Bob Collins
MetroTransit has sent out a press release touting NexTrip, a tool it’s created to allow bus riders to see how long before the next bus leaves from their stop.
“NexTrip is an important enhancement to our customer service efforts,” said Metro Transit’s Brian Lamb. “By leveraging technology we already have in place, we can provide amenities like NexTrip to give our customers even greater confidence in the reliability of their service.”
For many commuters, however, an “ammenity” isn’t an online gizmo. It’s a bus.
It’s 7:58 a.m. — the peak of the morning commute — and here I am sitting at a Metro Transit bus station in a city of 50,000, just one sliver of Maplewood removed from the boundary of St. Paul.
Using NexTrip (it’s a tab next to the Trip Planner on the right side of Metro Transit’s home page), I find that the next bus to downtown St. Paul is at 3:44 this afternoon. If I want to go to 6th and Hennepin in Minneapolis, I only have to wait until 5:40 this afternoon.
