County mass transit system on Google Maps: Why Allegany Access is excited – Hornell Evening Tribune

It took more than a year of painstaking, detailed work for Access Allegany the public transportation system in Allegany County to go live onGoogle Maps.

When the project finally reached its goal on Jan. 6, Access Allegany mobility manager Gwen Cooper said she was thrilled to pieces to see it come to life and to see how well it works.

With Google Maps, Access Allegany riders have easy-to-understand trip information, including trip times, bus numbers, pick-up and stop locations and transfers, Cooper said.

It was a project involving Ardent Solutions, mobility managers for Allegany Countys mass transit system; 511NY, the free telephone and web transit service which created the General Transit Feed Specification files for the system and Google Transit, which plugged those data files into Google Maps.

Cooper explained why she believes this is such an important step forward for Access Allegany.

Transportation is always in the top three of issues for our community members and we are always looking to increase ridership, she said.

Key to that effort, according to Cooper, is making the service easier to use.

I dont know if youve ever tried to read a bus schedule, but it can be extremely overwhelming at times, she said. Even those of us who work for Access Allegany who read our bus schedules quite regularly, its sometimes hard for even us to figure out, so the average consumer might not have any idea how to read it.

Some of our routes, depending on where you start and where you want to end up, you might have to transfer to another bus, maybe even two other buses, and it tells you exactly all of that information," Cooper said. "You dont have to think about it. You dont have to figure it out.

Google Maps is also a program familiar to many people. According to Google, more than a billion people use Google Maps every month and more than 5 million active apps and websites are using Google Maps Platform core products every week.

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To get started, open Google Maps and click the Directions arrow. This will provide several travel options at the top of the screen, including flight, cycling, walking, driving and transit, which is represented by a bus icon.

So if youre searching for a public transportation route in Allegany County, you pick that bus icon, Cooper said.

Then type in where you want to start your trip and the trip's destination. Hit search, and all routes meeting that need willbe shown. From there, select the route that works best for you.

To see the stops in a route and other information, click on Details. It calculates the distance to a bus stop as well as the time the bus will arrive and drop you off. Clicking on the "Details" will also let you know the service area of the bus and the bus number.

Additional Travel Information and Options" include a Leave Now tab, which allows the user to select the timing of the trip.

Additional features include the capability to send trip directions to a Google account and to see a breakdown of all the times available for a trip, which means riders can plan transportation hours or days ahead of time.

Allegany County owns Access Allegany, supplying funding for the fixed-route public transit system that runs five buses in six service areas, Monday throughFriday.

Allegany County contracts with First Transit to operate the system, while Ardent Solutions has the contract to provide the management.

Cooper, who works for Ardent Solutions, said it was a 14-month process involving a great deal of trial and error to meet Google Transits exacting requirements.

They are super meticulous, she explained. Obviously, they hold the market on any sort of mapping software thats out there. Theyre very responsive. They followed up. They were understanding if it was going to take some time to update the GTFS file."

Close enough was not adequate when it came to providing Google Transit with route locations and stop placements.

Cooper said, We had a couple issues with route locations, and theyre very specific about where the stop is placed.

For example, if theyre pulling up outside the Episcopal church in Wellsville which is a stop thats utilized quite often for our riders, within the files that stop has to be on the sidewalk or the side of the road.

When you get into some of these software programs, you think you are at the right spot, but Google Maps would pull it up and it would show the middle of the road, so theyre very meticulous because theyre like, Nobodys going to catch a bus in the middle of the road.

Access Allegany is just beginning to get the word out about its availability on Google Maps. Marketing materials are coming together and a big Facebook push is planned. Customer training sessions are also in the works.

Many riders continue to contact the call center at 585-593-1738 and call center staff now have Google Maps at their disposal to help riders plan trips.

Cooper acknowledged that COVID-19 has decreased business, but she said Access Alleganys ridership numbers are consistent with national averages for mass transit systems. She said Access Allegany tracks ridership numbers daily and the focus is always on improvement.

Ultimately our goal is to increase our ridership and make this an accessible option for anybody in our community that needs transportation, Cooper said.

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County mass transit system on Google Maps: Why Allegany Access is excited - Hornell Evening Tribune