I've been playing with NextBus over the last few days and noticed several problems, issues, and funny quirks.
-Most annoying is that none of the bus stops at Shirlington actually have NextBus ID numbers.
-The P99 (Southern Ave Operator's Shuttle) is on the public-facing website...which isn't necessarily a problem, but I wonder if anyone would have sanctioned that if they were really paying attention?
-Pages would display horribly on my Windows Mobile device. That was solved by purchasing an iPhone (on sale refurbed for $50!)
-Sometimes, entering a Stop ID would only bring up one of the routes that comes to that stop. For example, stop 4000071 (the stop I use to take the 8Z home from our garage) only pulls up the 8Z and not the 29K/N.
I'd like to report these issues to WMATA, but following true Metro fashion, there's no "point person" or department with public contact info that could resolve this. Many emails about many different things to csvc@wmata.com have gone unanswered...so for now, I guess we can talk about it here :-)
They also had the L99 and another shuttle for FMR on there when it launched. Seeing as no WMATA routes serve Jerusalem, I haven't played with NextBus aside from for about 5 minutes the day it relaunched.
One very strange, very unfriendly quirk is that some routes have a "Variant #1" and "Variant #2" in one or both directions. How is a customer supposed to know which is which, and further, would it not give a prediction for Variant 1 while you're looking at Variant 2?
There's also the thing with misnamed stops. The Dulles Airport stop on the 5A is listed as E St & 7th St NW and countless others (and this was from even when they were doing internal testing of the system).
As for the stop numbers pulling up just one stop, I had that problem when I was trying to figure out how long till the next 83 at College Park. The stop ID there only pulled up the westbound F6. I checked the site and the 83 has a different stop ID number for that same stop.
The operator shuttles did get me as well. The B,F,L,P99 routes still do show up in the public area even though they are operator routes. I think with those, some don't have stop ID numbers for them with the stops they serve.
The variants thing irks me as well. I think its just a Nextbus issue in general since it comes up on other agencies listings as well. I would have though they had maybe did something like 28B Westbound to Tysons Corner (via 7 Crnrs S/C) or K6 Northbound to White Oak (via FDA) to at least correspond to what is in the schedules. It gets worse with the J2 with those restrictions on that turn at Cedar Ln.
I reported the variants issue to NextBus and they said they'd resolve it that night (this was two weeks ago) and it looks like they did. They also mentioned that WMATA's configuration is unique and the stop IDs only pulling up one route was "difficult to explain".
Quote from: Tristan on August 23, 2009, 01:02:45 PM
I reported the variants issue to NextBus and they said they'd resolve it that night (this was two weeks ago) and it looks like they did. They also mentioned that WMATA's configuration is unique and the stop IDs only pulling up one route was "difficult to explain".
Difficult to explain? It has to be something with how they're configuring the stop IDs and the routes servicing them. There are still problems since Beta. Have you seen any misnamed stops or misplaced stop names yet?