Tag: text messaging

More than 3 million text messages were sent for ETS bus schedules in 2011

A little over a year ago Edmonton Transit (ETS) introduced bus schedules via text message. Simply send a message to 31100 from your cell phone with the bus stop number, and ETS will respond with a list of upcoming routes and times. It’s a fantastic service that I have used dozens of times over the last year, and clearly I’m not alone. A little over 3.1 million messages were sent last year! Here’s the monthly breakdown:

ets text messages in 2011

Back in June, when I wrote about the launch of the advertising component to the service, about 1.2 million messages had been sent, or 7050 per day. By the end of the year, the daily average had risen to 8494. You can see that the increase is due in large part to the back to school season – the number of messages sent jumped from 225,730 in August to 333,877 in September.

As expected, increased use of the text messaging service has led to a decrease in the number of calls made to BusLink, the automated 24-hour telephone line for transit information. Nathan Walters from ETS told the Journal that the number of calls dropped by 340,000 in the first nine months of last year to 2.8 million. I suspect it dropped even further when school started up again.

It’s great to see people embracing initiatives like this! ETS recently launched an updated Trip Planner that contains a number of new features like the ability to subscribe to email alerts for planned detours and bus stop closures, and there are additional technology-related services on the way. Should be an exciting year for connected transit riders!

Edmonton Transit (ETS) Text Messaging: Statistics & Advertising

About six months ago, Edmonton Transit launched its text messaging service which enables riders to get schedule information via a simple SMS text message to 31100. The service was really well received, even though it was described by ETS as a pilot. I use the service almost every time I need to hop on a bus, and it works great! I’m definitely not the only one using the service either, as the latest statistics show.

usage stats

You can see that the initial growth was quite impressive, with usage doubling from January to March. Nathan Walters, Strategic Marketing Supervisor at ETS, told me that the adoption curve was “slightly steeper than expected” but that it is following projected usage quite closely. Since then usage has plateaued a little, probably due in part to the school year ending. Nathan said that usage of the service is probably going to be somewhat seasonal, just like BusLink.

As of Monday afternoon, just over 1.2 million messages had been sent, which works out to about 7050 messages per day. For comparison, Winnipeg Transit was delivering about 6000 messages per day back in May. Not a bad start at all!

text ads

When the service launched back in January, ETS said it would open up the ability to advertise on the text messages some time in the spring (the last 40 characters of each message are reserved for advertising). That service officially launched on June 17.

Advertising on the ETS Text Messaging Service provides a direct way to reach thousands of commuters riding the transit system every day. As an ETS text messaging advertiser, you have the opportunity to customize your campaign by location, time, bus route and even budget. This opportunity is affordable, tailored and easy to manage.

You can register for an account here and start advertising right away. The price can be as low as a penny per ad, but it is market-driven. Basically you buy credits and then place bids. You can customize your ads by specific bus stops, routes, time, and mobile phone provider. There’s a user guide in PDF here with more information.

demographic stats
(click for a larger version)

I’d encourage you to check out the Text Messaging Ad Media Kit in PDF too, as it contains a ton of useful information about the service. Some of the demographic information is a bit old, but it is still instructive.

You can learn more about the ETS text messaging service here.

Edmonton Transit (ETS) now offers schedule information via SMS text messaging

Today Edmonton Transit (ETS) officially launched its new text messaging service. You can now send an SMS text message to 31100 from virtually any cell phone to get bus schedule information for free (standard messaging rates may apply). The service is yet another example of the GTFS feed that ETS released in 2009 paying dividends.

The way it works is simple – text the bus stop number you’re interested in to 31100 and you’ll get a response like this (using 1859 as an example):

1859 (111) 01:26P 01:56P (112) 01:06P 01:36P (2) 01:08P 01:23P ETS – THE EVERY DAY WAY

That’s the stop number, followed by each route with two upcoming times for each. If you’re interested in just a particular route, say the 2, simply text the stop number followed by the route number, and you’ll get upcoming times for just that route at that stop:

1859 (2) 01:08P 01:23P 01:38P 02:08P ETS – THE EVERY DAY WAY

ETS has produced two videos that demonstrate how it works (they were filmed just before Christmas). Here’s part 1:

And here’s part 2:

Starting next week you’ll also be able to create a profile on the website to setup favorite routes and stops specific to your daily routine.

The ability to get route & stop schedules via text messaging might be new here in Edmonton, but it’s not a new concept elsewhere. Transit riders in Vancouver have had that functionality for years, first unofficially thanks to a couple of enterprising students, and later as an official service from TransLink. The story is somewhat similar here. Local developers Sean Healy and Joel Jackson hacked together a service called TXT.2.ETS back in March of last year, something they won a prize for in the Apps4Edmonton competition. They subsequently met with ETS representatives and talked about what an official service might look like.

I talked to Nathan Walters, Strategic Marketing Supervisor for ETS, about the new service yesterday. He told me the service is run by Vancouver-based Upside Wireless (presumably their Transit SMS product). Nathan confirmed that it uses the same GTFS data that anyone can download from the City of Edmonton’s open data catalogue. “The GTFS feed made things significantly easier, and brought the service to market a lot faster,” Nathan told me. He also said it “speaks to how much we stand behind that information.”

Though it is a pilot, don’t expect the service to shut down any time soon. Instead, ETS plans to monitor usage, gather feedback, and will be conducting market research later this year, and will re-evaluate and improve the service as necessary. In fact, if all goes well, the service will pay for itself and perhaps even drive an additional return to the City via the advertising service that will launch in the spring. The last 40 characters of the messages sent back to commuters will be allocated toward advertising (the “ETS – THE EVERY DAY WAY” part in the example above). I think that’s a smart move.

It turns out the service has actually been live for about a month, in testing by Upside and City of Edmonton employees. Apparently there has been quite a bit of buzz internally at the City about it. Today was not the planned launch date, but the accidental release of parts of the outdoor marketing campaign pushed things up. Nathan confirmed that we’ll see lots of advertising for the new service, including billboards, benches, and transit shelters. He sounded pleasantly surprised that they had been able to keep the service under wraps for so long (no doubt the holidays helped in that regard).

I had to ask Nathan the question he’s undoubtedly going to be asked over and over now that the text messaging service is live: scheduled information is great, but when are we going to get live information, perhaps via GPS? His answer: “The technologies that transit uses are always evolving, and the service will evolve as well.” In other words, nothing to announce, and don’t hold your breath.

I also asked about the shortcode, 31100. Nathan said they briefly considered a repeating number (such as TransLink’s 33333) or something like “txtets” but realized that using letters would be problematic considering most modern smartphones do not have traditional numeric keypads. They settled on 31100 because it offered great potential for the future. Just like 311, other departments at the City could make use of the shortcode for their services as well. Nathan confirmed that at least one business unit outside of transportation has already expressed interest in exploring that possibility.

This new service is exciting and will have a positive impact on the daily commute for thousands of Edmontonians. But it’s more than that. ETS made a decision to open up its data to anyone for free, and they continue to see a return on that very minimal investment. Releasing the GTFS data feed has resulted in Google Maps support, apps for the iPhone, and now text messaging. Importantly, all ETS had to do for all of this to happen was focus on its core competency – providing transit service. It’s a success story that other business units at the City of Edmonton should be very eager to replicate.

Having said that, I would have preferred to see a solution from a local company or even the adoption of Sean & Joel’s project, but I realize there are other considerations. As the Apps4Edmonton competition evolves, I hope we’ll see the City adopting more of the solutions that Edmonton’s talented entrepreneurs create.

The new text messaging service is a great way to start 2011. In fact, Nathan said it “sets the tone for the year” and indicated that ETS was going to be looking at additional opportunities to work with the community on other services as 2011 unfolds. I can’t wait!

You can learn more about the service here, and you can find additional Apps for ETS here. Check out the Open Data catalogue for ETS data and more, and follow the #yegtransit hashtag on Twitter for ETS-related updates.

UPDATE: Does the new text messaging service work for the LRT? The answer is yes! If you know the stop numbers, that is. The route for the LRT is always 201, but here are the stop numbers you need.

Station Name North Stop # South Stop #
Clareview 7797 7797
Belvedere 7692 7830
Coliseum 1889 1742
Stadium 1981 1723
Churchill 1691 1876
Central 1863 1935
Bay/Enterprise Square 1985 1774
Corona 1926 1891
Grandin/Government Centre 1754 1925
University 2969 2316
Health Sciences/Jubilee 2014 2019
McKernan/Belgravia 9982 9981
South Campus 2116 2115
Southgate 2114 2113
Century Park 4982 4982

 

Hopefully they can make it more user friendly in the future.

Text messaging is not dangerous, get over it

cell phoneThe people who create violent video games must be breathing a sigh of relief at the moment – text messaging is the new enemy. Increasingly the media has been publishing fluff pieces about the apparent danger that text messaging poses. With news that the train engineer at the centre of the crash in California last week was text messaging at the time of the accident, things are only getting worse for the technology.

Maybe it’s just the natural progression of things – become popular enough and you’ll undoubtedly gain enemies. Text messaging is more popular than ever, with over 75 billion messages sent in the US in the month of June alone. That’s an awful lot of messages! In fact, Nielsen Mobile estimates that more Americans send text messages than make phone calls. I would guess the numbers are similar here in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

Of course, there are no facts that prove text messaging is dangerous:

Though there are no official casualty statistics, there is much anecdotal evidence that the number of fatal accidents stemming from texting while driving, crossing the street or engaging in other activities is on the rise.

“The act of texting automatically removes 10 I.Q. points,” said Paul Saffo, a technology trend forecaster in Silicon Valley.

I am sure Saffo is completely qualified to make such a statement as a “trend forecaster” so let me make a few statements of my own. I would venture to say that you lose I.Q. points while using the good old fashioned voice functionality of your phone. You probably lose 10 I.Q. points while rocking out to music on your iPod. You undoubtedly lose I.Q. points while stirring your Frappuccino as you cross the street too.

My point is that text messaging is no different than any other distraction. You’ve always got to remember to pay attention to the task at hand.

I love Facebook Mobile via text messages

facebookBuilding a mobile application that works really well is hard. In general, I think we put up with sub-standard mobile applications simply because they offer convenience, not because they blow us away. The iPhone is definitely changing things but for the most part, I still cringe when I need to use most mobile apps. Especially ones that claim to work over text messaging. There’s only one SMS app that I really like – Facebook.

I think Facebook has absolutely nailed the text messaging experience.

Use it for a while, and you’ll realize that the SMS functionality of Facebook is so much better than everything else. Take Twitter, for instance. One of its original claims to fame was that it worked well over SMS. Except that compared with Facebook, it absolutely sucks.

Here are a few of the reasons why Facebook over text messaging rocks:

  • You can do many different things. You can update your status by prefixing your message with the @ symbol, or write on someone’s wall by prefixing the message with “wall Name”. Similarly, you can send messages by prefixing with “msg Name”.
  • Facebook will ask for clarification. If I send a message prefixed with “wall Kim” it will ask me which Kim I mean if it can’t figure it out automatically.
  • Context! Let’s say someone sends me a Facebook message, which I have set to come to my phone. All I need to do is reply, and it will send a Facebook message back. Same goes for wall notifications. I don’t need to specify the “msg” or “wall” because Facebook understands the context.
  • Taking that to the next level, Facebook over text messaging is “multithreaded”. By that I mean, there is more than one number. If I get two messages, they’ll come from different shortcodes, so that when I reply Facebook knows which one I am replying to.

The key difference between Facebook SMS and other applications, is that idea of a session. The way that my reply to a notification is not isolated – Facebook understands some of the context around it. It makes the whole experience so much better.

Another major plus with Facebook over text messaging is that it’s both fast and reliable…unlike Twitter. I’ve never had any problems with it – it just works.

If you don’t already make use of Facebook Mobile, I encourage you to give it a shot. You can learn more about the SMS features here.

Happy Valentine's Day with a text message

heart phone Holidays are always a good time for interesting statistics. How many phone calls were made? How many packages delivered? Or perhaps more interesting to my generation, how many text messages were sent? According to AT&T, Valentine’s Day is the most popular holiday for text messaging. Evidently there’s a 33% spike in texting traffic! That’s a lot of text messages.

I wonder what people are sending? A simple “I love you” or something more complicated, like FTBOMH IWALU (which translates to “from the bottom of my heart I will always love you”). Gizmodo has a handy list of these crazy combinations if you’re so inclined. Seems like more trouble than it’s worth to be honest, especially with the T9 functionality that all phones have.

I thought New Year’s Eve was the most popular holiday for text messaging, but maybe “drewheyman” has the right explanation in his comment on the Gizmodo post:

sending ‘happy new years’ = 1 message per friend. send txts to sig other for the sex = as many messages as it takes.

What will you be texting tomorrow?!

Happy Valentine’s Day 🙂

Read: Gizmodo

Did you have problems with Telus Mobility last night?

I just got off the phone with a client service representative at Telus Mobility. The good news is that their support service is still fast and effective, as I mentioned back in May. The bad news is that the Telus network doesn’t seem incredibly stable.

Around 9 PM last night, my phone stopped working. I couldn’t make or receive any calls, nor could I send or receive text messages. Every attempt was greeted with an annoying “beep beep beep” and text messages just disappeared into the unknown. I was kind of lost without my phone, and I mentioned to Megan that I should almost buy a backup pay-as-you-go phone on another network for precisely this type of thing. She just laughed!

Calls started working again around midnight, but text messaging still was not working this morning. Hence the call to Telus. The service representative asked a bunch of questions, and by the way I was answering, I think she got the hint and asked if this had happened before. I said yes, unfortunately, and asked her to send the clearing message. She did, and also said she was going to “do a reset” which means I have to turn my phone off for twenty minutes. Stange, I know. Hopefully it works.

I wasn’t the only one with problems it seems:

I’d like to know what happened, and if it was limited to just Edmonton and area or whether it was more widespread. Too bad they suck at communicating that sort of thing. Telus needs a blog!

What to do when technology fails?

Post ImageLike most people, I rely on technology all day, every day. I consider myself a fairly heavy text messaging user (I send almost 1000 texts a month) and I always have Outlook and Opera open. Oh and instant messaging, though I find myself using that less. Usually things work great, but sometimes things go wrong.

Take today for example. Last night after the movie my text messaging appeared to stop working. I couldn’t send or receive. This is a big deal for me but since it was almost 2 AM, I figured I’d see if it sorted itself out over night. Turns out it did for the most part, but service today has been slow and sporadic. It still isn’t working correctly.

Also last night, Twitter had some unscheduled downtime. Not the end of the world, but I definitely noticed it. And for some reason, Twitter doesn’t recognize symbols (like @ or $) from my phone properly. No one has responded to my tech support request.

Then there was Facebook. Around 8:30 this morning I tried to get into Facebook – no dice. I don’t ever recall having issues with Facebook, but for whatever reason it was down earlier today. I am guessing it was a small glitch of some sort, and it probably didn’t affect everyone.

What’s common between the three? They are consumer facing applications. They are free (well text messaging isn’t, but it’s dirt cheap at $10/mo for unlimited). Generally speaking, consumer facing + free means that support is either not very good or non-existent. Furthermore, there’s not really any agreement on the part of the service to ensure that it performs well and is reliable.

I suppose that’s fine for unimportant communication, but what happens when we use them for something more critical? It used to be that there was a clear distinction between corporate and consumer – lately I think the line is fading. I use text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook for both purposes.

I don’t know how, but eventually this problem is going to need to be addressed.

UPDATE: Apparently the Facebook issue this morning was related to power.

Telus Mobility Impresses

Post ImageAs you may know, my mobile phone provider is Telus Mobility. I have used them for years and for the most part, I’ve been content. Not excited, not angry, just content. I did write about some text message troubles I had back in January though, and noted:

…there was absolutely no wait time to talk to someone (minus the stupid speech recognition menu which took a couple minutes). This is a BIG improvement for Telus…normally you have to wait forever!

On Friday, I had another somewhat similar experience. My text messaging was not working as expected, so I called support. Right away I talked to a friendly lady who told me they were experiencing troubles in Alberta and B.C. with text message delivery. She connected me to network services anyway, to see if my problem was something more.

After about 15 minutes of waiting to talk to someone, I gave up. I hoped the problem was simply what the first lady had told me – temporary delays. Turns out she was right – my messages started working again late on Friday, and I started receiving a bunch of messages yesterday and today that were not delivered over the weekend.

As I walked in the door tonight around 7 PM though, it got even better! My cell rang and when I answered I was greeted by a recorded message from Telus Mobility. Turns out they were very sorry for the delay I had experienced Friday, and to apologize, they credited $5 to my account.

That’s the kind of thing that will make me a happy customer instead of a content customer. They went the extra mile. Well done Telus Mobility!

Txt Msg Troubles on Telus

Post ImageI guess you could say I’m a bit of a text messaging addict. It’s a very useful technology, and I try to make the most of it. So when something went wrong on Saturday that prevented me from receiving messages, I almost went crazy! In the morning, Dickson had sent me a message. Throughout the day I continued to get the same message, over and over, until I stopped receiving messages altogether around 6 PM.

I called Telus today to get it fixed, and after a quick phone call, everything was back to normal (I then received 23 text messages and 3 voice mails all at once). The lady that helped me was very friendly, and certainly seemed to know what she was doing. I asked her what went wrong, and this is what she said:

Sometimes if you are sent two messages at the same time, it causes problems with the queue. I was able to send two test messages to your phone that cleared up the jam.

Now I can only assume that she was trying to answer my question in layman’s terms, but still, doesn’t that sound like an odd reason? I mean what is the point of having a queue in the first place? The queue is there so that messages can be sent reliably, even if they are sent at the same time!

I’m really kind of curious about how the system works now. I also wonder if Telus is using an in-house system or a solution provided by a third party. Either way, it seems some improvements could be made!

Also: I should note that there was absolutely no wait time to talk to someone (minus the stupid speech recognition menu which took a couple minutes). This is a BIG improvement for Telus…normally you have to wait forever!