ETS has a little project going that might be a bit of a game changer. They’re going Google.

I mean, I love that you can text 311-00 with your bus stop number and get schedule information delivered to your phone. That’s great. But you need space in your brain to remember 311-00, and your bus stop number, if you want to get the schedule before soldier out to the stop. Normally, I just walk and then text with cold fingers to find out how long I might wait.

The current Smart Buses are the same. Sure they are track-able, but how? You have to remember the ETS website or walk to the transit centre first and look at the boards. There is no live display on site at most of the bus stops.

That’s what could change with this Google project.

Lorna Stewart, the new ETS director of customer experience and innovation, said ETS staff and in the process of making their live data available publicly in the format Google needs to incorporate it into Google Live. It should be ready in six to nine months, at which point it will be readily accessible through Google maps.

It also means individual businesses can more easily start posting the real-time information in their windows, which gives bus riders the confidence to stop in and grab a coffee or newspaper without missing the bus. Chicago encourages this already. They help businesses to set up their own display boards and a separate group is trying to get display boards now for the city’s more neglected neighbourhoods.

To me, that’s pretty cool.

At the moment, the plan to roll out Smart Bus technology on all routes in Edmonton is being tied to the Smart Fare project, which needs a lot technical detail work before the city is ready to sign a contract with a specific vendor. Council could decide to push forward with Smart Bus technology first, laying the foundation for the Smart Fare solutions to follow, Stewart said, but that’s not what they’re recommending to council at the moment.

Once the city brings on Google, more people will get access to the Smart Bus information already out there. If people like the real-time information as much as they have in other cities, I’m guessing bus riders will start clamoring for a full citywide roll out quickly. But that’s just a guess.

These are the routes that already run Smart Buses: 3, 7, 10, 11, 33, 57, 72, 78, 79, 111, 112 and 128.

On Nov. 30, ETS is planning to also bring online these routes: 1, 23, 30, 75 and 89. (Updated)

“We’re hoping we’ll be able to add a few more in the new year,” Stewart added.

Stewart also said the department is working on ETS Live Apps for Apple and Android devices. “We’re getting pretty close to rolling those out,” she said. “They’re very slick in terms of being able to find stops near you along with real-time and scheduled times for bus routes.”

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Want more background on how real-time bus information can dramatically change the experience of riding the bus? Quinn Nicholson, who does communications for ETS, sent me some highlights from a number of studies on this issue. Have a read and let me know what you think below. Do you think this has as much potential as I do? And do you ride one of the routes that’s already Smart Bus? Tell me how you use it.

(2011), “Where Is My Bus ? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders,” Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Vol. 45 pp. 839-848. Kari Edison Watkins, Brian Ferris, Alan Borning, G. Scott Rutherford, and David Layton Highlights