Great Roosevelt Island Red Bus Experiment Has Started - But Why Are There No Signs At Bus Stop Posted?

Image of Red Bus with Hand Straps

The Great Roosevelt Island Red Bus Experiment is under way this week having been postponed in May due to the H1N1 Swine Flu closure and the Memorial Day Holiday Week. According to RIOC President Steve Shane:

Our joint experiment with RIRA in scheduling to see whether there is an improvement in service has been postponed as the week of initial trial turned out to have the Child School closed because of a Swine Flu occurrence and that followed by a short week. We are going to try, during the week of June 1 to schedule the three red buses on the route from approximately 10 to 11:30 so as to leave the Octagon at 9:55, 10:10, 10:25, 10:40, 10:55, 11:10 and 11:25. Each bus will wait at the Tram to pick up the passengers and return northbound. A 45 minute loop is built in to account for unpredictable event along the way. Predictability should be enhanced, although waiting times may suffer as the buses will be held out of service to meet the schedule.

The Main Street WIRE published a Roosevelt Island Red Bus schedule for the Experiment Week showing the time North and South bound buses are to arrive at each stop location, give or take a few minutes for traffic contingencies. When combined with the Red Bus GPS Tracking System, the posted schedule should improve the predictability of the next bus. The question is if predictability is more important than total waiting time between buses?

A reader of this post asks:

Why oh why is the experimental Red Bus schedule NOT posted at the bus stops where (especially at the Octagon) where it could be of some use to the general population?

The experiment is doomed to failure if people don't know about the schedule and the fact there is a somewhat attempt at a schedule.

Also, although I don't ride the Red Bus that often, it appears to me that new overhead hand straps have been added to the Red Bus upper rail. At a recent Operations Committee meeting, the issue of vertically challenged people having trouble keeping balanced on the bus due to high hand bar was raised so these straps may be a solution to that problem.