rants and cheese-ball marxism, for hire!
Is this the same Joe Clark that was publicly humiliated on Reddit when the entire internet got wind of his insane contact policy? Yes, yes it is.
HIS CONTACT POLICY:
http://joeclark.org/contact/
THE SHAMING:
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/7k4b1/if_you_send_disparaging_emails_about_me_to/
Oh how I love karma.
@Matthew Blackett: I have recently been getting full bars / good reception in various sections of Yonge-Bloor and St. George stations.
Hey, kids, I know something you don’t: At least one TTC subway conductor plays with his cellphone instead of checking the doors to make sure you aren’t caught in them.
What happens when his cellphone begins to actually function between and inside stations?
How long till they retire out all the old drivers and the only talent pool they have to hire from just expects to be online and available by iPhone or equivalent at all times? What happens when that becomes literally possible even while driving your subway train? I’ve already seen bus drivers checking and writing text messages while driving. Don’t think that could happen in the subway?
You want another Russell Hill accident?
You don’t get to have everything you want just because somebody calls it “public space.â€Â
What a crazy internet find — so Clark has this out of sight comment policy on his blog (that doesn’t allow comments), then violates his own policy (with malice) when posting on other blogs. I know the answer, but does anybody take him credibly? Guy can’t be real.
>You don’t get to have everything you want just because somebody calls it “public space.”
Including fonts and tiles?
Joe Clark, I’ve never read a more narcissistic set of posts in my life. You definitely come across as utterly insane.
I think Metrolink 111 is a more appropriate incident to demonstrate the “danger” of texting, not Russell Hill.
There was also a fatal accident on the Boston subway a couple years ago attributed to the operator’s use of her wireless device. She died.
You can argue weather or not the TTC SHOULD put in cellular coverage on the subway or not all you want.
It doesn’t change the fact that they plan to put it in, within a year’s time, and that of the people polled the results were 59%/24%/17% good/indifferent/bad opinion of the idea. The TTC is on record saying it’s not IF it’s WHEN it happens.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2008/12/04/subway-cellphone-service-coming-soon-ttc.aspx
Personally, I’d prefer they allow data traffic but not voice traffic, but it looks like the coverage will be total.
Cellular access in the “underground” is already pretty standard in almost every other major city in the US and Europe. It has also provoked the same clash of viewpoints.
We’re just recycling old arguments while the repeater stations are being installed.
Excellent. Can’t wait for the e-alert to be part of by everyday life. Thanks for the info!