Best and Worst Transit Agency Websites

[btconet]

As I travel about, I find a wide range of differences in the websites of various transit agencies.  I find it kind of amazing that some very reputable agencies tend to lack some very basic and vital information on their own websites.

To me, every transit agency website should have the following:

An up to date, or nearly up to date system map to help new riders orient themselves with the system and to help existing riders when they need to take the system to an unfamilar place.

Up to date and easy to locate timetables of every route, or for very high frequency services, a table stating "Every 3-5 minutes from xx:xx to xx:xx"

Fare and pass information for new riders, including system particulars such as zone fares, transfer arrangements and charges, and payment policies, particularly for light rail routes and such.

So what do you think should be on a transit agency webiste, and which agencies do the best and worst jobs of accomplishing that.

[79MetroExtraMD]

All of that is very crucial in informing passengers and vistors of your services. I also think a trip planner should be necessary as well. Timetables and maps are useful, but it doesn't help to carry timetables for 3 4 or 5 different services just to plan out your trip. Alot of major cities have trip planners, which are very useful. The three most useful ones I have seen are the Socal Trip Planner in the LA region, 511 San Francisco, and the Ride Guide (Metro Trip Planner) in DC. Boston, New York, Houston, Dallas, Chicago, etc have good ones as well, but these three are nice.

I do wish that MTA Maryland incorporates the Trapeze trip planner soon. It's the easiest one I have used and very customizable. You can print headway sheets and it'll show every trip, regular, express, trippers. The tripper runs are the ones that aren't shown in the schedules let alone on the website. I do find some of them in the Google Transit planner. Theres a description in the schedule, but there's no way to tell what time a certain trip operates.

Another thing that was brought up was laying out service information for EXPRESS trips on certain routes, including boarding/alighting restrictions, fare surchares, and routing information. This is starting to be brought back into the schedules, but more needs to be done. For instance, the 64 express has a different express zone than previously thought. Originally, it was from Pratt Street to Brooklyn Park & Ride, but I have seen the buses stop at Harbor Hospital and at Cherry Hill Road, which leads me to think that the boundary is at Cherry Hill Road. Alot of service specific details get left out of documentation and I have seen alot of people asking the operator about these things that they had no prior notice. These things definately need to be placed somewhere so that there is little miscommunication and grey areas.

As for my opinion as to what are the best and worst sites I have visited.

Best
CTA
MTA Los Angeles
MTA New York
MBTA
MUNI
SF Bay Area (MUNI, AC Transit, etc)
DART
Houston METRO
WMATA
TfL London
YRT (York Region Transit)
Mississauga Transit
Montgomery County Ride On

Worst
PG County The Bus
-No direct link to website on any printed material
-N
MTA Maryland
SEPTA

[OrionFlyer]

MTA Maryland is definitely the worse.

[WayneNYC]

I have to give much props to my hometown New York's MTA.  They seem to have it all on their site with all of the MTA agencies, maps, schedules, fare info, MetroCard etc.

MARTA was pretty cool too.  I liked their Trip planner.  The same for WMATA.

TheBus (Honolulu) was decent.

Others I liked was Westchester Bee Line, CTA and MBTA.

I thought NJTransit wasn't that great.   

[btconet]

MTA Maryland is definitely the worse.

Your reason?!?

Sure it could stand some improvement, but it does have the vital information.

SEPTA, Port Authority Pittsburgh, and NJ Transit DON'T!  No system map of any kind.  Even MUNI'S PDF has odd restrictions that only print it out in Lo-Res.

CTA and MBTA are good, but my only gripe is that they break the system map into tiles and don't give you an option to download the entire thing.  It always seems where I'm looking to go is right around the corner of one of those tiles.  MBTA's map is dated and still shows the 710 which was gone when I was up there in March.

Trip planners are ok, but are most useful when you're right by a computer and are ready to head out the door and know all the address info.  Not really useful when you're going to your Doctor's office and am not sure when you'll be done, or hitting the mall and am not sure how quickly you'll find what you're looking for.  They also don't go a great job of recognizing individual differences - I might be willing to walk 6 blocks to save 15 minutes by not waiting for the next direct bus, but someone with a physical disability may need to be taken right to the door of where they're going.  Call me archaic, but I almost never use one, preferring the traditional timetable approach.

[WayneNYC]

Agreed.  NJTransit also needs to have more info just for their incredibly complex fare structure.  Really they need to simplify the fares IMO.  Being a state-wide agency they also wouold do well to have system maps with more details in those many north jersey areas like Jersey City, Hoboken and Newark.

With trip planner I tend to use them to get an idea of what may be the best route, then I'd go to the timetables/maps.  I did this in Seattle with Seattle Metro, Community ans Sound Transit and it worked out very well. 

[Tristan]

Under those requirements, I gotta say that WMATA's site is up there in the top 20.  I feel that it might be a little "agency-heavy" and some of the actual transportation elements are hidden a bit.  There's a great but quite buried tool called "Find service near location" that will tell you only what buses and trains go near the address you enter (it's just the tool for btconet and WayneNYC!).  Unfortunately, it's not exactly easy to find and should be linked to the trip planner a bit better.

On that token, WMATA recently improved the trip planner to allow you to specify maximum walking distance.

[79MetroExtraMD]

NJTransit definitely needs to do something with their complex fare structure and their schedules. I find the maps in the schedules very confusing. The lines for the route and the side streets are the same thickness and it's hard to distinguish between what the actual route is and what is a side street. Also, a lack of a system map for buses is something that I find really appauling because there are alot of systems that have an extensive bus network that still provide a system map. The closest I have found to a system map for NJT buses are personal projects using Google Maps. Also, their trip planner is really blah. No kind of mapping information, which is essential, only textual information. They need to upload their bus schedule data onto Google Maps alongside their rail schedule data.

MARTA has a good trip planner (Trapeze) which I find to be the better of the two (Sorry to those HASTUS ones. I just can't deal with theirs). MBTA's one is pretty good. Good use of the Google Maps API. MTA New York has a decent one, but I don't like Microsoft Virtual Earth as a good mapping interface. Just my opinion. ACTransit's use of Google Maps API to do their system map was really nice. I think RATP Paris does it as well. Their maps are very neat and clean. They do it for their individual lines as well, which I find to be really neat. MUNI's system map is nice as well, although I wish they'd improve on their individual route maps. No sense of scale, location; no points of reference. If they just did something where they made a specific route layer just stand out, that would have been really nice, hopefully soon.

But, the best trip planner that I have used so far has to go to TfL. It has a great interface that has the most customizable options I have ever seen in a trip planner. It can provide pdf area maps, links to stop schedules, and gives out a clear itinerary. It does tie in alot of different modes and can provide schedule information for many of the private train operating companies.

[RailBus63]

NJT's website is definitely one of the most frustrating I've come across.  If a transit enthusiast like myself can't figure out how to get around, how can someone who is new to transit get useful information?  It seems to be designed for someone who already knows the system and only needs to find information about their regular route.

[79MetroExtraMD]

NJT's website is definitely one of the most frustrating I've come across.  If a transit enthusiast like myself can't figure out how to get around, how can someone who is new to transit get useful information?  It seems to be designed for someone who already knows the system and only needs to find information about their regular route.

It's somewhat the same for MTA Maryland. Prior to last year into this year, alot of the schedules had left out added trips, express trip restrictions/stops, and even some added routings. Things are starting to come back slowly, but there's still alot of lines who need their schedules changed ever since GBBI because they have incorrect information on them. I wish they would do reprints like WMATA does only if they had the money and resources to do so.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

One of the worst sites: TCAT.  Though I highly approve of the photography they use in their banner images (you can draw your own conclusions as to why), the website is often incorrect, and the schedules and online map are difficult to read.  Information is hard to find unless you know where to look, and out of date is often of little use to anyone.  New schedules often come on line just days before or sometimes AFTER the changes are implemented.