Want to find out when your NJ Transit bus will arrive? Now you can, on this app, at least

Real-time departure information for NJ Transit buses is available again on at least one third-party navigation app about two months after NorthJersey.com revealed data issues that prevented such apps as Transit, Google Maps and others from providing live information about NJ Transit’s bus schedules.

Owners of Transit — an app that provides mass transit maps, schedules and departure times for many major agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, SEPTA in Philadelphia and the T in Boston — emailed its users to tell them about the return of NJ Transit’s data

“Back in October, we asked NJ Transit riders to speak up about how important real-time arrival information is to their daily commute. You spoke up, and NJ Transit listened!” said the emailed message from Transit, an app that some 350,000 people used to navigate the NJ Transit bus system.

“Now, real-time information is back in the Transit app and better than ever," the email said. "You can see your bus on the map, thanks to new-and-improved bus location data from NJ Transit.”

Real-time bus arrival info disappeared on some apps this summer

NJ Transit bus riders had for years been able to check real-time bus arrival information on a variety of apps, including Transit, Moovit and Citymapper, as well as on NJ Transit’s own app. But in July, users started noticing that live bus arrival information wasn’t working on their preferred third-party app, though NJ Transit’s own app continued to provide it.

The developers at Transit app contacted NJ Transit to try to fix the problem, but Stephen Miller, a spokesman for the Transit app, told NorthJersey.com in October that after a few months of productive conversation there was little progress.

Since then, however, a lot of work has occurred.

NJ Transit’s data feed, which was riddled with hundreds of errors, was significantly cleaned up — a tedious process that requires combing through code, finding errors, and tweaking and testing the product to see if it made the correction.

"NJ Transit is always working to optimize the flow of data to third-party app developers," said agency spokesman Kyalo Mulumba.

More: NJ Transit testing new app that gives hearing or visually impaired real-time bus info

Cracking the problem

There are three main data feeds critical to providing accurate information to transit navigation apps: vehicle location, arrival predictions and service alerts.

These sources of information work together to send details to apps so users can track buses live on maps, look at countdown clocks showing how soon their bus will arrive, and learn about detours or obstructions that might affect a vehicle’s travel time.

“In recent weeks, staff at NJ Transit have done a lot of work to improve the data feed showing real-time bus locations,” Miller said in an email. “Combined with Transit's own arrival predictions algorithm, we're once again able to deliver real-time NJ Transit bus tracking to riders.”

Real-time departure information about NJ Transit’s buses may be slow to come to other third-party apps, such as Google, Apple and Moovit, because there are still errors in the data feed on arrival predictions. Developers for the Transit app were able to get around that because they use their own algorithm to predict bus arrival times.

Asked whether NJ Transit's countdown clock data feed would be improved over time, Mulumba didn't directly answer, but said, "It was TransitApp that had to perform most of the required work on their end. The countdown is TransitApp's own functionality."

Another reason live information may be slow to get to other apps is that NJ Transit’s data feeds aren’t publicly available. The agency requires developers to request permission to use them, though the data is free once they have permission. The MTA and SEPTA, by comparison, make their data more easily available for download from their website.

Vincent Oria, a professor of computer science at New Jersey Institute of Technology, said sharing data like that can be helpful in case developers or researchers take an interest in it.

It may benefit NJ Transit to share, "but they have to anonymize the data not to show private people people’s information without leaking anything about the bus riders," Oria said, adding that if the data does not have personal information and includes only bus location information, "I don’t see why they wouldn’t make that public."

Transit app steps in to help other agencies

Without accurate live information, riders told NorthJersey.com, they missed important appointments, showed up late to work, and in the most extreme examples it discouraged would-be riders from taking transit at all.

Many of the issues NJ Transit customers have complained about over the years — like buses that disappear from the app and inaccurate arrival information — have plagued other transit agencies’ tech offerings, too.

More: Is your NJ Transit bus on time? Who knows? Riders and travel app maker say data is flawed

OC Transpo, the transit agency in Ottawa, Canada, partnered with the Transit app developers to improve its data feed, test new information, uncover the root of some errors and make improvements for customers. OC Transpo and Transit discovered that one problem was caused by the way bus drivers were logging into the system, which botched the GPS feed on the bus that sends location data to the apps.

Like NJ Transit, SEPTA has data error issues with its real-time feeds that cause buses to disappear from the radar or inaccurate arrival times to display. SEPTA hired a TransitApp employee to help it address one of its biggest data problems, which is communicating detours so drivers know what to do while ensuring the information doesn’t get muddied on the customer end, according to an article on the website Billy Penn.

Technology improvements require constant attention

Transit agencies like NJ Transit, SEPTA and OC Transpo have all worked to improve their tech offerings in recent years, but time and financial investments in those improvements compete with other pressing issues at the agencies, like ensuring the actual operation of buses and trains.

Much like keeping buses and trains running by staying on top of repair work, technology improvements require constant maintenance and attention — it’s never a checked box, said Miller.

"Transit agencies everywhere are constantly working, just like NJ Transit did here, on improving the quality of real-time information," Miller said. "We know because we help test these improvements and bring them to riders through our app.

“It's deeply technical, nuts-and-bolts stuff," he said. "And it's essential to keep at it, to keep making improvements that will give transit riders the smooth experience they deserve."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit bus arrival, departure schedules available on app