UNM, City of Albuquerque Cooperate on “Where’s My Bus” Mobile App

Albu­querque Mayor R.J. Berry and UNM Pres­i­dent Robert Frank dur­ing announce­ment of Where’s My Bus?

The Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico and the City of Albu­querque are work­ing together to share ways to col­lab­o­rate on tech­nol­ogy and data sharing. Albuquerque Mayor R.J. Berry and UNM Pres­i­dent Robert Frank announced the effort in a joint news con­fer­ence at the UNM Stu­dent Union Build­ing recently.

An appli­ca­tion writ­ten by the UNM IT Appli­ca­tions Web team should be of spe­cial inter­est to stu­dents, staff and fac­ulty who uti­lize ABQ Ride.

The appli­ca­tion, called “Where’s My Bus?,” is avail­able free via UNM’s Lobo­Mo­bile appli­ca­tion Lobo­Mo­bile.

Any­one can access the appli­ca­tion on desk­top web by nav­i­gat­ing to WMB. WMB is the abbre­vi­a­tion for “Where’s My Bus?  The appli­ca­tions show City buses on a Google map as they travel their routes at near-real time.

UNM’s Park­ing and Trans­porta­tion Ser­vices will pilot pro­vide near-real infor­ma­tion for select UNM shut­tle routes through “Where’s My Bus?” begin­ning in August and con­tin­u­ing through December. The pilot will involve 10 shut­tle buses equipped with GPS tech­nol­ogy cour­tesy of ABQRide.

“We are excited to part­ner with ABQRide and pilot this ser­vice for our stu­dents, staff and fac­ulty who use our cam­pus shut­tles,” said Karla Hubbell, PATS direc­tor.  “This pilot will allow us to eval­u­ate how this tech­nol­ogy can help cus­tomers max­i­mize their time on campus.”

PATS will pro­vide updated infor­ma­tion on the shut­tle routes that will par­tic­i­pate in the pilot prior to mak­ing the ser­vice avail­able in August.

Berry also used the occa­sion to announce a com­pe­ti­tion, which includes a $30,000 prize, to use pub­lic data to build appli­ca­tions to serve the Albu­querque com­mu­nity and save tax­payer money by using tech­nol­ogy to pro­vide a service.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit: Open Data. For addi­tional com­pe­ti­tion details, visit: Apps Com­pe­ti­tion.

Frank urged the good minds within the cam­pus com­mu­nity to par­tic­i­pate in devel­op­ing mobile apps using open data for stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff. The new ‘Where’s My Bus?’ appli­ca­tion is an exam­ple that helps UNM more effi­ciently use pub­lic trans­porta­tion and is avail­able on the web and mobile devices.

UNM’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with the City of Albu­querque was orig­i­nally announced in Feb­ru­ary of 2012. The inten­tion is to share expen­sive tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture and pub­lic infor­ma­tion to con­nect com­mu­nity, share infor­ma­tion, and enhance the effec­tive­ness of peo­ple and busi­nesses in the wider, pub­lic community.

Media con­tact: Danielle Gilliam, (505) 277‑0461; email: dgilliam@unm.edu