Transit riders have grown accustomed to staring at smartphone apps and Twitter feeds in a desperate hunt for information about when their train or bus will arrive. Now, that quest takes on an even more urgent tone: Is it even safe to board the next T vehicle in an era of coronavirus?
As the economy slowly reopens, the T would like to keep vehicles less than half full in order to provide enough room to passengers to maintain a safe distance from each other. General Manager Steve Poftak said the agency is racing to develop a new messaging system to alert riders when a train or bus has become too crowded — ideally during the second phase of the state’s reopening plan, which could begin as soon as Monday.
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“We understand that there’s going to be an appetite for this relatively soon,” Poftak said, adding that it may debut as a test on a few busy routes. “Not every customer has the discretion to alter their commute, and I want to acknowledge that upfront. But for those who do, giving them this information gives them the discretion to make decisions about commute times or commute mode if they have the flexibility.”
The MassINC Polling Group recently found that 67 percent of Massachusetts residents would feel more comfortable using public transportation if they had access to real-time information about crowds. And researchers have repeatedly found in the past that riders are put at much greater ease with more information about other transit-related concerns, such as arrival times and delays.
“People feel more comfortable riding transit when they feel a sense of control and confidence in the service,” said Julia Wallerce, who leads the Boston office of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. “Sending people alerts about crowded stations or bus lines enables people to make decisions.”
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Yet real-time information will be difficult for the MBTA to provide to all riders. While the MBTA’s website and other apps may be able to show live passenger counts for many buses, the information will not be nearly as fresh for the subway. Subway riders would instead likely receive information about crowding on given lines at given times based on trends from recent days.
The issue with the subway is technological. Except for a handful of new Orange and Green line cars, the fleet does not have modern sensors that tally riders as they board and unload from vehicles. Instead, the T can only determine subway ridership retroactively, based on passenger entries at stations, and the time between train arrivals.
Prior to the pandemic, the MBTA was equipping commuter rail cars with sensors that counted passengers, but so far only about 20 percent of the fleet has them.
The counters are much more common on the bus, but even there only half of the vehicles capture the information in real-time. Those buses will likely be able to broadcast real-time ridership numbers.
The MBTA is still working to determine how information about crowding might be displayed, but officials said it probably wouldn’t simply provide raw ridership numbers. Instead, some other sort of terminology or label may be used to show the level of crowding based on the agency’s recent standards for the pandemic era, which range from 20 on buses to more than 60 on the Red Line.
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Laurel Paget-Seekins, an assistant general manager, said the T is still discussing whether crowding information based on recent trends should be displayed live on location, or exist as a sort of guide online for riders to consult.
The popular third-party smartphone app Transit is already publishing crowd information for a few smaller US transit agencies. You don’t need to look far for an example: The Pioneer Valley Transit Agency, which serves the Springfield area, has passenger counters across its entire bus fleet and has published live ridership data for years.
“It was just info that was available. ... We had it, so it’s like, ‘why not share it?' " said Sandra Sheehan, the agency’s director. “Now it has a more important meaning. It can help individuals that are anxious.”
The agency’s website displays the location of buses which, when clicked, also show passenger counts on each vehicle. The Transit app renders that data as labels such as, “standing room only” or “many seats available,” plotted alongside the bus’s location.
Mitch Skyer, president of Passio Technologies, a company that develops passenger counting software, said many US transit agencies have asked his company to lower crowding thresholds in order to communicate crowded conditions to riders.
“We can change the maximum load,” he said. “So if your bus could hold 50 in the past, but now you only want to hold 12, we can change that" setting.
Poftak said the MBTA for now is focused on how it can distribute the information it does have to riders. He did not close the door on equipping more buses as well as subway cars with the technology, but MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said this is a large-scale undertaking that cannot be done quickly, requiring work alongside tracks as well as on vehicles.
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The historical data may actually be more useful for some riders, Paget-Seekins said, adding that riders were split in a survey sent by the T: Those planning a trip far in advance would prefer to know when vehicles are most likely to be empty, while someone waiting at a stop may want specific details about the vehicle they will soon board.
Ben Fried, a spokesman for the New York-based advocacy organization Transit Center, said US transit agencies are not historically known for being tech savvy. But the work over the last decade or so to publish real-time arrival information and service alerts over a variety of platforms should make it easier to push out crowding information.
While agencies should strive for real-time information, any information is better than none, Fried said.
“Ultimately, I think people will want that accuracy to feel trust in the system,” Fried said. But, “I don’t want to dismiss the utility of recent historical data. If that’s the best agencies can do for now, by all means go ahead. Just don’t stop there.”
Adam Vaccaro can be reached at adam.vaccaro@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter at @adamtvaccaro.