Live Bus Arrival Times - Port Orleans Riverside South

[stuart]

Just seen this over on PortOrleans.org and thought i'd share it here. Had been holding off on my 500 post (taken long enough considering my time on these boards) for something semi-worthwhile.

Hopefully this will be the start of a roll out across property. At the moment, it is only the main, South Depot of Riverside that has the screen.

Source: www.portorleans.org

There has been a TV screen sitting quietly and unobtrusively at the Port Orleans Riverside South Depot for some time now, and it has recently been turned on. Now guests waiting at the bus stop can get a real-time estimation of when the next Disney Bus for their destination should arrive:

The information should get updated immediately as busses are changed or delayed, and if new ones are added to a route, and it is all based on the central despatch system linked to the GPS tracking devices fitted to all of the buses in Disney's fleet.

At present this is only at the Riverside South Depot with no immediate plans for the outer stops or French Quarter, but it's still a very nice start!

 

[Cosmic Commando]

If the times prove to be relatively accurate, this is huge for me. If you're stuck waiting 20 minutes for a bus, it is at least easier if you know going in that it's going to be 20 minutes. 100% honesty: I'm more excited about this idea than the entire rest of NextGen/FP+/MM+ combined.

 

[Clancy Wiggum]

I agree that putting that information out there for people to see while waiting is a great idea.

 

[Figaro928]

Genious!!!! knowing you have 20 mins would be huge

 

[gccgrad1996]

I agree with Cosmic Commando, as long as the times are pretty accurate, I love it. My kids are constantly asking when is a bus coming. And the Riverside is pretty much our "home" since we have 3 kids and you can fit 5 with the Trundle bed. I refuse to pay Deluxe and AoA resort prices, that's just me. And FYI the trundle is great for kids, my daughters shared it this past summer and slept great on it. One is 12 and 5'5" and the other is 9 and 4'10.

 

[awhit066]

So... who's going to go sit out there and keep track of how accurate the times are to report some stats back to us?

 

[wdwmagic]

This was tested back in Oct 2012 at Grand Floridian. Good to see it finally roll out to another stop.

PHOTOS - Grand Floridian bus stop now equipped with transportation schedule screen

 

[SosoDude]

Any guess if this will be coming to other resorts? I know it would be speculation. ...

 

[dreamscometrue]

We thought this was really neat when we were there 2 weeks ago, but it was very inaccurate...not sure why. (To be fair, we were only at POR 1 day). The first time we went to the bus stop, our bus was posted to come at 2:17pm, it arrived at 2:30pm. Two busses that were shown to be arriving at 2:25pm and 2:30pm both arrived at least 5 min in advance of the posted times. Once other bus was right on it's posted time. This will be cool if it'll be accurate. If not, it'll be more annoying than anything.

 

[The Mighty Tim]

As long as it's accurate, it's very useful. Hopefully it can be rolled out to all resorts and the parks too.

 

[scoobygirl39541]

Yes please! We wanted to go to downtown disney on our last day, but didn't know whether to take the river taxi or bus. We decided on bus since we were pressed for time, but it never came after 15-20 minutes! If we had ANY indication (even if its not totally accurate), we would have went for the boat! We ended up running out of time and just staying at the resort So yes, really hope they roll this out. Even if its off by 10 minutes, way better than nothing!

 

[MouseDreaming]

This is huge! Hopefully, the times will be accurate, or at least close enough, to be helpful. With GPS, there is really no reason why they can't have this at all the bus stops--especially when you are leaving the parks.

 

[Tom]

I agree...this is HUGE! Keep going Disney! Roll this out at every depot on property!

We all hate waiting for the bus, but knowing approximately how long yo're going to be waiting makes it a lot more bearable. 20 minutes seems like 3 hours when you're sitting there with no frame of reference. But if I see 20 minutes on a screen, and see it counting down, I would be quite appeased.

 

[LucyK]

This is pretty neat!

I hope they implement this to French Quarter soon.

 

[FigmentsFangirl]

My last trip to WDW we stayed at PO Riverside, I NEVER noticed this screen at all and I only used the South Depot to get on the buses each day of our stay. How the crud did I miss it ?? Or was this installed very recently ? because I was there from 18-27 this past August

 

[Allygator]

Is this the last stop at Riverside?

 

[WDWBryan]

lol how cruel. the clock is analog but the next arrival times are digital. guess they want you to work harder to figure out the current time

 

[ToTBellHop]

lol how cruel. the clock is analog but the next arrival times are digital. guess they want you to work harder to figure out the current time

It's an IQ test to determine if you are qualified for Fastpass+.

 

[JimboJones123]

If the times prove to be relatively accurate, this is huge for me. If you're stuck waiting 20 minutes for a bus, it is at least easier if you know going in that it's going to be 20 minutes. 100% honesty: I'm more excited about this idea than the entire rest of NextGen/FP+/MM+ combined.

THIS!!!!!!!

Mystery bus times is why I ALWAYS rented a car.

This is really cool. I agree, the greatest WDW addition since Star Tours 2. And I am not exagerating.

 

[JimboJones123]

As long as it's accurate, it's very useful. Hopefully it can be rolled out to all resorts and the parks too.

There really is no reason why it should not be reasonably accurate.