Progress Has Passed Metrobus By

The devices have been in use across the country for 20 years and are becoming increasingly popular. But the counters on Metrobuses are not in service because Metro has not bought the required $2 million software.

In 2001, Metro received $3.5 million from the federal government to install another device on its buses: automatic vehicle locaters. Similar to global positioning devices, the locaters allow dispatchers to track buses so they can send help if one breaks down or suggest alternate routes around a traffic jam.

But the system hasn't been used because other necessary pieces -- new radios for buses and dispatchers and a computerized scheduling system -- have been delayed. Internal Metro reports estimate the radio system is three years behind schedule because of technical problems.

A third technology to improve service, used by systems from San Francisco to Rehoboth Beach, Del., tells riders when the next bus is due. Metro installed a real-time information system in the subway in 2001 at a cost of $11.5 million. But officials have said they couldn't afford a similar system for bus riders.

In September, Metro decided to spend $6 million to allow riders to find the location of Metrobuses using cell phones or the Internet or by consulting signs at five rail stations served by bus lines: Pentagon, Silver Spring, Friendship Heights, Anacostia and Gallery Place-Chinatown. But at the other 12,430 Metrobus stops, those without Internet access or a cell phone will not benefit when the program is launched next year.

Some solutions are decidedly low tech. In Metro's surveys, non-riders say they avoid the buses largely because of the lack of information on routes and schedules. Although subway maps are free and seemingly everywhere -- inside rail stations, in telephone books, even on T-shirts -- a Metrobus map is a rare thing.

Two years ago, ridership on an Arlington County route jumped 30 percent after the county took it over. The difference was a green box the county installed at 22 bus stops displaying the schedule and route. "Before, there was basically nothing at the stops except a rusty pole and a 25-year-old Metrobus sign," Arlington County transit coordinator James Hamre said.

The Sierra Club lobbied Metro for a year until the agency agreed in 2003 put a systemwide Metrobus map on its Web site and said it would distribute the map for free. Metro had been selling bus maps at a $50,000 annual profit.

But when Beryl Randall of Silver Spring called Metro for the systemwide map in May, he was launched on an odyssey. He was told to go to a subway station, then to the Montgomery County Commuter Express Transit Store, then to Metro headquarters. But he never found a map.

Finally, a Metro worker said she could send him a map she found in a desk drawer. "How do you run a transit system without letting people know where you're traveling to?" Randall asked. "It just seems elementary."

Suburbs Pulling Ahead

From the beginning, the buses were an afterthought. The transit agency, which was created to build a rail system, was forced by Congress at the time to assume the operations of four failing private bus companies. Metro's engineers, planners and managers were focused on constructing a subway for the future; buses were considered a holdover from the past.

Problems worsened in the 1980s, when several suburban counties found it cheaper to run their own bus systems than pay for Metrobus. In the 1990s, when the District plunged into severe fiscal trouble, city officials cut Metrobus service by 13 percent. With money dwindling, Metro managers began deferring investments in the bus system.