In advance of arctic cold, MBTA pre-announces delays

The new system is much more informative and helpful than anything we day-to-day users had available to us several years back.

All you do is bitch about the T. There's a difference between 'making valid points' and just bitching about the T in general. A valid point is the discussion yesterday about the bus route, complaining about verbiage in an alert is not (even when the original text was readable and understandable)

You do this ALL THE TIME. You and MarkKK are almost identical, I can always know when I see a post about the T how long it'll take you or Mark to comment about it. And usually I can GUESS what the reply will be (and am usually right)

I know I'm not the only who feels this way, we've all done it to you. Maybe you should wake up and smell the Sanka and realize that all you're doing is nit picking at every little thing, and maybe you should take a step back. We get it, you hate the T.

I'm sorry that you think the T sucks. But you know, I think the improvements are great. In the 15 years I've been riding the T, it has come a long way in terms of service and usability. Yes they still have a way to go, but they TRY. And that's key. They TRY. And sometimes it comes out great, like the Time Apps, and others, it blows (like TVs at Park Street). But you don't know unless you TRY. And that's exactly what they are doing.

And while I'm at it, you're complaining about a improvement that cost 500k in a software upgrade. That's pocket change in terms of software costs. My last company updated its time keeping software for all 9000 users, licenses, training, and lots of other stuff. How much do you think that costs? I'll give you a hint, its in the double digit millions. 500k is nothing by comparison.. I just spent that in Microsoft Office upgrades ALONE last year.

Enough.

One other thing I want to add, and I'll drop the whole thing (I have far to much to do tonight to bother anymore)

You are aware that the system that the T uses is a company called GovDelivery? This is important to know which throws out half your argument.

Keep that in mind while I tell you a story.

Initially the T-Alert System as rolled out as an internal system that the MBTA bought and managed. For an initial system, like any new software system, it was very buggy. But the MBTA fixed it and used it for a few years.

MassDOT decided that they wanted something similar for road alerts. In comes GovDelivery. MassDOT uses GD, not only for alerts, but just about every single piece of customer facing communications (i.e. email).

Well rather than have two separate systems that do not talk to each other. Plus a internally managed system by the T that I'm sure the T had no interest in managing (as do most IT folks like myself these days like to outsource this stuff.. less headache). Soooo MassDOT folded the T-Alert system into GovDelivery and scrapped the inital system. All the T has to do now is probably go into some GovDelivery portal to update T-Alerts (hence a predetermined alert) and *poof* the messages go out. (and also get updated to MassDOT users also)

This is why you had to re-register for T-Alerts a few years ago. You also got many more features when they did this. It also allowed you to consolidate all your notification accounts into one using GovDelivery. Essentially one source for all things transit related in the state.

And regardless of what you think, it is FAR better than the old system in terms of timely notifications, up to date information, and management of your account. Far better.

So you want to nit pic, go nit pick MassDOT.