Northwestern students and Evanston residents traveling to and from downtown Chicago may soon be able to reduce their time waiting in the cold for the El thanks to a new program that will allow people to track El trains online and on smart phones.
On the heels of winning the 2010 Chicago Innovation Awards for its Bus Tracker, the Chicago Transit Authority has announced a Train Tracker program, which will track and display estimated times of arrivals of trains on all lines. Starting this month, people will be able to view Train Tracker times using smart phones or through the Train Tracker website in its beta version. In addition, 10 yet-to-be-determined El stations will have electronic signs that will continuously display the information.
The new program, which uses information provided by the CTA “QuicTrak” system, will compute the average time trains take to travel particular sections of track to provide exact, constantly updated arrival times to CTA customers. The system differs from the Bus Tracker, which uses GPS technology.
The Bus Tracker, which has been constantly updated over the last few years, has proven to be useful and has boosted customer satisfaction, according to CTA officials and surveys. Officials hope to see the same result with the Train Tracker.
CTA President Richard Rodriguez said he is excited for this program’s inauguration.
“We are just as eager as our customers for this pilot program to launch so that our rail customers have the information they need … to make their experience on the CTA even more convenient and reliable,” Rodriguez said in a Dec. 30 CTA news release.
Some NU students are pleased with the launch of this program, which could reduce waiting and grievance on the Purple and Red Lines, although some said the wait time for a train is minimal in the first place.
“I think it’s a good idea, and now I won’t have to get to the station only to have to wait for the train to arrive,” said McCormick sophomore Brian Lange, who said he uses CTA trains every week. “But on the other hand, it’s usually not that long of a wait anyway. So even though it’s smart, it’s nothing earth-shattering.”
Because the program is still in its beta stage, the CTA will release more details about the Train Tracker soon,
“More specifics on the technology, features and station locations will be released later this month,” a CTA representative said.
