The wait will continue for a CyRide tracking system that would display arrival times of buses at four major stops throughout campus.

CyRide’s Transit Board of Trustees requested a waiver of the city of Ames’ purchasing policies for CyRide to contract with NEXTbus, a company that offers real-time arrival information for bus systems, under the impression that the company was the only one of its kind to offer services that the board was in search of.

The waiver was requested by the Transit Board based on information received from the University of Iowa, as they recently installed a similar system, but was denied at the Ames City Council at its Tuesday meeting.

“Through that [information] we became very interested in the NEXTbus product itself … and with the information that we received from the University of Iowa regarding their sole-source analysis that they had done at the time of their purchase, we felt comfortable coming to the council at that point and saying that we felt that this was the best product to put in our community,” said Sheri Kyras, Director of Transit for Cyride, at the City Council meeting.

The Transit Board learned Monday that the information that they had received from the University of Iowa was no longer accurate. The board was informed that another company, Synchromatics, also offers the telephone and text messaging features that the information from the University of Iowa indicated were exclusively offered by NEXTbus.

Given this additional information, the council voted to direct CyRide to solicit proposals for a bus-tracking system, allowing equal opportunity to all companies that offer such products. 

The proposal for the tracking system, which was approved by the GSB Senate on Feb. 2, detailed costs between $275,000 and $300,000 to install the system and approximately $80,000 to operate the system for the first three years, according to the council action form for the project. As it is a project using money from the GSB trust fund, members of the City Council and the Transit Board felt that allowing companies to solicit CyRide was the best alternative, since it would yield the best deal.

“The trade-off became time versus knowledge of the investment that would be made using student dollars and I’m not opposed to waiting an extra couple months if we know that … we could knock off maybe $10,000 to $20,000 or improve the levels of service that will be used for years to come,” said Luke Roling, GSB president.

Josh Bigelow, CEO of Synchromatics [corrected from NEXTbus], attended the council meeting to speak on behalf of his company’s product and confirm that the information from the University of Iowa was incorrect. Bigelow also highlighted some additional features of his company’s product, which NEXTbus doesn’t offer, like bus load meters, which indicate the capacity of buses and detailed analytics that allow the transit authority to solve problems with the buses rather than just look at them.

“We can offer a better product at a similar or less price,” Bigelow said. “It’s a win-win for the city and the university, so that’s why I came out here.”

“We won’t have the system in the fall when classes start, but I don’t really see a reason that we need it by that date,” said Matt England, ex-officio council member and senior in aerospace engineering. “It’s a nice system, but I don’t see it as a need, I see it as a luxury.”

Having to implement a request for proposal, Kyras estimated a nine-month delay on the project, which was hoped to be installed by the time classes began in the fall. Despite the delay, supporters of the project feel that regardless of when it’s implemented, the technology will greatly benefit ISU students.

“You won’t have to wait out in the cold, you’ll be able to, for example, read a scrolling marquee that says ‘Red route bus in two minutes next to Friley Hall,’ and you can sit and wait inside the UDCC for that bus to come,” Roling said.

“[It will be] very important for freshmen looking to get their bearings around the system. You can look online and see a detailed route map, where everything’s going, where the buses travel and I think it will greatly benefit both experienced students and inexperienced students getting around Iowa State and the City of Ames.”