CUTA Conference held in St. John's The Canadian Urban Transit Association's Annual Conference: Connecting in Real Time, concluded its discussions of current policy and management issues facing the transit industry, last month in St. John’s.

The conference agenda included presentations and discussions on new technologies in the transit industry including Metrobus' recently introduced AVL system; the development of a U-Pass for major educational institutions; employee rewards and recognition programs; and, funding requirements for public transit.

In his remarks to delegates, CUTA President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Roschlau referred to the St. John's Transportation Commission (Metrobus) as the "biggest small transit system in Canada" and thanked employees of the system for acting as hosts during the conference.  There have been discussions about the conference returning to St. John's in 2010.

Ride Guide launch delayed The launch of the TimeTrack-equipped version of Ride Guide has been delayed as software testing continues.

"We've uncovered a few minor bugs during our testing phase and need to address those before introducing the system for public use", says Manager of Marketing & Information Services Mark Chancey.  "It's important that we get it right before going live."

Metrobus expects the new system will be operational by mid-July.

Metrobus/HITS 99.1 Traffic Watch now on the air The Metrobus/HITS 99.1 Traffic Watch 'hits' Metrobus customers and other commuters with the information they need each morning before taking to the streets.

Listen weekday mornings at 7:58 or look for the HITS 99.1 logo and download the latest copy of the report from Metrobus Dot Com.

Customer's Corner  A customer writes:  The other day, my friend was telling me that she boarded a bus and upon sitting down in her seat, she noticed that there were 3 T.V.'s above her head. She told me about this and I thought she was losing her mind. Well, to my great surprise, I got on the bus Friday evening and there they were...3 T.V.'s hanging from the roof of the bus. And on said T.V.'s, you guys were playing hockey clips...how freakin' awesome is that! I can truly say that it was the best bus ride I ever had. So, in short, I just had to contact you guys and thank-you for this exciting new service. Hopefully, you will be able to make this great service available on all bus routes in the future (I know it's not cheap. Have a great day and please continue with the great service! P.S. With the Euro Cup winding down, maybe we can get some great football (soccer) clips on those T.V.'s.

Metrobus responds: We're glad you noticed! Bus 9846 has been equipped with a video system including three 10-inch LCD displays and took its first run in service on a route 4 in mid-May. The strategy is two-fold - we're really making an effort to reach our customers and provide them with the information they need about our service while also providing entertainment for our customers for the twenty to thirty minutes that they are on board with us. 'MetrobusTV' programming will be updated monthly and will feature news about Metrobus service as well as silent video clips like sports bloopers and 'Just for Laughs' gags. If the new service works well, we plan to equip more of the fleet with the video system.