AT&T 3G Decommissioning Impacts on NextMuni Electronic Displays at Transit Shelters

AT&T 3G Decommissioning Impacts on NextMuni Electronic Displays at Transit Shelters
By Kharima Mohamed

Due to the nationwide AT&T 3G shutdown on February 22, 2022, over 650 NextMuni displays that are currently utilizing AT&T 3G modems will no longer be able to display real-time Muni vehicle arrival predictions or other information. The push-to-talk buttons at shelters using 3G modems will also be inoperable. This outage will NOT impact online real-time information provided on mobile and web formats. 

To address this situation, the SFMTA is: 

Expediting delivery and installation of new replacement displays procured under the Next Generation Customer Information System (CIS) project.  
Upgrading modems in existing displays from 3G to 4G to maintain predictions while awaiting the new replacement displays.  
Providing physical static signage at affected stops and platforms indicating how riders can obtain real-time information in other formats, including by web, text and phone.

As part of the Next Generation Customer Information System project, the SFMTA is ordering over 700 new Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) displays to display real-time information at Muni transit shelters. Approximately one-third of these displays will be double-sided to provide additional visibility at the highest-ridership stops and major transfer points.

The LCD displays will replace existing NextBus Light Emitting Diode (LED) displays, many of which have been in service for two decades and have reached the end of their lives. These LED displays are no longer manufactured.

An extensive public outreach effort helped provide the new display’s overall design and other Customer Information System elements. 

Key features of the new displays include:

24-inch LCD screens with vandal-resistant tempered glass

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant text-to-speech capability
Larger and clearer text
Letters and characters in multiple languages

Unfortunately, the pandemic and global supply chain issues have impacted the manufacturing and delivery of the new replacement displays and brackets to mount these displays. Our display supplier has shipped over 150 of these displays. Once brackets arrive, the SFMTA will coordinate with Clear Channel and start to install them. This effort is currently anticipated for late February and will continue into the spring. 

Manufacturing and installation will continue for all display types – including double-sided shelter displays for higher ridership stops, surface rail station signs, and underground rail station displays – for another year. Our contractor, Cubic, is working with its suppliers to reduce this timeline contingent upon easing of global supply chain issues. The SFMTA is prioritizing display installations in shelters based on serving equity neighborhoods/or routes, as well as less frequent services where customers experience the longest waits. The rationale for those priorities is to minimize inconvenience for as many customers as possible with an emphasis on equity populations.

 Preliminary design of the shelter display indicating estimated vehicle arrival time and route destination.   

 Preliminary design of the shelter display indicating estimated vehicle arrival time and route destination. 

Physical signage at affected stops and platforms providing alternative methods to obtain real-time information:

The SFMTA will install physical weatherproof multilingual signs at potentially impacted shelters and platforms to inform riders how they can alternatively access predictions, which will remain available through mobile, web and phone. 
To provide customers with context-sensitive information and maximize convenience, the posted signs will provide available channels where customers can access location-specific predictions for routes serving their stop.

   Preliminary design of the shelter display indicating estimated vehicle arrival time and route destination.

Printed sign at stops where real-time information on NextMuni displays will not be available due to AT&T’s nationwide 3G decommissioning; information will still be available through mobile, web online means and phone. 

Options to access information include:   

SFMTA.com Stop Pages – The posted signs will include a URL and QR (Quick Response) code that will enable customers to access specific stop pages on the SFMTA website that include predictions for routes serving that location. Each page has a convenient short URL of its stop ID. For example, Market and 11th can be found at SFMTA.com/13245. 
SFMTA.com/NextMuni – The SFMTA will enable geolocation on a new page of our website, SFMTA.com/NextMuni. Based on a user’s location, this page returns the nearest stop pages to find applicable predictions. The page will also include a lookup for address, intersection and places of interest as well as a map interface for users that do not wish to use geolocation.
511 Voice Response – Customers will be able to dial 511 and enter or say the stop ID to receive applicable predictions. 
SF 3-1-1 Operator Assistance – Customer Service Representatives are available to provide predictions and multilingual support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via telephone, and TTY (via 711).   
SMS (Short Message Service) Text – Customers may also text the stop ID to 41411 to receive predictions.

Additionally, the SFMTA’s Twitter account, @sfmta_muni provides real-time alerts about Muni service disruptions and provides predictions. During staffed hours, the SFMTA will inform customers when their next departure is if they tweet their location, route and direction.  

The SFMTA will continue to monitor the situation with AT&T’s 3G decommissioning and adjust plans if necessary. We will work with Cubic to expedite delivery and installation of new CIS displays.   

In the meantime, we are soliciting feedback from key stakeholders on the design of the new CIS display as we fine-tune how information will be displayed and focused on improving prediction quality for riders. These improvements, anticipated to go live in Fall 2022, include minimizing ghost buses, improving terminal departure predictions, indicating vehicle location and supporting headway-based operations on routes.   

Published February 12, 2022 at 06:52AM
https://ift.tt/KwV51ty

Comments

New top story from Time: How Spirited Away Changed Animation Forever

https://ift.tt/3xVoGP5 Twenty years ago, on July 20, 2001, a film that would become one of the most celebrated animated movies of all time hit theaters in Japan. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, titled Spirited Away in English, would leave an indelible mark on animation in the 21st century. The movie arrived at a time when animation was widely perceived as a genre solely for children, and when cultural differences often became barriers to the global distribution of animated works. Spirited Away shattered preconceived notions about the art form and also proved that, as a film created in Japanese with elements of Japanese folklore central to its core, it could resonate deeply with audiences around the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The story follows an ordinary 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, as she arrives at a deserted theme park that turns out to be a realm of gods and spirits. After an overeating incident ...

New top story from Time: The ‘Badass Chief of Staff’ of Turkey’s Opposition Faces Years in Jail After Challenging Erdogan’s Power. She’s Not Backing Down

https://ift.tt/2ZKUTZP Snow brings back memories for Dr. Canan Kaftancioglu. Of recess snowball fights in the Black Sea village where she grew up, of warming her hands at her elementary school’s stove before class — and of discovering a poem by Turkish writer Ataol Behramoglu, a favorite of a beloved uncle who would bring left-wing newspapers to her childhood home and discuss the articles inside. “It is about how the snow brings equality between people,” Kaftancioglu says of the poem. “In the snow, we build a new, more equal world.” The Turkish politician is speaking through an interpreter at her friends’ apartment in Istanbul’s Beyoglu district, seated in an armchair with a beige and brown-spotted dog curled up beside her. In a matter of days or weeks but likely not months, Kaftancioglu expects she will be taken to jail. For now, she’d rather focus on her work: the poverty rate is increasing, and people in her city are suffering. Kaftancioglu represents something unfamil...

New top story from Time: We’re in the Third Quarter of the Pandemic. Antarctic Researchers, Mars Simulation Scientists and Navy Submarine Officers Have Advice For How to Get Through It

https://ift.tt/2MtohAV McMurdo Station, an Antarctic research base 2,415 miles south of Christchurch, New Zealand, is a strange place to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s been a home of sorts for Pedro Salom since he took a dishwashing job there in 2001, when he was 24. Now an assistant area manager with more than a dozen Antarctic deployments behind him, Salom has grown accustomed to the ebb and flow of life on the ice. There’s the surge of excitement when new arrivals join the camp, the feeling of isolation from the rest of the world when earth and sea disappear in the endless night from April to August; and the joy when the sun finally appears behind the mountains once again. He’s also been around long enough to know that, as people reach the end of their deployments, many begin to struggle—whether they’ve been at McMurdo for over a year, or even just a few months. “One of the things I look for is dramatic changes in people’s habits,” says Salom. “If somebody has...

New top story from Time: The Documentary Final Account Is a Rare Trove of Unfiltered Interviews With Former Nazis—Too Unfiltered, Some Historians Say

https://ift.tt/3u2CDYI In 2008, documentary filmmaker Luke Holland was looking for a sense of closure. His Viennese maternal grandparents had perished in the Holocaust and, more than six decades later, he wanted to better understand what had happened. So he decided to ask the people who would know: SS members , Wehrmacht fighters, concentration-camp guards and civilian witnesses. “ At first, I embarked on a project with the completely improbable aim of trying to find the people who had killed [my grandparents]. It was quickly clear that I was not going to achieve that,” Holland wrote in a statement about the project. “But I realized I could actually meet their peers. I could meet people who had also raised their arms and their guns for Hitler , people who had committed atrocious crimes. And maybe through them, I might better understand the context in which the Holocaust played out in the heart of a supposedly civilized Europe.” Holland did more than 250 interviews, bu...

New top story from Time: City Heat is Worse if You’re Not Rich or White. The World’s First Heat Officer Wants to Change That

https://ift.tt/2Us9kTo Jane Gilbert knows she doesn’t get the worst of the sticky heat and humidity that stifles Miami each summer. She lives in Morningside, a coastal suburb of historically preserved art deco and Mediterranean-style single-family homes. Abundant trees shade the streets and a bay breeze cools residents when they leave their air conditioned cars and homes. “I live in a place of privilege and it’s a beautiful area,” says Gilbert, 58, over Zoom in early June, shortly after beginning her job as the world’s first chief heat officer, in Miami Dade county. “But you don’t have to go far to see the disparity.” [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A mile or two inland, in lower income, mostly Black and Latino neighborhoods like Little Haiti, Little Havana and Liberty City, tree cover can be as little as 10%, compared to around 40% in upscale coastal areas, according to Gilbert. Residents wait for buses on unshaded benches. Many can’t afford to buy or run an AC unit. “You ...

New top story from Time: ‘Most Heinous Attack.’ Merrick Garland Pledges to Take on Domestic Terrorism as Attorney General

https://ift.tt/3dGuLHC As the federal government continues to grapple with the fallout of the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol Building by pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, the Biden Administration has remained close-lipped about how it plans to confront the rising threat of domestic terrorism. This week, Americans got a first look into how that effort may unfold with the testimony of Merrick Garland, the nominee to be the next attorney general. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday and Tuesday, Garland declared that investigating the Capitol insurrection was his “first priority” and promised to “do everything in the power of the Justice Department” to stop domestic terrorism. He also warned that the events of Jan. 6 were not a “one-off,” and that the U.S. is facing “a more dangerous period” than any in recent memory. Garland would know. More than 25 years ago, he led the Justice Department’s prosecution of the perpetrators of the 1995 Oklahoma Cit...

New top story from Time: Deaths and Blackouts Have Hit the U.S. Northwest Due to the Unprecedented Heat Wave

https://ift.tt/2UgzckI SPOKANE, Wash. — The unprecedented Northwest U.S. heat wave that slammed Seattle and Portland, Oregon, moved inland Tuesday — prompting a electrical utility in Spokane, Washington, to resume rolling blackouts amid heavy power demand. Officials said a dozen deaths in Washington and Oregon may be tied to the intense heat that began late last week. The dangerous weather that gave Seattle and Portland consecutive days of record high temperatures exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 degrees Celcius) was expected to ease in those cities. But inland Spokane saw temperatures spike. The National Weather Service said the mercury reached 109 F (42.2 C) in Spokane— the highest temperature ever recorded there. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] About 9,300 Avista Utilities customers in Spokane lost power on Monday and the company said more planned blackouts began on Tuesday afternoon in the city of about 220,000 people. “We try to limit outages to one hour per...

FOX NEWS: Man modeled ex-fiancée's wedding dress to try and sell it: Video Sometimes you’ve got to do a little more to snag that sale.

Man modeled ex-fiancée's wedding dress to try and sell it: Video Sometimes you’ve got to do a little more to snag that sale. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3iwCTgo

New top story from Time: China Says It Will Provide COVID-19 Vaccines to Almost 40 African States

https://ift.tt/3f34nYP BEIJING — China said Thursday it is providing COVID-19 vaccines to nearly 40 African countries, describing its actions as purely altruistic in an apparent intensification of what has been described as “vaccine diplomacy.” The vaccines were donated or sold at “favorable prices,” Foreign Ministry official Wu Peng told reporters. Wu compared China’s outreach to the actions of “some countries that have said they have to wait for their own people to finish the vaccination before they could supply the vaccines to foreign countries,” in an apparent dig at the United States. “We believe that it is, of course, necessary to ensure that the Chinese people get vaccinated as soon as possible, but for other countries in need, we also try our best to provide vaccine help,” said Wu, who is director of the ministry’s Africa department. While the U.S. has been accused by some of hoarding vaccines, President Joe Biden on Monday pledged to share an additional 20 mi...

FOX NEWS: Alligator invades Florida post office This gator needs to say later to the post office.

Alligator invades Florida post office This gator needs to say later to the post office. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3gdiGdY

My precise view

Search This Blog