Need transit or traffic information on the go? You can now access several of 511.org’s most popular features on your iPhone, BlackBerry or other smart phone with browsing capabilities.
By karin betts
Published: May, 2010
511 Mobile Offers Travel Information to Go
Need transit or traffic information on the go? You can now access several of 511.org’s most popular features on your iPhone, BlackBerry or other smart phone with browsing capabilities. Launched in early April, 511 Mobile is a new website customized for mobile devices that provides access to streamlined versions of the 511 Transit Trip Planner, the 511 Traffic Map and the Popular 511 Driving Times. You can now plan your public transit trip home while you’re out running errands, or check real-time traffic conditions on the live traffic map before you leave the parking lot.
To get started, just go to m.511.org from your mobile device, and then simply click through to the information you need. Other 511 features, such as real-time transit departure times and transit schedules, will be added in the future. 511 Mobile covers the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Helpful tips and troubleshooting suggestions are available in a FAQ on the regular 511.org site. 511 does not charge for using 511 Mobile services though you may need a phone plan that includes Web browsing. 511 reminds you to take precautions to stay safe on your driving trip – use 511 Mobile before you’re on the road or have a passenger check current conditions for you.
Bay Area Traffic Tweets Now on Twitter
Now you can use Twitter to track traffic developments and receive alerts about major incidents at http://twitter.com/511SFBay. When you start following 511 on Twitter, there is an option to have updates sent (via SMS text) to your mobile phone. Twitter updates from 511 and Bay Area transportation partners are also available for viewing on the 511.org home page, below the traffic map. The list of “Regional Transportation Tweets” shown on 511.org is available through 511’s Twitter page, under the “Lists” link in the right column.
For those who don’t know, Twitter is a micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages (aka “tweets”) to the Twitter website and your Twitter friends. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers, who are known as followers. You can find and interact with people or organizations with similar interests. You can follow them, and others can follow you. It’s an instant-messaging-meets-social-media-networking tool.
The region’s 511 system was launched – on the phone and on the Web – by MTC in 2002. The San Francisco Bay Area was the first region in California – and at the time the largest metropolitan area in the country – to activate a 511 traveler information system. The service now generates more than 450,000 calls and about 2.5 million Web visits each month. MTC is the transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.
