Guide-A-Ride is the

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

stop information display for MTA Regional Bus Operations of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It is a rectangular box attached to the bus stop pole that displays a route map and a

schedule A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are ...

. Originally designed for

MTA New York City Transit The New York City Transit Authority (also known as NYCTA, the TA, or simply Transit, and branded as MTA New York City Transit) is a public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York that operates public transportation in New York City. P ...

operations, it is also used for routes of the MTA Bus Company that were formerly privately operated. The Guide-A-Ride canister is vandal-resistant and was designed for easy updating of the information displayed; though as a partly analog tool still requiring visits to the site – requiring some planning during the massive system-wide service reductions the MTA was forced to implement at the end of December 2009.

History

The

New York City Transit Authority The New York City Transit Authority (also known as NYCTA, the TA, or simply Transit, and branded as MTA New York City Transit) is a New York state public-benefit corporations, public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York (state), New ...

(NYCTA, NYCT, or TA) first announced a plan for "metal diagrammatic maps of bus routes on bus-stop stanchions" in 1964. These consisted of large metal signs (14 x 8 inches) with pictographic depictions of bus routes. Sometimes installed in the place of conventional bus stops, these signs were often considered confusing, as they attempted to consolidate multiple route maps onto a single sign and sometimes omitted routes. The prototype for Guide-A-Ride was developed in 1977, the key novelty in the display of times to the minute the bus was due at the individual stop. The first sign was installed along the Q44A (now ) route in Queens. Although skeptics doubted the ability of buses on

’s densely packed streets to show up anything like the times posted, on-time performance proved to be reliable. Regardless, customers were able to confirm whether they were at the right place at the right time. The actual displays began appearing at bus stops a few years later. The TA did not have a good reputation at the time, but Guide-A-Ride came to be viewed as one positive thing.

Current status

Even despite being superseded by

BusTime MTA Bus Time, stylized as BusTime, is a Service Interface for Real Time Information, automatic vehicle location (AVL), and passenger information system provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City for customers ...

, Guide-A-Ride is still found at the vast majority of MTA Bus and New York City Bus stops, providing bus schedules and maps. Similar transit aids can be seen in at bus stops in other cities including

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Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, and

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References

{{MTA RBO Transportation in New York City Bus transportation in New York City MTA Regional Bus Operations